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Director: |
Robert Siodmak
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Starring: |
Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Jeff Corey, Queenie Smith, Phil Brown, William Conrad, Charles McGraw, Donald MacBride, Charles D. Brown, Virginia Christine, Vince Barnett, Sam Levene, Albert Dekker, Jack Lambert
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Genres: |
Film Noir, Action-Adventure, Crime, Drama Classics, US Classics
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Origin: |
USA
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Certificate: |
PG
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Aspect ratios: |
1.37 : 1
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Sound formats: |
Mono
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Running Time: |
103 min
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The Killers (1946), a neglected screen classic from director Robert Siodmak, is an intense, hard-edged, stylish film noir of robbery, unrequited love, brutal betrayal and double-cross. It featured two unknowns: Burt Lancaster in his film debut (at age 32) and a break-out memorable performance from 23 year old MGM contract actress Ava Gardner. Her role as the film's duplicitous, strikingly-beautiful, vixenish and unsympathetic femme fatale made Gardner an overnight love goddess and star.
Former Broadway news reporter/columnist-later-independent film producer Mark Hellinger, with his first film for Universal, was known for stark, hard-boiled crime-gangster films (e.g., The Roaring Twenties (1939), High Sierra (1941), Brute Force (1947), and The Naked City (1948)). He selected a sharply-written script from screenwriters Anthony Veiller and collaborator John Huston (uncredited) that was loosely based on Ernest Hemingway's 1927 short story of the same name. [Hemingway's 10-page short story was composed of the same content re-created in the film's opening thirteen minutes. His works have often been adapted for the screen (e.g., A Farewell to Arms (1932), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) and The Sun Also Rises (1957)), but this was reportedly the famous author's most favorite and praised adaptation.]
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