THE PUBLIC EYE

In 1992 alone, My Cousin Vinny, Lethal Weapon 3, and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, featuring Joe Pesci in some capacity, were all released. Needless to say, it was a very good year for the actor. One film that was sadly overlooked during this blitzkrieg of Pesci cinema was The Public Eye, a modesty-budgeted homage to classic film noir that also acted as a tribute to famed New York Daily News photographer Arthur “Weegee” Fellig who worked in Manhattan’s Lower East Side during the 1930s and 1940s capturing the honest and sometimes tragic elements of life on the streets.
 
This is established over the opening credits with a montage of photographs, some of them Fellig’s, capturing people from all walks of life – in agony, bored, under arrest, and so on. We meet Leon “Bernzy” Bernstein (Pesci) taking photos at the scene of a crime before the police even show up and, more importantly, before his competition arrives. He will go to any lengths to get a shot – even if it means impersonating a priest to get a shot of a dead man with a meat cleaver stuck in his head. Bernzy even has a mobile dark room in the trunk of his car where he can develop his photos quickly.
 
He’s dedicated, always out there, wandering the streets in his car, listening to the police band radio, looking for the next photo opportunity. We see a few shots from his point-of-view and they are in black-and-white, suggesting that everyone is a potential photo for the man. He’s not married and doesn’t have time for anybody else as he is devoted to his work. That’s what makes him the best. It is an empty existence in a way as he is too busy capturing other people’s lives to have one of his own.

Bernzy hopes one day to have a book of his photos published and even has a meeting with an esteemed publisher (played with snooty relish by Del Close) who tells him, “This is, instead, a most admirable picture book about New York,” dismissing them as “too sensational” and “too vulgar,” which is kind of the point – they capture the beauty and the ugliness of life.
 
Like many film noirs, Bernzy is summoned to the lofty heights of high society by a beautiful woman – Kay Levitz (Barbara Hershey) who asks him for a favor. She wants him to check out a man claiming to be her recently deceased husband’s partner and now co-partner of his nightclub that she inherited. He agrees, of course, partly because it allows him a foot in rarefied atmosphere and he is attracted to Kay, a rich, beautiful woman who wouldn’t normally give him the time of day. He tracks down the mysterious man only to find him dead.
 
Naturally, doing a favor for Kay forces Bernzy to break his code of neutrality, complicating his life as he takes sides for the first time, not just with cops, but the FBI who lean on him hard, painting him as a Communist sympathizer, and crooks, entangling him in beef between rival mobsters Frank Farinelli (Richard Foronjy) and Spoleto (Dominic Chianese).

Around the time he made The Public Eye, Joe Pesci was delivering broad performances in movies like Lethal Weapon 3 and Home Alone 2. The Public Eye saw him dial it back and deliver a more nuanced performance as evident in a scene where Bernzy comforts Kay about not being forthcoming about the dead man’s ties to the mob. He’s understandably upset but when she’s apologetic and explains that she picked him because her husband believed in his book of photos, Bernzy softens and Pesci shows a vulnerable side to his character.
 
Pesci also does an excellent job of showing how Bernzy channels his inner pain, his loneliness into his art, like when Kay snubs him in her club for some high society type and when she realizes what she’s done chases after him only to find the shutterbug outside in the rain taking a photo of some rich slob passed out in an alley.
 
Barbara Hershey is an atypical femme fatale. Initially, it seems like she is simply using Bernzy to further her own goals – wrest control of her late husband’s nightclub from mobsters – but then we see her defend Bernzy when she’s alone with her cynical doorman (played to jaded perfection by Jared Harris) and it appears that she really does have affection for him. She is in cahoots, however, with Spoleto, a mob boss who controls the west side of Manhattan. Hershey has an expressive face and she gives Bernzy a look that we see but he doesn’t that suggests Kay is falling in love with him. She actually looks at his book of photos in a wonderful moment and not just a quick flip through but studies them, lingers over each one and is visibly moved.

The film is populated with a bevy of wonderful character actors that make an immediate impact with the limited screen time they are given. Richard Foronjy (Midnight Run) and Dominic Chianese (The Sopranos) play the rival mob bosses that force Bernzy to take sides. Jerry Adler (Manhattan Murder Mystery) plays a columnist turned playwright who is also Bernzy’s closest confidante. Stanley Tucci, however, makes the greatest impact as Sal, a pivotal figure in the mob war. Initially, his relationship with Bernzy is an antagonistic one but then he tells the shutterbug about the beef between the two warring mob families in a powerful scene that Tucci delivers so well.
 
Howard Franklin, who has unfortunately directed far too few films, does a great job immersing us in 1940s New York City, getting the period details just right, from the yellow cabs to the vintage watch Bernzy wears to the Art Deco nightclub Kay owns, but without overwhelming us with it. With the help of David Cronenberg’s long-time cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, he pays tribute to classic film noirs but doesn’t lay it on too thick, doing just enough to capture the vibe of that era. The two men shot the film in very high contrast: “we wanted a crisp look with an edge” that tried to capture Fellig’s photos and avoid a “nostalgic feeling,” Franklin said in an interview.
 
Franklin first became interested in photographer Arthur “Weegee” Fellig when he saw an exhibit of tabloid photographs in 1982 at the International Center for Photography in New York City. Fellig was born in Poland in 1899, the son of Jewish refugees that emigrated to the United States in 1909, settling in New York’s Lower East Side. Growing up, he held every lousy job imaginable before discovering photography in his twenties when he started working as a freelance news photographer. He got a jump on the competition by obtaining his own police radio, which allowed him to be the first on a crime scene. According to Franklin, “When I saw Weegee’s photographs at the ICP, I was really fascinated and immediately began thinking about his images in terms of a movie.”

He wrote a screenplay in 1982 about an artist that was autobiographical in nature and as he got older and worked on it more, “it evolved into a story about the sacrifices you have to make if you’re serious about your work.” He tried to sell the script but there was no interest. Several directors and actors tried to option it with no success and he finally decided to make it himself. Franklin knew he wanted Joe Pesci to play Bernzy as the character’s “style of photography is similar to Joe’s style of acting in that both are very naked – there’s nothing between the viewer and the image.”
 
Pesci knew nothing about Fellig before agreeing to do the film. He read all the books he could find about the man and learned how to use the vintage Speed Graphic camera that was the hallmark of 1940s news photographers. The actor also studied Fellig’s books of photos and “figured what he would be thinking when he took the pictures; how he felt. I tried to make myself feel like him and look like him and take pictures and learn how to do everything.”
Franklin wanted to shoot on location in New York but the film’s $15 million budget and the union situation there made it impossible. The 13-week shoot begin in Cincinnati’s “Over-the-Rhine” district which resembled ‘40s New York. The production then moved to Chicago for a few weeks before landing in Los Angeles to complete filming where they shot on a soundstage at Santa Clarita Studios.
 
The Public Eye received decidedly mixed reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "Writer-director Howard Franklin is subtle and touching in the way he modulates the key passages between Pesci and Hershey. There is a lot that goes unsaid between them." In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, "The Public Eye never quite takes off, either as romantic melodrama or as a consideration of one very eccentric man's means of self-expression. The facts are there, but they never add up to much. The psychology is rudimentary." The Washington Post's Desson Howe wrote, "Despite the usual quippy, perky performance from Pesci, as well as cinematographer Peter Suschitzky's moodily delineated images, the movie is superficial and unengaging. It's as if Life magazine decided to make an oldtime gangster movie."

In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Peter Rainer wrote, "And since the film’s production design is so arranged and studio-ish, with carefully placed shadows and spotlights, we seem to be wrenched into an anti-world every time we shift from Weegee’s caught-in-the-moment dramas to this movie’s studied blandness." Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman gave the film a "C-" rating and wrote, "Attempting to breathe life into this hopelessly naive vision of a sad-sack artist-saint, Pesci is forced to rein in just about everything that makes him likable: his manic energy, the leering delight he takes in his own shamelessness." Finally, in his review for Newsweek, David Ansen wrote, "Using all this artifice to illuminate the gritty world of a lonely shutterbug is an odd choice. Yet the tale's mournful B-movie romanticism-and Pesci's introspective, crablike performance-gets under your skin. In its moody, daffy way, The Public Eye gives off an authentic reek of artistic compulsion."

The Public Eye develops a fascinating character arc for Bernzy. For most of his career he chose not to take sides as it was good for business but finally he is faced with a dilemma that affects not only himself but people he cares about and this motivates him to take a side. He is tired of simply being an observer and is ready to get his hands dirty.
 
Having Robert Zemeckis as an executive producer I’m sure helped greatly in getting this film made but I wonder if Pesci used some of the juice from his Academy Award-winning turn in Goodfellas (1990) and his box office clout from Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) and Home Alone (1990) to help push this through the system. If so, I’m glad he did as this is the kind of off-kilter, personal passion project that is so excellently done.
 

SOURCES
 
Ebert, Roger. “Joe Pesci Moves Up from the Ranks of Supporting Players in Public Eye.” Rogerebert.com. October 11, 1992.
 
McKenna, Kristine. “Weegee’s Tabloid World: The very busy Joe Pesci finds a role he can’t refuse.” Los Angeles Times. December 8, 1991.

Kiss Me Deadly

After the classy film noirs of the 1940s, Robert Aldrich’s adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s hardboiled crime novel Kiss Me Deadly (1955) pushed the boundaries of the genre as far as it could back then. It was as tough and uncompromising as its protagonist Mike Hammer. The film reflects the Cold War paranoia that was rampant during the 1950s and fuses it with an apocalyptic science fiction climax in a way the critiques the decade in surprisingly unflinching fashion.

The film begins with a barefooted woman (Cloris Leachman) running breathlessly along a stretch of highway road at night. Hammer (Ralph Meeker) nearly runs her over. He picks her up and it’s a decision he will regret later. The opening credits play over an odd audio juxtaposition of Nat King Cole’s silky smooth singing playing over the car radio and the woman’s frantic breathing and crying. This creates an edgy vibe that is a hell of a way to start a film.

Even though Hammer gives the woman a hard time he lies for her at a police roadblock when he finds out she’s escaped from a mental hospital. Cloris Leachman makes the most of her screen-time as her character happily critiques her savior: “You’re one of those self-indulgent males who thinks about nothing but his clothes, his car, his self,” and follows it up with, “You’re the kind of person that never gives in a relationship. Who only takes.” These are rather odd things to say to someone who just saved her life.

Three unidentified men subsequently run them off the road and over the soundtrack we hear the woman’s terrified screams, which carry over to the next scene where she’s being tortured. All we see are her dangling feet, leaving the frightening rest to our imagination. The men attempt to get rid of Hammer and the woman by staging a car accident that he somehow survives. Once he gets out of the hospital, government officials unsuccessfully grill him in a scene absolutely dripping with sarcasm and contempt that is also quite funny to watch, especially with the punchline at the end when Hammer leaves the room and one fed says with obvious disdain, “Open a window.”

Why are the Feds involved? Who was the mysterious woman and why was she killed? Intrigued and understandably pissed off at almost being killed, Hammer decides to get some answers – ones that lead to something bigger and more dangerous than he could have possible imagined.

Kiss Me Deadly is saturated with a paranoid vibe, like when Hammer comes home from the hospital and carefully checks out his apartment for intruders. Later on, his sexy secretary, Velda (Maxine Cooper, who always seem to be sweaty when on-screen), warns him to stay away from the windows because “somebody might blow you a kiss,” which implies that someone is trying to kill him. Aldrich employs shots of Hammer talking to people as if someone else is spying him on and this keeps the viewer on edge. Later on, things get serious when Hammer finds dynamite and a bomb rigged to blow up his car. Aldrich also doesn’t skimp on the violence, which must’ve been shocking for its time. Hammer viciously beats a man who tries to kill him with a switchblade by punching him down a flight of steps. In another scene, Hammer disables a henchman so quickly and efficiently that he scares off his cohort.

Ralph Meeker anchors the film with his uncompromising performance. Hammer is a crude, sexist man with a deep distrust of authority, anticipating Dirty Harry by several years as a righteous avenger with his own brand of justice. This is typified by the perpetual smirk affixed to Meeker’s face but that expression changes over time as his life and those close to him are repeatedly put in danger. Meeker is a good-looking tough guy that does a fantastic job of portraying Spillane’s protagonist.

Kiss Me Deadly is populated by a colorful assortment of characters, like Nick (Nick Dennis), a gregarious Greek mechanic who punctuates his speech with words like, “Va-va voom!” and in the next breath proclaims Hammer’s exit from the hospital, “like Lazarus rose out of the grave!” He’s a good friend that gives the private detective hot tips and genuinely cares about him. There’s also Lt. Pat Murphy (Wesley Addy), Hammer’s cop friend with a droll sense of humor as evident in the singsong way he tells him that he’s revoking his gun permit and if he catches him with one he’ll throw him in jail. Wesley Addy has a deliciously dry delivery of dialogue that is excellent. The film also presents a multi-ethnic Los Angeles with many memorable locations that no longer exist anymore or have been radically changed, from the low city of Bunker Hill to the high with Beverly Hills. You really get a sense of place from this film and the city almost becomes another character.

Robert Aldrich worked for RKO in 1941 as an assistant director and got his solo start on the anti-American film Apache (1954) and the cynical western Vera Cruz (1954). He teamed up with producer Victor Saville to make Kiss Me Deadly, based on Mickey Spillane’s novel of the same name, in 1954 and hired A.I. Bezzerides to write the screenplay. At the time, Spillane was one of the most popular writers in the United States but Aldrich was not a fan of the novel. He and Bezzerides discarded most of the original story, shifted the location from New York City to L.A., and kept the title. The latter wrote it quickly “because I had contempt for it. It was automatic writing. Things were in the air at the time, and I put them in.”

The edgy Kiss Me Deadly ran afoul of the MPAA during the script stages for its depiction of drugs and violence as well as “sexual suggestiveness.” Aldrich removed the drugs but the violence remained and it was eventually approved. On the eve of its release, the Legion of Decency condemned it, demanding 30 changes, cuts and deletions. It weathered that particular storm with only a few minor cuts.

Kiss Me Deadly presents a harsh and cruel world and in order to survive it Hammer has to act accordingly. He thinks he has it all figured out but the deeper he digs into the mysterious woman’s past the more dangerous his life gets as he finds himself dealing with serious men that are able to scare anyone they come in contact with – even a boxing manager Hammer has known for a long time. They are serious enough to kill those close to him, which raises the stakes considerably. As a result, Hammer’s tactics become more savage: crushing a coroner’s hand in desk drawer for a key and slapping around an athletic club manager for more information on said key.

Kiss Me Deadly features a smart, cynical screenplay by Bezzerides who tweaked the book’s setting and removed the first person voiceover, but retained the hardboiled attitude. Aldrich’s film takes us on a journey through the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles culminating in an explosive finale that would influence the likes of Repo Man (1984) and Pulp Fiction (1994). It came out around the time that other grim, bleak noirs, like Pickup on the South Street (1953), were starting to appear, and anticipated films like Touch of Evil (1958) Don Siegel’s The Killers (1964).

SOURCES

Hoberman, J. “The Thriller of Tomorrow.” Kiss Me Deadly DVD. Criterion Collection.

Stafford, Jeff. “Kiss Me Deadly.” Turner Classic Movies.

The Big Sleep

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Film Noir Blogathon over at The Midnite Drive-In Blog.

The Big Sleep (1946) is often considered one of the quintessential classic film noirs and with good reason. Adapted from Raymond Chandler’s novel of the same name by none other than William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett and directed by Howard Hawks, it stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall who had previously appeared together in To Have and Have Not (1944). The studio wanted to capitalize on the undeniable chemistry between the two actors and the public’s fascination with them. The end result is an atmospheric private detective story masterfully told and expertly filmed.

Philip Marlowe (Bogart) arrives at the Sternwood house to speak to its patriarch about a job. While waiting in the foyer he meets the youngest daughter, Carmen (Martha Vickers), who coyly flirts with him. “You’re not very tall are you?” she says and without missing a beat he replies, “Well, I try to be.” She practically throws herself at him but he wisely and politely rebuffs her playful flirtations.

Marlowe meets with General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) in his greenhouse and the man is a no-bullshit kind of person that has no problem speaking his mind. He’s being blackmailed by a man named Joe Brody (Louis Jean Heydt) and the man who usually took care of these matters has disappeared. It seems that Carmen owes a sizable amount of money to Arthur Geiger (Theodore von Eltz), a rare book dealer. Sternwood hires Marlowe to get rid of Geiger and so begins his journey into a shadowy criminal underworld.

Before leaving, Marlowe visits with Vivian (Bacall), the eldest daughter, and it gives us a chance to see the sparks fly between Bogart and Bacall as their characters engage in some wonderful verbal sparring until Marlowe delivers a lengthy zinger:

“I didn’t ask to see you. I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners, I don’t like them myself. They are pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings. I don’t mind your ritzing me, drinking your lunch out of a bottle. But don’t waste your time trying to cross-examine me.”

Bogart delivers this dialogue clearly and quickly with just the right amount of withering sarcasm that puts Vivian in her place. The Big Sleep is full some of the best-written, snappy dialogue, like a memorable exchange early on between Marlowe and the Sternwood’s butler (Charles D. Brown):

Marlowe: How did Mrs. Rutledge know I was here?
Butler: She saw you through the window, sir and I was obliged to tell her who you were.
Marlowe: I don’t know I like that.
Butler: Are you attempting to tell me my duties, sir?
Marlowe: No, just having fun trying to guess what they are.

While the butler delivers his lines emotionlessly, Marlowe has a wry smile on his face as he enjoys messing with the man. Writing clever dialogue and having someone talented enough to say it has become a lost art and this film is a potent reminder of just how entertaining it is to watch a film that is so well-made.

After doing some legwork, Marlowe trails Geiger to his home and we get the first proper noir set piece as the private investigator hangs back while his target makes his way in the pouring rain at night. Time passes, the rain stops and a flash of light goes off in the house followed by a gunshot forcing the P.I. into action. No more playful flirting for Marlowe as he becomes embroiled in a convoluted mystery.

I was never a big fan of Humphrey Bogart’s but watching The Big Sleep again made me rethink my stance on him. Watching the actor deftly shift gears in a given scene, changing tone from comedy to drama and back again, is seeing a very skilled thespian masterfully plying his trade. He could play a ladies’ man, coyly flirting with women, and also be a tough guy, like when Marlowe finds himself in a dangerous situation.

Bogart’s Marlowe is quite the ladies’ man, flirting with nearly every woman that crosses his path, from the Sternwood women to a cute librarian (Carole Douglas) to a sexy bookstore proprietress (Dorothy Malone) who all happen to be gorgeous knock-outs. It is interesting to see the number of women from all walks of life that Marlowe encounters – a reminder that it took place during World War II when many men were overseas fighting. With the amount of flirting that goes on in this film maybe it should have been called The Big Flirt.

Lauren Bacall plays the quintessential “tough dame” that often populated film noirs. She more than holds her own against Bogart considering their difference in age and acting experience, but she had natural ability and a screen presence that is always interesting to watch. She even gets to sing in one scene – “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine” – which provides an enjoyable moment of levity. She is more than capable of handling the screenplay’s twisty dialogue and portraying a sophisticated woman.

The scenes between Bogart and Bacall crackle with sexual tension as their characters flirt with each other and, as it turns out, they were in love with each other in real life. It is easy to see in the way they look at each other in a given scene – that is genuine chemistry between two people. It is also a large part of the film’s appeal.

After the success of To Have and Have Not, Warner Bros. studio head Jack Warner wanted to find another film for Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to star in after audiences responded to their on-screen chemistry. He asked Howard Hawks, who had directed them in To Have and Have Not if he had any ideas. He had been talking with William Faulkner about possibly adapting Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep.

