TCM Comments The Killers (1946)

[00:00:10]Good evening. I'm Eddie Muller, back with more of TCM's Summer of Darkness.

[00:00:15]The days may last a little bit longer this time of year, but eventually the shadows will fall and we are here for it.

[00:00:23]Our next trip on the dark side begins with a story created by a man considered one of America's greatest novelists, Ernest Hemingway.

[00:00:32]The Killers, made by Universal Pictures in 1946, is based on Hemingway's short story of the same name. Based isn't really the right word though. The film is much more complex than the terse story Hemingway published in Scribner's magazine in 1927.

[00:00:50]The story was about some diner patrons being threatened by a pair of contract killers looking for somebody named the Swede.

[00:00:59]Hemingway's young literary avatar, Nick Adams, is one of those patrons and he rushes off to warn his pal that he's in danger.

[00:01:08]Only for the Swede to accept his fate and refuse to run.

[00:01:12]It's a good read. The lack of an explanation for why the Swede is bumped off and gives it a haunting quality.

[00:01:20]For producer Mark Hellinger, the story was merely a jumping off point. His film would explore exactly what it was that brought the Swede to his sudden end.

[00:01:31]Hellinger paid Hemingway 50 grand for the film rights and began hiring writers.

[00:01:37]Don Siegel, who worked in the Warner Brothers editing department, was looking to direct and he knocked out a rough storyline.

[00:01:44]But that all fell apart when Hellinger moved his shingle from Warner Brothers to Universal.

[00:01:50]Young Richard Brooks worked up a draft, but it fell short of Hellinger's expectations.

[00:01:56]And that's when John Huston entered the picture. Huston was a well-regarded screenwriter who'd begun his directing career at Warner's with The Maltese Falcon in 1941. He was still under contract at Warner's, but was on military leave. So, he had time to work on the script, but because he was under contract to a different studio, he couldn't put his name on the credits.

[00:02:19]And because Brooks was still a neophyte, Hellinger didn't want him getting sole credit for adapting the work of a big shot like Hemingway.

[00:02:28]As a result, Anthony Veiller got the writing credit, although Brooks and Huston did most of the work.

[00:02:36]The film starts with a vivid recreation of Hemingway's original story before segueing into a flashback-heavy narrative about an insurance investigator digging into the Swede's past to learn what brought about his violent demise. Edmond O'Brien plays the investigator, the first of many memorable trips he'd take down the shadowy streets of Noir City. As for the guy who plays the Swede, well, he was a former circus performer soon to become one of the most influential actors and producers in town, Burt Lancaster. This was Lancaster's screen debut, and it was the perfect way to kick off his decades-long career. Even if you haven't seen this film, you could probably surmise that the Swede's downfall is caused by a woman.

[00:03:24]And what a woman Hellinger chose, Ava Gardner. She was on loan from MGM, where she spent a lot of time looking beautiful and little else.

[00:03:34]The Killers gave Gardner her first real chance to show off some acting chops as well as those big, beautiful eyes.

[00:03:42]The heat she and Lancaster generate on screen is palpable.

[00:03:47]Audiences certainly felt it in 1946, making The Killers a popular success that completely changed the trajectory of Gardner's career.

[00:03:58]Often called the Citizen Kane of Noir due to its being constructed largely of intertwined flashbacks, and directed by, in my opinion, the finest director of Noir, Robert Siodmak. Here is The Killers.

[00:04:29]The Killers was produced by Mark Hellinger, who like a lot of people in the movie business had a very colorful background.

[00:04:36]Born and raised in New York City, Hellinger rebelled against his parents' desire that he become a lawyer or go to business school. Instead, he became a writer.

[00:04:46]In one of his first newspaper jobs, Hellinger was assigned to the Broadway beat, covering theater life and speakeasies and the colorful and often dangerous denizens of those worlds.

[00:04:58]Hellinger was a natural-born operator, rubbing shoulders with show people and gangsters in equal measure.

[00:05:06]One day he'd be knocking out a sketch for a Ziegfeld Follies show, the next he'd be calling in a favor from an underworld associate to get somebody out of trouble.

[00:05:16]When he took his road show to the West Coast angling for a career in pictures, Warner Brothers was quick to take advantage of Hellinger's storytelling savvy and his colorful past to enhance films like The Roaring Twenties, They Drive by Night, and High Sierra.

[00:05:34]All those successes encouraged Hellinger to eventually strike out on his own as an independent producer with The Killers.

[00:05:42]Other classics like Brute Force and Crisscross would soon follow.

[00:05:47]Coming up, the summer of darkness continues with a story that has a very noir moral.

[00:05:53]Cheaters prosper.

[00:05:55]At least for a while.

[00:05:57]The original version of Nightmare Alley is next. Stay with us.

[00:06:04]>> Next on TCM, Nightmare Alley, then The Yakuza, and later, The First Deadly Sin.

[00:06:12]Thou [music] shalt not turn off TCM tonight.