"A man stood still as we burned him, and we'd like to know why."
Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers" inspired two very different films. George Siodmark's The Killers (1946) is an archetypical noir using Hemingway to probe a two-bit hood's final days. Eighteen years later, Don Siegel produced an even looser adaptation, focusing equally on that man's executioners.Contract killers Charlie (Lee Marvin) and Lee (Clu Gulager) murder racecar driver Johnny North (John Cassavettes). Unnerved by Johnny's willingness to die and the price on his head, Charlie travels to Miami, digging into North's past. North was mixed up with Sheila (Angie Dickinson), a gold digger sleeping with gangster Jack Browning (Ronald Reagan) who snagged him for a million dollar heist. Charlie and Lee decided they want a piece of the action, confronting Jack and his goons.
The Killers started life as a television movie and suffers the medium's shortcomings. Gene L. Coon's script bristles with sharp dialogue, but the plot gets tangled in several long flashbacks. Johnny is a loser easily duped by Sheila and Jack, their scenes talky wheel spinning born of chintzy detective shows. Charlie and Lee's story is snappier, with its stylish hoods bantering and threatening their way across country. Quentin Tarantino undoubtedly took notes.
Siegel shoots in an economical style, filled with medium shots and second unit work (process shots in Johnny's races are especially chintzy). He exerts his voice through unsentimental violence: Charlie and Lee menace a blind teacher (Virginia Christie) and shoot Johnny as chattering classmates drown their silencers. They dangle Sheila out a window and menace an informer in a steam room, recalling The Lineup's signature scene. This extends to a pitiless finale, which is striking even though rushed.
Lee Marvin graduated from second-string villains into a macho icon. His glowering menace and inimitable gravel purr make him an ideal antihero without softening his brute nastiness. Clu Gulager's laconic sidekick sports sunglasses and a bad attitude. Angie Dickinson's cozy femme proves likeable even while dealing deceit. Ronald Reagan's slimy villain provides a nasty novelty; this was his final film before entering politics. John Cassavettes' intensity burns through a nothing role; Claude Akins scores as his partner.
Clunky and over-plotted, The Killers is far from Don Siegel's best work. It would work better if he jettisoned the flashbacks for its crooks on the prowl angle. Still, there's enough memorable material to merit a watch.
