Movie night:"The Killers".(Robert Siodmak, 1946)

[cubanmiamiboy]

My second pick for our movie night was Robert Siodmak's 1946 "The Killers", which was made on Hemingway's short story of the same title. Interesting enough, I just read that this was the acting debut of Burt Lancaster, who plays 'The Swede', a boxer who becomes infatuated with a gangster's moll during a complex scheme. The femme fatale here is stunningly beautiful Ava Gardner, who goes by the name of "Kittie Collins"-( ). Both Lancaster and Gardner are definitely as attractive as they can be.

As for the plot I most confess I found it sort of dense at some point, and even more during the final sequences where the scheme is being explained by the insurance investigator-(Edmond O'Brien). What happens is that sometimes I find this 40's films actors to speak really fast-(oh, deja vu with the other thread on speedy dancers of the past! )-and at first I couldn't figure out how the caption worked.

Very beautiful also how Siodmak's artsy direction emphasizes shadows, dark rooms and the ever present cigarette smoke, making Gardner and Lancaster's faces even more alluring at times.

Something I want to underline is Mikos Rozsa's Oscar nominated score, which really drives the story and heightens the flash points, using a combination of orchestral and minimalist musical motifs to good effect. While trying to figure out the damned caption button, I accidentally hit something and a very interesting thing happened. The film muted the voices and other sounds and isolated just the music. What a great discovering! I kept listening to it until I realized that I wasn't understanding a thing of was happening so I went back and fixed it.

Aside from some confusing points I loved the film...and so Gardner's final words when she makes a desperate plea to her dying man..."Tell him that Kittie is innocent...tell him, tell him that Kittie is innocent!!" (Oh...how dramatic... )

"Raw, rugged, ruthless drama of a man who gambled his luck, his love, his life for the treachery of a girl's lips!!"

[papeetepatrick]

"Raw, rugged, ruthless drama of a man who gambled his luck, his love, his life for the treachery of a girl's lips!!"

I love it.

I watched this a few years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it, although I never think of it, and can't recall too much of it now. Mainly the opening, I think, isn't Burt at a diner? And Ava definitely very good at this kind of part. I didn't like it when she did those big costume things a few years later, and she seems bored out of her skull in them too. I don't think I've ever seen Lancaster in anything in which I didn't like him, including when he does the aging-adolescent in the Perrys' 'The Swimmer' in the late 60s.

IN some ways, I like the 1964 version better, the girl's part is bigger, and Angie Dickinson is perfect in it; so is Cassavetes. Ronald Reagan's last movie, and what a cast: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes, Clu Gulager, Claude Akins, Norman Fell, Ronald Reagan.

[cubanmiamiboy]

I watched this a few years ago,...,and can't recall too much of it now. Mainly the opening, I think, isn't Burt at a diner?

Patrick...in the opening scene there are two killers coming to a diner where The Swede-(Lancaster)-is supposed to come to eat, which he never does, so they end up chasing him in his hotel room and killing him right there.

"Raw, rugged, ruthless drama of a man who gambled his luck, his love, his life for the treachery of a girl's lips!!"

I love it.

I know! Isn't it great...?

[Mel Johnson]

One of the great examples of screenplay padding. Except for the last 20 minutes or less, the whole film is backstory. The original Hemingway short story was less than 3,000 words long.

[bart]

One of the great examples of screenplay padding. Except for the last 20 minutes or less, the whole film is backstory. The original Hemingway short story was less than 3,000 words long.

Glad you posted that, Mel. I THOUGHT I didn't recall a woman in this story The story is not only very compressed, as you say, but consists almost entirely of terse dialogue exchanges.

Still, I suppose if you have someone who looks like Ava Gardner sitting around the studio waiting for a role ... you'd be crazy not to invent one for her.

Sounds like a film to look for.

[dirac]

NIce flick. The first twenty minutes or so are the Hemingway story, well done. The rest is the investigation, flashing back, etc., and it's mostly routine noir stuff that gets by on style points. This was a breakout movie for Gardner, who' been treading water at her home studio, MGM. Hemingway was said to have liked it.

Thanks for telling us about it, cubanmiamiboy. Enjoy!

[dirac]

What happens is that sometimes I find this 40's films actors to speak really fast-

It's funny how speech patterns are affected by the era, style, recording equipment, etc. In the very early talkie days the dialogue was sloooowww - as if no one was quite sure how this dialogue thing was supposed to go.

[cubanmiamiboy]

dirac, but there is also something about the accent. I wish I could describe it better, but I guess my ear is by now more adapted to the current English inflexions, vs. those from the past...