(1946)

Starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien, Charles McGraw, William Conrad; dir: Robert Siodmak

What an opening!  A point-of-view shot from inside a speeding car as its headlights pierce a dark country road pumps the adrenalin. Then in the stillness of the dark town streets, the impossibly long back-lit shadows reveal the ominous stride of two unidentifiable figures into frame, as the Dragnet theme music’s first appearance holds us in thrall. Textbook stuff!  About as concentrated a compendium of noir as you can get.

From here the film sticks quite faithfully to the Hemingway story on which it’s based, but that enigmatic tale is used up in about ten minutes of film stock. As Halliwell quotes Richard Winnington: "About one tenth is Hemingway’s, the rest is Universal - International’s."  Director Siodmak uses a Citizen Kane approach to answer the questions left dangling in the prose original. We learn what led up to the Hemingway scenario through the eyes of Edmond O’Brien, in another thankless role, this time as an insurance investigator.

In his debut, Burt’s physicality and in her first major role, Ava’s magnetism both set the screen alight. Although enough dark humor seeps through, The Killers is a tough and grimly purposeful film, and in this way remarkably Teutonic. Though born in Tennessee, Siodmak learned his craft in the fertile golden age of the UFA Germany of the 20s and 30s, a la future Hollywood denizens Lang, Wilder, Edgar (Edward G.) Ullmer, Fred Zinnemann, etc. It shows. Siodmak was at home with the dark thriller, a genre he first experienced in Germany. Nine noirish Hollywood titles, including The Phantom Lady (1944), The Dark Mirror (1946), Cry of the City (1948), Criss Cross (1948 - also with Burt), The File on Thelma Jordan (1949), et al made him a major contributor to noir. Lancaster would also find a happy hunting ground here with films like the aforementioned Criss Cross, Sorry Wrong Number (1948) and his apotheosis – The Sweet Smell of Success (1957), so memorably filmed by legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe.

The Killers was remade in 1964 (originally for TV, which found it too violent and flick-passed it back to cinemas) by Don Siegel in another great film which bears almost no resemblance to this original, but does find later echoes in Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. Both versions are worth waiting for.

- Roger Westcombe