Hemingway and The Killers

A few days ago, I watched The Killers (1946) for the first time. I'm in love with crime and film noir, so naturally, I loved this movie. There are a couple other film adaptations of The Killers, but I've only seen the 1946 version so far. The Killers is based on a short story that was written by Ernest Hemingway. I've never read it, but I'd love to get my hands on a copy of it. Hemingway wrote quite a few short stories and novels that have been translated into films, one of my favorites being To Have and Have Not (1944).

The Killers is about a man, known as the 'Swede,' whose life changes drastically after he meets the beautiful and deadly Kitty Collins. The film starts out with two hit men invading a small town and tracking down Swede to murder him. Swede has been expecting them to come and doesn't do much to prevent them from murdering him. The film then goes through a series of flashbacks to give the audience insight as to how Kitty changed Swede's life.

My favorite character in this was Jim Reardon. He reminded me a bit of Bogie in The Big Sleep (1946) and The Maltese Falcon (1941). Honestly, I think that Bogie would have been great playing Jim Reardon, maybe even better than Edmond O'Brien was. That's really saying something about Bogie's acting skills because Edmond was brilliant at playing Jim, but I just can't get enough of Bogie's performances. Edmond sort of looks like Bogie in the picture above.

Ava Gardner was fantastic as the femme fatale. I mean, really, those men didn't stand a chance against her, she was so pretty! She and Burt Lancaster looked amazing together. I was upset that we didn't get to see more of their chemistry during the film. We really should have, since Kitty and the Swede supposedly had this amazing love affair with each other. I honestly cannot believe that this is Burt's first film ever, he did a fantastic job and he sure was handsome. