The Killers

Plot synopsis:
The Killers is an adaptation of a short story by Ernest Hemingway. The story is divided into three scenes. The first and third scenes were directed by Beiku and Tarkovsky, the second by Gordon.
The first scene shows Nick Adams (Yuli Fait) observing two gangsters (Valentin Vinogradov and Boris Novikov) in black coats and black hats entering a small-town diner where Adams is eating. They tell the owner, George (Aleksandr Gordon), that they are searching for the boxer Ole Andreson and that they want to kill him. They tie up Nick Adams and the cook, and wait for Ole Andreson to appear. Three customers enter the restaurant and are sent away by George. One of the customers is played by Tarkovsky, who whistles Lullaby of Birdland.
The second scene shows Nick Adams visiting Ole Andreson (Vasiliy Shukshin) in his hide-out, a small room. He warns Andreson about the two gangsters, but Andreson is resigned to his fate and unwilling to flee.
The third scene shows Adams returning to the diner and informing the owner of Andreson's decision.

Tags: realism, murder, bleak, violence, atmospheric, flashback

Review:
Along with Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity," this is the one that established what film noir was all about.Robert Siodmak's classic thriller, along with "Criss Cross" are two of his best pieces of work, proof positive that crime dramas could rise above the mundane and the clichéd.Based on one of Hemingway's Nick Adams short stories, it tells the intriguing tale of two hit men who show up in a small town (the film moves it from the Midwest to New Jersey), where they take over a diner and tell its terrified occupants they intend to murder a nobody of a gas station attendant when he comes in for dinner.
That's where the short story ends, but the script by Anthony Veiller picks it up from there, pursuing the fascinating story of what makes a man give up on life to the point where he passively waits for a pair of gunmen to show up and blow him to smithereens.The protagonist,called the Swede, is a guy who isn't a criminal by nature, just a guy who fell upon hard times, but sees a way out by committing one more crime.
And we cannot forget Charles McGraw and William Conrad as two of the most frightening cold blooded killers in film history.Siodmak does a great job in the director's chair in this Mark Hellinger (The Roaring Twenties) produced drama, but it is cinematographer Woody Bredell who steals the show.
This is a beautifully made improvisation on a Hemingway story that screenwriters Tony Veiller, John Huston and Richard Brooks, along with director Robert Siodmak, have somehow turned into baroque film noir.
It works so well because it's excellently written, photographed (by Woody Bredell), and acted (by Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien and Albert Dekker, among many others), and consists of flashbacks, and in some cases flashbacks within flashbacks, as its labyrinthine plot, full of double crosses and unexpected turns, drives the film with a relentless urgency that in the end has less to do with psychology than the workings of fate.
Using Ernest Hemingway's short story as the foundation for the film, Siodmak and cinematographer Elwood Bredell create a dark, brooding and brilliant looking character study of Ole "The Swede" Andersen (Burt Lancaster), a quiet unassuming man who is hunted and shot by two killers who enter the small town he inhabits.
This movie is told through really smart flashbacks.'The Killers' begins with two hit men arriving in a small town with only one objective: kill 'Swede' Anderson (Burt Lancaster).
Humor combined with drama like the dialogue in the opening scene makes you think about it later on and it doesn't just leave your mind three minutes later.The gritty film noir style and filming is quite clear in this movie.
You can scan thru many publications and they will tell you that Robert Siodmark's adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's story The Killers is quintessential noir, and whilst I haven't seen enough of the perceived classics to make a sound judgement, I do understand why this one ranks so high.Perfectly directed by Siodmark because it is washed with a moody ambiance that befits the script, the main players in the piece are bang on form to realise the mood and sombre tempo that makes the film a winner.
We then follow Edmond O'Brien's insurance investigator Jim Reardon as (thru a series of flashbacks) he reconstructs Swede's life and what caused his demise.The story encompasses one of film noir's most well known femme fatales in Ava Gardner's foxy Kitty Collins, and it's certainly the film's driving force as we observe her part in Swede's life, for better or worse as it were, but ultimately it's the classy framing of the film that marks it out as essential viewing.
As though consciously in support of this assertion, Robert Siodmak's 'The Killers (1946)' – expanded from a 1927 short story by Ernest Hermingway – plays out precisely like a noirish retelling of Welles' film.
After enigmatic ex-boxer Swede Andersen (Burt Lancaster) is gunned down by hired assassins in a small American town, insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O'Brien) decides to piece together the man's past using fragmented testimony from those who once knew him.
An archetypal noir, 'The Killers' caps an excellent year for Siodmak, who also released the Freudian psycho-thriller 'The Dark Mirror (1946).''The Killers' opens with a thrilling prologue that sees two hired thugs (William Conrad and B-noir stalwart Charles McGraw) harass the patrons at a small-town diner on their way to assassinate Swede Andersen.
Veiller, whose work before WWII was dominated by romantic dramas, comedies and light mysteries like 'The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936),' appears to have been hardened by his work on Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" propaganda series, and the dark, cynical post-War tone he brings to Swede's tragic story is an ideal representation of the noir spirit.Burt Lancaster shows promise in his screen debut, though the film's narrative structure does keep the audience distant from his character, an issue that Welles somehow avoided in 'Citizen Kane.' As the resident femme fatale, Ava Gardner never quite inspires the collective hatred garnered by Barbara Stanwyck in 'Double Indemnity (1944)' or Jane Greer in 'Out of the Past (1947),' but perhaps that speaks to her charms – that, despite her betrayal, we're still unwilling to treat her with due contempt.
Good-guy Edmond O'Brien cheerfully and voyeuristically experiences the wretched life of a gangster through the intermediary flashback device – he ends the film with a cocky grin, like an audience-member emerging from a screening of the latest gangster thriller.
The famous 20-minute opening that has two contract killers, Max (William Conrad) and Al (Charles McGraw), arrive at a small-town diner looking for a man named the 'Swede' (Lancaster), is now one of the most widely celebrated scenes in noir, going against type by having it's (anti)hero killed before the film has really begun.
As Ole 'Swede' Anderson lies dead, life insurance investigator Jim Riordan (Edmond O'Brien) takes a special interest in the case, interviewing friends and ex-colleagues that leads back to sultry femme fatale Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner) and a $250,000 heist.While it ticks all the traditional film noir boxes, the main aspect that makes The Killers stick out amongst many other noirs of the period is the cinematography, which is straight out of the school of German Expressionism (German-born director Robert Siodmak would have grown up with the likes of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Metropolis (1927)).
The film starts with two killers taking over a diner, waiting for a local known as "Swede" (played by Burt Lancaster in a breakthrough role) that they've come to kill.
Around the gem of a short story, the film makers added a backstory explaining the Swede's actions (or lack thereof) including crime, a femme fatale (played by the gorgeous Ava Gardner), a robbery, and a conflict about stolen money.
Unfortunately, the film spends most of its time following the actions of an insurance investigator played by Edmond O'Brien, who just cannot command the screen as well as Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner can.
Most of the story is told in flashback as an insurance salesman (Edmund O'Brien), who is the real star of the film turns detective in trying to find out why "Swede Anderson" (Lancaster) had been murdered.
But "The Killers" deserves its reputation as one of the best examples of the genre.The film is based on one of the only pieces of writing Ernest Hemingway wrote that I actually liked, a short story in which a man in a diner overhears two hit men talking about a murder.
What is remarkable about The Killers is how it takes a very good and remarkably powerful short story and expands further on it, one of the few Hemingway adaptations to be just as good as its source material and at times be even better than it.This said it is a fabulous film too on its own terms, and is quintessential film noir, audacious, taut, exciting and suspenseful when it could have been overblown, overwrought or dull if done wrongly.
This viewer for one was riveted throughout and never found herself confused.Strong acting also helps, with Burt Lancaster thoroughly convincing in his first starring role, his best moments in fact are stunning, and Ava Gardner in the femme fatale role is wonderfully beautiful, classy and mysterious.
The Swede was a washed up boxer who got mixed up with some bad people and Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner).Killing off Burt Lancaster right at the start takes away some of the tension.
Inspired by Ernest Hemingway short story "The Killers" turned out to be quintessential film noir and marvel for any lover of the genre - everything happens in half shadows, there is exciting crime story, bad guys (well, almost everybody here is a bad guy), detectives and policemen, sexy femme fatal and enough twists and turns to keep you glued to the screen until the end.Very young Burt Lancaster is the main protagonist here - typical film noir character, a good guy who somehow gets involved in bad company - and he dies at the very beginning of the movie.
There is a lot of strong supporting characters, notably Vince Barnett (ex prison cell mate) and stunning Ava Gardner as gangster moll who double crosses everybody and watches Lancaster like a black spider..
A complicated plot was a common feature of films noirs, and "The Killers" exhibits some other characteristics frequently associated with the genre, such as the stark black-and-white cinematography of director Robert Siodmak, or the glamorous femme fatale, here played by Ava Gardner.
We see the dead man, Pete 'The Swede' Lund played by Burt Lancaster killed in his bed in a small town, Brentwood, New Jersey.
This is a key scene in the movie and sets the film up with beautiful deep-focus cinematography and killer dialogue.As Reardon discovers more about Lund's life, for essentially this is a biopic of The Swede, we learn what he does through flashback scenes.
The rest of the film follows insurance investigator Edmond O'Brien (Jim Reardon) as he unravels the life that 'The Swede' led in an attempt to find out why he was killed.
Maybe that's how things worked in the gay community back in those days but Burt needed to come away from that scene and he doesn't pull it off in those first scenes with Ava.Overall, the film is very good with an excellent cast and many memorable scenes thanks to the cast, lighting and direction, eg, the whole opening section that lasts for a quarter of an hour.
Two hit men arrive at a small town diner.They are looking for Ola Anderson, also known as "the Swede".They don't find him there but they do find him from a boarding house.Anderson's life was insured so Investigator Jim Reardon is assigned to look into the murder for his company.We learn in flashbacks why Ola met the fate he met.We learn about his boxing past, we learn about a robbery that took place a few years earlier.And we learn about Kitty Collins.Robert Siodmak's The Killers (1946) is based on Ernest Hemingway's story.It's a real good crime drama mixed with film-noir and romance.Burt Lancaster is a perfect man to play to play "Swede" Anderson.Ava Gardner, the classic beauty shines as Kitty Collins.Edmond O'Brien plays Jim Reardon with style.Sam Levene is great in the role of Lt. Sam Lubinsky, the childhood friend of Ola.Big man William Conrad plays Max, the other half of the killers.This is Conrad's, who I got to know as a kid from the show Jake and the Fatman, first credited role.This movie has got some style.It's got some classy dialogue and everything is just there.I recommend it..
Although Hemingway's story on which the film claims to be based apparently ends at the point when Swede (Burt Lancaster) is informed of their arrival, co-writers Anthony Veiller, Richard Brooks and John Huston maintain the sparse, bleak style of this opening sequence to fashion an intriguing Noir classic that is fully deserving of its status.The cast alone is reason enough to watch the film; in addition to Lancaster, Conrad and McGraw we have Edmond O'Brien (in the days before he started getting hefty) as a dogged insurance investigator determined to find out why Swede was murdered, and why he accepted his fate so passively, Albert Dekker as the sleazy crime boss who masterminds a fateful robbery that ultimately changes the lives of all involved for the worse, Ava Gardener as one of film history's most insidious femme fatales, and Sam Levene as a police detective friend of Swede's who helps O'Brien's investigator crack the case.A finely honed Lancaster commands the screen, although he enjoys less screen time than the not-so-toned O'Brien.
What they did was take the framework of the short story and expand on it with a look at the background of "Swede Andersen" and why he was killed.The film's opening scenes are the most memorable and are essential film noir for those interested in that genre.
