Cinema Seminar:
The Killers
The Killers (1946) is often described as being “based on” the 1927 Ernest Hemingway short story of the same name, but “inspired by” is really more accurate. The first 13 minutes of the movie offer a faithful depiction of the events in the Nobel laureate’s text, but the material for the next 90 is the creation of three other people: producer Mark Hellinger (The Naked City), a young employee of his, Richard Brooks (In Cold Blood), and an acclaimed filmmaker under contract to another studio, John Huston (The Maltese Falcon). Yet it was (only) journeyman screenwriter Anthony Veiller (Stage Door) who would receive the movie’s Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
One of the most interesting things about The Killers is how thoroughly it exemplifies some of film noir’s core traits—even beyond its tangled origin. For instance, like many genre entries, the movie inherits some of its character types and its snappy dialogue from American detective novels and pulpy short stories, but where it rises above the rest is in its embrace of fatalism. This defining philosophy of film noir, which essentially holds that one’s destiny is predetermined, has no purer expression than the final moments of that opening sequence, when the main character’s placid acceptance of his fate baffles his friend and intrigues the audience.
Still not convinced to join us for a seminar on one of the all-time great noir films? Then you might like to know that The Killers marked the big-screen debut of Burt Lancaster (Sweet Smell of Success) as that resigned fellow, made a star out of Ava Gardner (Mogambo), earned genre master Robert Siodmak (Criss Cross) his only Oscar nomination for directing, garnered composer Miklós Rózsa (Double Indemnity) his tenth, and won the approval of Hemingway, who typically loathed the movies based on his work.