In 1939, Warner Bros. had toyed with the idea of buying the film options to the book but feared that the subject matter (pornography, nymphomania, homosexuality, etc.) would never get past the censors. Hawks assured Warner that he could get a screenplay that would pass the censors. Enticed by the re-teaming of Hawks with Bogart and Bacall, the studio chief green-lit the project.

Hawks employed Faulkner to write the script and while he tackled the plot, the director hired first-time novelist Leigh Brackett, whose novel No Good from a Corpse impressed him, to work on the dialogue. Hawks told his writers, “Don’t monkey with the book – just make a script out of it. The writing is too good.” They proceeded to soften or omit the less savory aspects of Chandler’s novel to appease the censors. It took them only six weeks to produce a shooting script.

Principal photography began on October 10, 1944. There was tension between Bogart and Bacall, who had an affair while making To Have and Have Not, when, before filming, he told her that since his wife had stopped drinking, he was going to give their marriage another try. This made Bacall very nervous during filming and she relied on Hawks to make it through the endeavor

The emotional toll of his turbulent marriage affected Bogart, who still loved Bacall, causing nights of little sleep and heavy drinking. His on-again-off-again relationship with his wife put terrible strain on him to the point that in one instance he was unable to report to work. Fortunately, Hawks covered for him with the studio. It got so bad that by November, the film was 17 days behind schedule.

Illness and injuries to various cast members also slowed down filming as well as continual rewrites of the script. Eventually, Faulkner burned out and left the production and Hawks brought in Jules Furthman to sharpen dialogue, reshape scenes and come up with a new ending. To make up time, the director shot faster and cut pages from the script. Principal photography finished on January 12, 1945. It took 76 days to film – 34 more than had originally been scheduled.

The Big Sleep had its world premiere in the Philippines in August 1945 and by October it was being shown to United States servicemen in several bases overseas. Hawks felt that the Marlowe-Vivian relationship needed more work. In addition, Bacall’s film Confidential Agent (1945) was released and bombed with the actress receiving bad notices. Worried that this might affect The Big Sleep, it was felt that three to four additional scenes of her and Bogart together would improve the film. Philip Epstein, co-screenwriter of Casablanca (1942), was hired to write these new scenes.

The new version, which debuted in 1946, featured 18 minutes of new material but was actually two minutes shorter. In addition to the scenes between Bogart and Bacall, another one was added with Marlowe and Carmen. Cut from the 1945 version was a scene where the facts of the case are reviewed by Marlowe and Chief Inspector Ohls (Regis Toomey). As a result, the version we know and love came across as a tad confusing or “enigmatic” as Leonard Maltin put it.

With the atmospheric sounds and memorable score by Max Steiner, coupled with Sidney Hickox’s richly textured black and white cinematography, Hawks creates a fantastic mood and, at the right moments, a sense of danger that is vintage noir. The common complaint is that at some point it becomes impossible to figure out what The Big Sleep is about but for me I hardly notice it because I get caught up in what’s going on, enjoying a given scene – the interaction between characters and the snappy dialogue that is bantered back and forth, which makes the film such a pleasure to watch again and again.

SOURCES

Grimes, William. “The Mystery of The Big Sleep Solved.” The New York Times. January 9, 1997.

McCarthy, Todd. Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood. Grove Press. 1997.

The Killers (1946)

Ernest Hemingway’s short story “The Killers” was first published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1927 and featured two hitmen sent to kill a man who makes no attempt to run or defend himself. Producer Mark Hellinger bought the screen rights for $36,750 and the screenplay was written by John Huston (uncredited), Anthony Veiller and Richard Brooks. The Killers was released in 1946 and featured Burt Lancaster in his film debut, pairing him up with a young Ava Gardner after five years of minor roles. The end result is a classic film noir featuring a doomed protagonist and an alluring femme fatale intertwined over a large sum of money.

