The FRiday Night Movie - The Killers (1946)

It's double feature night at the DfB Theater, and boy. is our second movie a good one! A loner known only as The Swede (Burt Lancaster) is murdered by a pair of mysterious out-of-towners. An obsessed insurance investigator (Edmond O'Brien), tasked with the simple matter of settling The Swede's life insurance policy, becomes obsessed with finding out just who he was, and why somebody wanted him dead.

One of my favorite films. Terrific adaptation of the Ernest Hemmingway novel, with solid performances all around and a who's-who list of great character actors - Charles McGraw, Sam Levene, Albert Dekker, and so on.

8.0/10

BTW, the sound is just a bit out of sync with the video. Not enough to be a major distraction, but still, sorry about that.

“The Killers” was redone in the 60s and, if I remember correctly, it was RR’s last commercial film.

It starred RR, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes, and a couple of other big names which I have forgotten.

At one part of the movie RR had to pose as a highway patrolman and barricade a road. Some guy waiting in line asked, “What’s holding up the traffic?” RR responded, “Who knows? They’re always tearin’ up sumthin’.” I LOL’ed about that!

One of the first movies I recorded on my newly-purchased vcr, back when the film was aired on a local late-show in 1983. Still have my old vhs tape of it. Stations were still running ratty-looking 16mm prints back then.

Pretty exciting stuff. I always remember the kick I’d get out of William Conrad in the opening scenes, seeing friendly old “Cannon” being such an obnoxious jerk. Charles McGraw has always been a favorite. Just watched him the other day in an “Untouchables” episode. Anyway, the film was most often cited as being Burt Lancaster’s debut. I saw Lancaster in person a couple of years later, at a college screening of “The Leopard,” and I remember how strong and vibrant he still seemed in his older age, in how he walked and comported himself. Yet I think a stroke managed to put him out of commission a few short years later.

Another Hemingway-based item I watched again not too long ago, for the first time in decades, was “The Breaking Point” (1950), a re-working of To Have and Have Not, but starring John Garfield and Patricia Neal. I’d forgotten what a really top-notch film it is. Tends to be pretty overshadowed by the original. Never really cared too much for Garfield, but he was fine in this, and the movie packs quite a wallop.

“The Killers” was redone in the 60s and, if I remember correctly, it was RR’s last commercial film.

Both versions excellent.....Lee Marvin did outstanding job of acting.

scene killers

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