Film review: The Killers (1946)

The Killers (not to be confused with the excellent early Kubrick The Killing (1956)) is a classic noir that I didn’t get around to watching when I was preparing that section of my Philosophy of Film class, but it certainly fits the mold. As so often in noir, you see the putative protagonist of the film, “The Swede,” played by Burt Lancaster in a very early role, get killed by the titular killers about ten minutes in. And the weird (and therefore compelling) thing about it is that he seems resigned to his fate and doesn’t put up much of a struggle or even try to escape when forewarned. And those killers are a very nasty pair, as we’ve already witnessed because the start of the film is them holding up a diner because they know the Swede frequents it. So why was the Swede killed, why did he know he was going to be killed, and why didn’t he run? That’s up to our actual protagonist (although we see the Swede plenty in flashback, as per the norm for noir) played by one of those “ooh, what have we seen him in before?” actors (answer: D.O.A., but it could’ve been a million things), Edmond (sic) O’Brien (sic). As with Double Indemnity, he is not actually an official cop, he’s an investigator for an insurance company. Who knew insurance companies were the ones out there solving crimes? Where’s our Law & Order: Insurance franchise? Anywho, here’s the gist: “The Swede,” who is going by the name Pete Lund and working in a gas station in a small town when he is killed, is actually Ole Andreson (sic), an ex-boxer. We see him in his last fight where he fails to win by using his right because it’s hopelessly broken (one of the unresolved mysteries of the film is how it got broken. You think you’re going to find out that some mobster smashed it earlier or something, but it’s left dangling or maybe it’s just that he broke it in the fight). Watching him are his old buddy Sam Lubinsky (another “where have we seen him?” – answer: a couple of Thin Man movies and Sweet Smell of Success) actors, Sam Levene (sic), and the woman who loves Ole, but is loved (and eventually married) by Sam, Lilly. Lilly eventually gives up on Ole one night when he takes her to a party with some people she recognizes as seedy, and watches him drool over Ava Gardner (well, who could blame him?) in her first big role, playing femme fatale Kitty Collins. Sure enough, Ole falls in with the bad crowd and Kitty, which is a bad idea because she was Big Jim Colfax’s girl before he went to prison. Ole’s true downfall happens when Sam, now a lieutenant, is about to arrest her in a restaurant because she’s wearing stolen jewelry, when Ole intervenes and takes the fall for her. While he’s in prison, Big Jim gets out and takes Kitty back, but when Ole gets out he nonetheless agrees to do a big payroll-robbery (of a hat factory! Sweetly dated) job with Jim and two stooges called “Dum Dum” and “Blinky” (weren’t those two of the ghosts from Pac Man?). There follows a double-double-cross, where after the robbers split up to escape, they are initially supposed to rendezvous at a “halfway house” but this burns down the night before and they rendezvous at a farm instead. At least, Jim, Dum Dum and Blinky (and Kitty) do, but not Ole, because he wasn’t told about the change of plans. Or was he? Because he shows up and takes the whole pot for himself, justifying it because they were going to double cross him. But (spoiler) this was the plan all along: Kitty, who was the one who revealed the double-cross to him (are you following this?) hooks up with him and they escape together, but then she double-crosses him and runs off with the money a few days later. (He tries to kill himself but is saved by the housekeeper at the dive he’s staying at, and for her reward she gets his life insurance after he’s eventually killed – one of the threads that enables Edmond O’Brien to untangle the whole affair.) Guess who she runs back to? O’Brien suspects that Dum Dum and Blinky will still believe that Ole has the money and when they hear of his death, will try to search his room. He catches Dum Dum in the act and they talk, but Dum Dum escapes. O’Brien then goes to visit Colfax, who is a successful building contractor now, and lets him know Kitty is in trouble. Long story short: the original killers show up to the restaurant Kitty meets O’Brien at, but are shot by O’Brien and Sam, and they follow Kitty to Colfax’s house where they find that Dum Dum has been shot dead by Jim but not before mortally wounding Colfax. Kitty’s only concern is that Colfax exonerates her with his dying breath, but is disappointed. Cue rather jokey ending where O’Brien’s insurance boss grudgingly admits he was right to follow the case. It's a good noir, but as some reviewers pointed out, the best bit by far is the beginning sequence. It’s truly gripping: moody and suspenseful. As soon as our insurance guy is introduced, it’s more of a procedural, less existential. Turns out that first part is from the Hemingway story that gives the film its name, while the rest is a screenwriter invention. And even though one of the screenwriters was John Huston, it’s a little formulaic. Plus the titular killers are reduced to such minor roles, it becomes odd that the film is named after them. Slightly rectifying this is the 1964 remake, where the role of the insurance investigator is combined with one of the killers (Lee Marvin) who is so puzzled by how much he’s being paid to kill his target (John Cassavetes – a car driver rather than a boxer) and how stoically he takes his death that he takes it on himself to investigate. Overall: not a first tier noir but definitely top of the second division, and notable for Lancaster’s and Gardner’s early roles.