The Killers (1946)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Killers (1946) – R. Siodmak

I haven’t read the Hemingway short story in a long time but I don’t think it involves Edmond O’Brien’s insurance investigator zealously putting the facts together after the titular killers have offed Burt Lancaster.  But this is exactly the structure that Siodmak’s exemplary film noir takes – that’s right, all flashbacks as O’Brien identifies and interviews one relevant person after another, slowly piecing together a major crime (hat factory payroll) and a dirty double cross involving a too good to be true femme fatale (young Ava Gardner).  Low-key high contrast lighting (shadows everywhere) is the order of the day and a fair few additional trademarks of the noir genre also make an appearance (boxing ring, heist, protagonist hiding out under an alias in a small town, professional killers, hospital deathbed clues in last words, and so on).  Lancaster comes across a bit more naïve than he might later in his career but this serves the story fine.  One of the classics.