The Killers (1946)

If saying The Killers is a happy accident sounds like a backhanded compliment, it isn't meant to be. It's just that the reputation Mark Hellinger's 1946 film enjoys among film noir enthusiasts far exceeds the expectations most people would have had for the project at the time.

Little about the picture screamed "classic," instant or otherwise. It was independently produced at Universal International by Hellinger, a former Warner Brothers and Twentieth-Century Fox employee. It was the film debut for a strapping former acrobat named Burt Lancaster. Co-star Ava Gardner had been in two dozen or so previous films, but mostly in uncredited bit parts.

Of course, Ernest Hemingway was associated with the project — the title card, in fact, reads "Ernest Hemingway's The Killers" — because he wrote the short story from which the movie originates, but that eponyomous yarn was nearly two decades old by the time The Killers reached theatres.

Simply put, The Killers is well regarded because it's flat-out good, not because it was carefully calculated and manufactured to be a hit. A good number of film noirs, even some of the masterpieces of the genre, are a triumph of style over substance. While The Killers looks great and definitely has that cool factor — that's apparent from the opening scene when hitmen Al and Max (Charles McGraw and William Conrad) make a memorable arrival in shadowy Brentwood, N.J. — there's actually a pretty good story that accompanies the violence and moral angst.

It's all set up by that whiz-bang beginning as Al and Max enter a diner and torment counter man George (Harry Hayden) and the eatery's only customer, Nick Adams (Phil Brown). Nick is ordered into the kitchen and he and Sam the cook (Bill Walker) are bound and gagged. George demands an explanation and is told that the hitmen are in town to knock off a fellow nicknamed the Swede (Lancaster), who in Brentwood is known as Pete Lunn. When Al and Max realize their target isn't showing up at the diner, they leave and head across the street to get the Swede's home address from the service station where he's employed. That gives Adams a chance to run to the Swede's boardinghouse and warn Lunn — his co-worker at the service station — about the assassins. Adams is flabbergasted when Lunn has virtually no reaction to the announcement, refuses to contact the police or to try to make his escape and casually thanks Adams for coming.

"There's nothin' I can do about it . . . I'm through with all that runnin' around . . . I did something wrong once. Thanks for comin'," are three of the resigned reponses from the Swede to Adams' urgent pleas.

A befuddled Adams leaves, and minutes later the hitmen arrive. Lunn sits up in anticipation of their arrival but makes no effort to hide. The murder scene consists of a two-shot of Al and Max, whose faces light up from the flashes of the gun as they pump multiple bullets into their victim.

This was essentially as far as Hemingway's story went, leaving to the reader's imagination the events that would have led the killers to hunt down the Swede. This is where the movie jumps in, providing the backstory of the execution. The tale is told in non-sequential flashbacks, with insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O'Brien) learning strange and wondrous things about the Swede, a policyholder whose real name is Ole Anderson. Through Reardon's investigation and interviews, we learn about a colourful assortment of characters such as gangster Big Jim Colfax (Albert Dekker), henchmen Dum-Dum and Blinky (Jack Lambert and Jeff Corey), a simpleminded old jailbird (Vince Barnett) and a moll named Kitty Collins (Gardner).

One of the reasons the movie works so well is that while the major interest lies in the flashback events, the investigator's dogged pursuit of the truth is a worthwhile story in its own right. O'Brien can't be allowed to steal the stars' thunder, but his end of the story has to stand up and hols the viewers' interest. It's the clever way in which Reardon and the audience gather pieces of the puzzle throughout the course of the movie, in addition to the dark events that lead to the Swede's death, that make the film entertaining. Double-crossing and triple-crossing Kitty Collins is one of film noir's great femme fatales and it's not hard to understand why Gardner went on to a terrific career after this juicy role.

The best scene in the film is the flashback to the hat factory payroll heist pulled off by Colfax and his gang. In a single shot, we see the crooks enter the factory grounds with a group of workers, climb the stairs to the payroll office, collect the loot and make their shoot-'em-up escape. Great stuff by director Robert Siodmak and his crew. The robbery is also the action that touches off the fatal consequences for the Swede.

Who’d like it: Anyone who likes noirs and good mystery crime stories. Fans of Lancaster and Gardner owe it to themselves to see the actors in their breakthrough roles.

Who should stay away: Those who dislike movie violence and crime tales, but presumably the title alone would have already scared those folks off.