Review of The Killers

Archetype of film noir, "The Killers" has become cult for displaying so many qualities, providing Burt Lancaster his first role ever, Ava Gardner her first important role and the fact Hemingway said: "It is a good picture and the only good picture ever made of a story of mine" (source: Wikipedia). Regarding the last point, actually only the prologue running for approximately 15 minutes is directly adapted from Hemingway's short story: the rest of the movie is a conjecture about this simple plot. Regarding cast, Lancaster and Gardner would play together in just two other films much later on: Seven Days in May (1964) and The Cassandra Crossing (1976).

The structure essentially relies on a prologue (until Swede's death), 11 flashbacks voiced by 8 different characters and an epilogue (resolution and Colfax's death). Other "present" scenes are mainly transitions between flashbacks or fuel the action, hence most aesthetical values reside in the three abovementioned parts, for which there are two important items to consider: lighting which is a key element in noir genre and the diegetic order of the flashbacks. Below is a list of sequences, indicating if they are on the bright or dark side, and for flashbacks the order in which action occurs, between brackets.-

• Prologue: before entering the diner - Dark
• Prologue: in the diner - Bright
• Prologue: Swede's room - Dark
• Flashback: Colfax at the garage - Bright (11)
• Flashback: the Swede at the hotel - Dark (10)
• Flashback: the boxing match - Bright (1)
• Flashback: the party at Colfax's - Dark since it's night (2)
• Flashback: the restaurant - Bright (3)
• Flashback: in jail - Dark (4)
• Flashback: the planning of the heist - Dark (5)
• Flashback: the heist - Bright (8)
• Flashback: the evening before the heist - Dark (6)
• Flashback: after the heist - Bright (9)
• Flashback: the night before the heist - Dark (7)
• Epilogue: Colfax's house - Dark

LIGHT AND SHADOW

As we see, there is an almost perfect alternance between bright and dark sequences. This is not just aesthetical: it illustrates the characters' ambiguities.-

• Ole "Swede" Anderson is fair and a life-long friend of a policeman, but is easily seduced by villains after giving up boxing.-
• Kitty Collins, a model femme fatale, seems truly in love with the Swede, yet betrays him even though he spent three years in jail to save her. Does she really love Colfax by the way? When he is dying, she despairs more about her condition than his passing away. As a side note, the movie sticks to Hollywood canons: when there are two main female characters, there generally is a brunette (Kitty) and a blonde (Lilly).-
• Jim Reardon is a life insurance investigator, yet uses dangerous methods: he threatens "Dum-Dum" to obtain information before the police arrive, which allows him to escape; he's not scared of being a target for the hitmen at the end.-
• Sam Lubinsky is a police officer but risks patrons' lives in the restaurant to shoot the killers, instead of arresting them outside.-
• "Big Jim" Colfax is the gang leader, yet eventually goes straight.-
• Charleston is described by Sam as a criminal but seems like an inoffensive old fellow.-
• "Dum-Dum" Clarke probably got his nickname by shooting but is in fact not frightening and never fires once: we just hear him shoot at the end; he dies soon afterwards. He even gets dominated by an insurance agent (even if he manages to escape) and knocked out by the Swede.-
• The two hitmen are supposed to be scary, yet uncover their plot at the diner; later they just manage to shoot an unarmed person on his bed, and then not very well: the wall behind is riddled with bullet holes as we discover afterwards. They easily get eliminated at the restaurant.

Let's go a bit deeper: actually the whole movie is ambiguous.-

• If the title "The Killers" fitted Hemingway's short story since the hitmen had an important role, it becomes confusing for the film where they play a reduced part in the extended story.-
• There are four major plot twists just regarding the heist, that we progressively discover through flashbacks: Colfax apparently double-crosses the Swede by keeping him out of the split; Kitty and the Swede double-cross Colfax by fleeing with the money; Kitty double-crosses the Swede by taking the money; Colfax and Kitty double-cross everybody. Nowadays plot twists are common but in 1946 such a succession was exceptional. Everyone is hustled, including we viewers who are pushed form one side to the other.-
• All the efforts to find the money, a considerable amount at the time, only result in the insurance rate dropping... one-tenth of a cent! The supreme final irony, downsizing everything we have seen: was all the tension and violence worth it?-
• Irony is indeed frequent. On top of the abovementioned (the killers acting like amateurs, etc.), here are a few examples. An important life insurance policy (2,500$, more than Sam's annual salary of 2,200$) is given to Mary Ellen "Queenie" Doherty... who at first doesn't even remember the benefactor. The Swede at first does not realise the boxing match is over. A splendid jewel is hidden... in a broth. Kitty and Jim meet in front of a nightclub named "The Green Cat", a reference to her first name; later in the restaurant she orders... a glass of milk. Kitty abandons the Swede in... Atlantic City, the capital of divorce.-
• The Swede is the central character since he is present in all flashbacks, yet is paradoxically always in the background, physically or psychologically. In the prologue, he appears after a long time; when he does, we first don't see his face; he dies soon afterwards. In the flashbacks: he is treated rudely by Colfax at the garage; he wants to kill himself at the hotel; he loses the boxing match and is completely groggy afterwards; he is under Kitty's charm during the party at Colfax's; he appears at the very end of the scene in the restaurant and runs away; he does not talk much in jail while Charleston does; he arrives late for the planning of the heist; he is a distant figure during the heist, like the other members of the gang; he is sleeping at the beginning of the evening before the heist; he appears late in the scene after the heist; he is manipulated by Kitty the night before the heist.

A PUZZLING PUZZLE

The number of flashbacks, eleven, is exceptional for the period: the movie is fragmented like a puzzle from which we manage to pick up pieces only progressively. There is more: let's go back to the sequence list above. Here is a recap of the flashbacks diegetic order: 11, 10, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 6, 9, 7.-

• The order of the first two scenes 11 and 10 is logical: we go backwards in time starting from the night of the murder.-
• Then the order is strictly linear: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. There hence is a first switch: after going backwards, we move chronologically. Again it is logical: after discovering a few immediate elements, we move to the very beginning of the story and follow the thread.-
• However the last four flashbacks are doubly troubling. First because the action occurs in less than a day, from the evening before the heist to shortly after the heist, while the other flashbacks spread over more than three years. Second because the order is altered: 8, 6, 9, 7; they look like parallel lines (8, 9 and 6, 7) intertwined. Thus towards the end, structure becomes condensed and confused, in line with the successive plot twists: rarely has form been so consistent with content.

In summary, "The Killers" is an absolute reference of the genre and probably Robert Siodmak's masterpiece, which says something: at the time he had already directed 28 full features in Germany, France and United States; he would direct 55 in his whole career. In total he directed twelve films noirs, more than any other director. The movie perfectly applies the genre canons and transcends them by its remarkable construction, photography and complexity: it is a perfect combination of Hollywood style and German Expressionism, which greatly influenced Siodmak.