Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator, on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede's past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man.
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I love this movie so much
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
Blistering performances.
My, oh my. How serious everybody is in this story. It was almost akin to a very early episode of Dragnet.All the men are well dressed and straight up like a fence post. All the women are in fur coats and nice hats.There isn't a joke or lighthearted moment to be had. It's all very, very serious.The plot is just plain dumb but nobody really cares. I didn't. It's a joy to watch a young and stunning Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster.Burt's boxing sequences are about as believable as Santa Clause, and Ava Gardner's 'Kitty' is as cliché' as it gets. She might as well show up as one of those mysterious smoky women in a detective movie on a dark and stormy night. Again, no one cares.Ava can't sing for squat, but the woman is flat out gorgeous. I can only imagine the power she must have had at one time during Hollywood's golden era.The film is classic noir. It always seems to be at night, and everybody smokes cigarettes.I'm in.
it is his film. not only the first but a film who survives to clichés and classic crime recipes for his acting. because the script use a Hemingway short story as start point for a common crime. and that is really a sin because the original gem is massacred by a story like too many others. the presence of Ava Gardner is, in same measure, one of the good points . for her art to give a special mixture of vulnerability and force to a character who seams be convict to be the same"femme fatale" of genre. short, a film full of virtues against the poor script . first - invitation to discover the short story of Hemingway. second - to admire Burt Lancaster at his first role . not the least to compare Ava Garda's performance with the others for the same type of character.
Considering The Killers dates from early in the noir cycle it's a little surprising that it's as definitive a crystallization of the noir ethos that we're likely ever to see. Wow! Director Siodmak and cinematographer Woody Bredell are at the top of their form: they pile shadow upon shadow, scene after scene. So much going for this one: noir composer of choice Miklos Rozsa here comes through with maybe his best score ever, regardless of genre. Jangling and Stravinsky-esque, it never lets up. Burt Lancaster is fine as the doomed Swede, and of course Ava Gardner is a wonder. The visage of her in that slinky black evening dress is the very definition of the noir femme fatale. Only Rita Hayworth in Gilda gives her a run for her money. A bonus is that Ava sings her song using her own voice. And how about Charles McGraw and William Conrad, for my money the two coldest hired assassins in film history. And it is refreshing to see a young, relatively slim and more or less handsome Edmond O'Brien taking on the gumshoe role. The rest of the supporting cast is primo, especially Albert Dekker as Mr Big and, in a turn that seems to anticipate his appearance in Kiss Me Deadly a decade later, Jack Lambert nearly steals the movie as the problematic thug. Also fascinating is the inclusion on the Criterion DVD of a 1956 short produced in the Soviet Union(!) which sticks pretty faithfully to the story and does a pretty good job of capturing an American atmosphere, quite amazing considering the times.
A superb crime-drama. Clever, original, complex (but not overly so) plot, based on an Ernest Hemingway short story. Well directed by Robert Siodmak.Performances are top-notch. Burt Lancaster, in his debut role, plays the easily-lead dumb boxer, Swede, to a T. Edmond O'Brien is solid as Reardon, the insurance investigator. The performance that stands out, however, is that of Ava Gardner. Surely one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the silver screen, she does not disappoint here. The fact that the movie is in black and white doesn't understate her beauty, and she plays the femme fatale perfectly. An absolute classic, and no doubt a movie that inspired people like Scorsese and Tarantino.
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