Classic Movie Review: 'The Killers' (1946)

The Killers (1946)

Directed by Robert Siodmak

Written by Anthony Veiller

Starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Decker

Release Date August 30th 1946

Published July 10th, 2023

The Killers is both an apt and somewhat abstract title for this movie. On the one hand, the film is about two men who go to a small town to kill an ex-boxer over a debt he may or may not owe. On the other hand, the killers of the title are not central to the plot of The Killers. They put the plot in motion by murdering a seemingly random guy, but then they are mostly absent in the story until they are reintroduced late in the 3rd act. The title centers you on The Killers but the movie is more interested in the victim and how he came to be the victim.

The movie is based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, a short story that unfolds over the first 10 minutes of The Killers. Two men, Max (William Conrad) and Al (Charles McGraw), enter a small town diner and have a tense back and forth with the diner owner. Over the course of their terse exchange, the two men reveal why they are here. They've come to the diner on this night to kill a man known by most as 'The Swede,' also known as Ole Anderson. The Swede eats at this diner every night at this time and they intend to kill him when he arrives.

When The Swede (Burt Lancaster) doesn't show up, the killers leave to search for him. Nick, a patron of the diner and a co-worker of The Swede rushes to warn his friend that the killers are coming. In a moment of breathtaking despair, The Swede tells Nick that there is nothing that can be done to stop this and that Nick needs to leave and never look back. Soon after, the killers arrive at The Swede's door and he accepts their arrival with a heartbreaking resolve.

Hemingway's story ended with Nick returning to tell the diner owner what happened and when the diner owner simply nods in a cynical acceptance of what has happened, the young, idealistic Nick leaves town in disgust. The conflict is between Nick and the diner owner and their dueling perspectives. The diner owner represents an old school mindset that would prefer to ignore the encroachment of the outside world into the insular world of a small town. Nick represents the future, an idealistic notion of right and wrong, justice versus injustice.

Those themes aren't entirely abandoned in the film version of The Killers. However, the themes aren't exactly what interests director Robert Siodmak. In many ways, his take on The Killers is one of a thought experiment that works backwards from Hemingway's story to figure out how The Swede ended up where he did, accepting his fate as victim of a brutal murder. What could have led to a man so willingly accepting certain death?

Siodmak and screenwriter Anthony Veiller attempt to answer that question via a Citizen Kane style investigation of the life of The Swede. We're told that The Swede had a life insurance policy and the man charged with investigating the claim, Jim Reardon (Edmund O'Brien), takes on a slightly more active version of the role played by William Alland in Citizen Kane. Through interviews conducted by Reardon we go back in time to see how The Swede went from a successful, championship boxer to a low rent criminal, to dead in a flophouse in a small town.

Naturally, the story involves a woman, a true femme fatale named Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner). Falling in love with Kitty causes The Swede to throw everything away for the chance to be with her. He goes to jail for her, and eventually, his life will end in despair over her. The Killers travels the route of watching a man so consumed by his obsession with a woman that he's willing to die to escape the pain of her betrayal. Burt Lancaster is so good as The Swede that you kind of understand why death is the only way to get over losing a woman like Kitty Collins.

For her part, Kitty is in love with another man. The Swede was always a means to an end. She is coldhearted in manipulating the affections of The Swede but Gardner gives Kitty a full blooded life behind her decisions. She sees the world for what it is and seeks the comfort of having money over the desire to be loved. The man she chooses over The Swede offers her the financial security that a man like The Swede could never provide and given the time, 1946, when women had little agency other than who they married, her motivation makes sense in a very cold hard facts sort of way.

The Killers thus uncovers something about a society that breeds despair and desperation. The America dream in The Killers is a myth, one dashed by a bullet and the calculated actions of those willing to break the rules for their own benefit, even if that rule is Thou Shalt Not Kill. Hemingway's notion of the modern world encroaching on the small town world may be mostly abandoned but, in it's place is an equally cynical and hard bitten vision of modern American society, circa 1946, that is just as impactful and unfortunately insightful.

The Killers (1946) is now back in circulation and looking better than ever thanks to a restoration by The Film Foundation. This month, The Film Foundation is showing The Killers (1946) on a double bill with a restoration of The Killers (1964), a remake of the 1946 film with Lee Marvin in the lead role. You're chance to see this double feature, streaming for free, ends on Monday, July 10th, 2023. After that, it's unknown when the restored versions of The Killers will be released but when they are, they are a must own for any fan of noir crime dramas, fans ofAva Gardner, and arguably the best performance in the career of Burt Lancaster.

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