The Killers (1946)

Official trailer

The Killers is Robert Siodmak’s 1946 American film noir expanding Ernest Hemingway’s 1927 short story. The film depicts two professional assassins arriving in a small New Jersey town to murder gas station attendant Pete Lund, who waits passively in his rented room for their arrival instead of fleeing when warned. Insurance investigator Jim Reardon later traces Lund’s actual identity as former boxer Ole Swede Andersen and uncovers his involvement in a payroll robbery years earlier that produced the circumstances leading to his eventual murder.

Burt Lancaster makes his film debut playing Ole Andersen. Edmond O’Brien plays Reardon. Ava Gardner plays Kitty Collins. Albert Dekker plays Big Jim Colfax. Sam Levene plays Lieutenant Lubinsky. William Conrad plays one of the killers. Charles McGraw plays the other killer. Anthony Veiller wrote the screenplay, though John Huston contributed considerably without credit. Mark Hellinger Productions and Universal Pictures produced the film on a budget of approximately 875,000 dollars. The work received four Academy Award nominations.

From its opening scenes, The Killers has me. Two hired men turn up in a small New Jersey town, the dread builds with every line, and Lancaster waits in his rented room for them without lifting a finger. I rate it a 9 because the rest of the picture lives up to that opening, and my only reservation is an investigator who’s the least interesting person in his own movie.

In The Killers, brief literary source material gets its foundational expansion into full-length noir adaptation. Hemingway’s original 1927 short story occupies approximately ten pages and depicts only the opening sequence where the two killers wait in the diner for Andersen to arrive. The remaining ninety minutes of the film are original elaboration that explains why Andersen accepted his death. Hemingway reportedly approved the adaptation as superior expansion of his source. Burt Lancaster’s film debut launched one of the principal American leading man careers of the postwar period.

Lancaster brought athletic physical presence, intelligent dialogue delivery, and the underlying intensity that the films that came after including From Here to Eternity (1953) and Sweet Smell of Success (1957) extended. The Killers also represented one of Ava Gardner’s first major roles, establishing her femme fatale capabilities that later entries in the genre would continue developing.

The Hemingway Expansion

Hemingway’s source story depicts only the opening sequence.

Two killers arrive at a diner. They tell the customers and staff they’re waiting for Ole Andersen. They threaten violence but leave without killing anyone in the diner. The story ends with Nick Adams visiting Andersen’s rented room to warn him. Andersen lies on his bed and tells Nick that running would do no good. The story ends without resolution.

The film expands this opening into elaborate noir investigation explaining why Andersen accepted his death. The expansion required heavy original creation instead of adaptation of existing source. Anthony Veiller and uncredited John Huston developed Andersen’s history as failed boxer, his involvement with Kitty Collins, his participation in the payroll robbery, and the later betrayals that produced his eventual murder. The expansion has aged into demonstration that excellent adaptations can sometimes considerably exceed source material when the source provides foundation instead of complete narrative.

I think the expansion is the smartest thing about the film. Hemingway gives you a man who won’t run and never says why, and the screenwriters spend the rest of the picture answering that in a way that makes his surrender hurt more.

Lancaster’s Debut

Burt Lancaster’s film debut as Ole Andersen launched one of the principal American leading man careers of the postwar period. Lancaster was thirty-two during production.

He had been working as circus acrobat and stage performer before Mark Hellinger cast him in the role. The combination of physical presence, intelligent performance, and underlying intensity produced material that established his standing immediately instead of requiring gradual career development.

Lancaster knocks me flat here. You can see the fighter’s body and a trusting heart in the same man, and Ava Gardner gives him every reason to lose his head.

Lancaster’s later career extended across multiple decades including From Here to Eternity (1953), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Elmer Gantry (1960), Atlantic City (1980), and many others. He combined athletic physical capability with serious dramatic range across productions that few American leading men have matched. The Killers set the pattern that later work would extend. Lancaster died in 1994 having produced one of the major American leading man careers of the twentieth century.

The Flashback Investigation

The film structure follows insurance investigator Jim Reardon as he traces Andersen’s history through interviews with people who knew him at different periods.

Each interview produces a flashback depicting the events the interview subject witnessed. The investigation gradually assembles Andersen’s complete history from the partial accounts of witnesses. The structure creates dramatic suspense about how the disparate pieces will connect into coherent narrative.

Next to Lancaster, the jigsaw structure is what I enjoy most here. Each witness hands Reardon one more piece, and I find myself trying to beat him to the full picture.

The investigation structure borrows from Citizen Kane (1941), which had used a similar approach, and later films have imitated it extensively.

The Killers extended the Citizen Kane structure to noir material. Later productions across multiple decades have continued to use witness-based investigation as organizational principle. The picture allows films to deliver complex narrative through multiple perspectives while maintaining dramatic momentum through the investigator’s pursuit of complete understanding.

Does The Killers still hold up?

I give The Killers a 9 because it takes ten pages of Hemingway and builds a whole doomed life out of them without losing the chill of the original. Lancaster’s debut is the best reason to watch, Gardner is right behind him, and the witness-by-witness structure keeps the dread alive to the end. I’d take off a point only for an investigator who’s a little bland next to everyone he interviews.

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