The femme fatale requirement is filled by AVA GARDNER as Kitty, a role any glamor girl from the '40s could have played (Veronica Lake, Rita Hayworth, Hedy Lamarr), but Gardner has a striking film presence and, like Lancaster, is cast in a role that could have been tailor-made for her kind of sensuality.Hemingway has been treated with overblown stories on screen (FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, A FAREWELL TO ARMS), but his short story has been turned into a tight, taut and very suspenseful film that should please anyone interested in the film noir of the '40s.Trivia note: Hemingway himself said that of all the films Hollywood made from his stories, this was the only one that he was very proud of..
So comes this first adaptation of a short story he wrote called 'the Killers', about two hit men who come into town, kill a man, and then the investigation-side comes in to see how 'the Swede' (Lancaster) came into this predicament.
The story is rather complex as it goes through its flashbacks within flashbacks, of a certain boxer, err 'Swede', and a dame and the insurance investigator trying to put it all together.It's a credit to Siodmak that what I remember most are big scenes and moments; I love when the two killers first go into the little diner in the town, it's a very striking scene with some dark humor and genuine grit.
Well done film noir piece tells the story of an ex fighter called the Swede, who is gunned down in his room, even though he knows the killers are coming and does nothing to stop it, saying, he once did something wrong.
Things come full circle and he does play a older version of "Swede" in his Atlantic City character.This is more of an ensemble piece than a Burt Lancaster film and the entire supporting cast is A-Grade (most notably O'Brien).
Hit men and detectives make up the rest of the characters, and while there are twists and turns and flashbacks, it almost feels like it's spoofing itself.I found it most similar to another Burt Lancaster movie, Criss Cross, and it's not as good as the really memorable film noirs like Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice.
It's hard to believe that anyone could be so gullible in the cynical 90's, but the combination of Ava Gardner plus the IQ of the typical boxer, as portrayed by Burt Lancaster, is sufficient to make a believer of you.Now to read again "The Killers" and find out how close to the actual story both films were..
Hit men kill an unresisting victim (Burt Lancaster), and investigator Reardon (Edmond O'Brien) uncovers his past involvement with beautiful, deadly Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner).The Siodmak brothers never get enough respect.
This was the second of three high tension crime thrillers produced for the studio by Mark Hellinger - the other two being "Brute Force" (1947) and "Naked City" (1948)A brooding Burt Lancaster, in his first starring role, plays ex prizefighter Ole Anderson known as the "Swede" who has buried himself in the unknown town of Brentwood where he works at a filling station.
Burt Lancaster is a great actor, but his "Swede" is essentially "walking dead." And, Ava Gardner, while beautiful, gives very little to humanize her character.(One aside: Every time I have ever seen Burt in a movie, I always think of the word immaculate.
Robert Siodmak's best known movie is an excellent thriller which marked the debut of screen legend Burt Lancaster and also launched the career of Ava Gardner.
The first 15 minutes of this film are based on Ernest Hemingway's short story, in which 2 killers turn up at a remote town to murder a gas station attendant called The Swede.
Using flashbacks it provides the back story that leads to the Swede's death and introduces us to an insurance investigator, named Riordan, (Edmund O'Brien) who serves as our narrator.Like most old noirs, the pace lulls in the middle section.
Once out he gets involved with a robbery and it looks as if he double crossed his associates and took the $250,000 stolen a certain motive for murder; Reardon isn't so sure though and continues digging.This film gripped me from the start; the two killers' behaviour in the diner is genuinely threatening; there is a real sense of menace and when they kill The Swede it is a real shock after all he is played by Burt Lancaster who gets top billing!
Lancaster does a solid enough job as The Swede but the real star of the show is Edmond O'Brien who plays Reardon; the character who's investigation drives the story.
Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, at the start of their Hollywood careers, shine out against the noir background of The Killers like the stars they became.
For lovers of film noir, "The Killers" is a highpoint in the affair.This was Burt Lancaster's first movie and is fascinating for that fact alone.