Late one night, two hitmen – Max and Al (William Conrad and Charles McGraw) – arrive in a small New Jersey town looking for a boxer known as Ole “Swede” Andreson (Burt Lancaster). Director Robert Siodmak presents a place enshrouded in shadows with the local diner providing a welcome source of light. The two no-nonsense men enter the eatery and proceed to give the owner a hard time. They exchange some nice hard-boiled dialogue (they repeatedly call the owner “bright boy”) and tell him of their intent to kill Swede.

One of the customers – a man (Phil Brown) who works with Swede – manages to escape and get to his co-worker before the hitmen. He warns Swede who doesn’t seem particularly upset and already resigned to his fate. In fact, when we first see him, Swede is lying in bed, his head obscured in darkness and already looking like a corpse. The two men arrive and shoot Swede to death. Why didn’t he run? Why did he just let these men kill him? Insurance man Jim Reardon (Edmond O’Brien) tries to figure out the answers to these questions and decipher his last words, “Once I did something wrong.” The film proceeds to flashback to Swede’s last days and then further back as Reardon talks to those who knew him.

Burt Lancaster delivers a muscular performance, portraying a man with no desire to live and then, as his past is delved into, anguish over someone that drove him to attempt suicide. Even further back reveals a boxer from Philadelphia who turned to crime thanks to a bum right hand. The actor does a nice job of creating a doomed protagonist. It’s all in Lancaster’s haunted, defeated eyes. When told he can no longer fight because of his permanently damaged hand, Swede looks for a new direction in life. He doesn’t want to be a cop and so he turns to a life of crime.

Ava Gardner creates quite a first impression as Kitty Collins, an alluring woman that meets Swede at a party and immediately catches his attention. They soon become an item and it’s not hard to see how she so easily corrupts him. The actress looks stunning (she sure knows how to wear a sweater!) and Kitty knows exactly the emotional buttons to push in order to get Swede to do what she wants.

The Killers is filled with all kinds of memorable little touches, like Siodmak showing a heist being pulled visually with voiceover narration as if providing a commentary track over what went down instead of going the conventional route by having it play out in typical fashion – something that has been done countless times. There is also stand-out dialogue, like when a doctor says about one of Swede’s criminal associates, now on his deathbed, “He’s dead now except he’s breathing.”

For a film noir, The Killers spends a lot of time exploring the Swede’s motivations and examining why he was so willing to die. At the end, he had no reason to live. He drove away the people he loved, betrayed by the woman he loved, and was unable to continue as a boxer – his real passion. Swede’s fatal flaw is that he’s loyal to a fault, willing to go to the mat for Kitty, blinded by love to her conniving, manipulative ways. Like most noirs, the prime motivation for Swede is money and a dame – both of which prove to be his downfall.

Prior to The Killers, Ernest Hemingway had refused Hollywood’s advances to adapt his work but producer Mark Hellinger was an “old friend,” and he agreed to sign over the film rights to him. The first few minutes of the film are quite faithful to the source material but deviate significantly afterwards. Don Siegel was originally considered to direct but Hellinger went with Robert Siodmak. Siegel ended up making his own adaptation in 1964 with Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes and Ronald Reagan in a rare bad guy role.

Burt Lancaster was only 23-years-old when he made The Killers and was paid $20,000 for his work on it. Ava Gardner has been under contract with MGM since 1941 but had only appeared in minor, forgettable roles. Hellinger was impressed with her work in Whistle Stop (1946) and wanted her to play Kitty Collins. MGM agreed to loan her out to Universal.

The Killers was a box office hit, playing around-the-clock at New York’s Winter Garden theater, which had more than 120,000 moviegoers see it in the first two weeks. The film was well-received by critics, but more importantly Gardner, who became friends with Hemingway, said that the writer, “always considered The Killers the best of all the many films his work inspired.”

A man’s life is made up of many parts, much like a puzzle as Reardon finds out during the course of his investigation. He only gets the entire scope of Swede’s life by talking to several people in his life. Together, their testimonies provide a better understanding for why he did what he did and why it led to his sorry fate. It’s what makes The Killers a tragic tale.

SOURCES

Frankel, Mark. “The Killers (1946).” Turner Classic Movies.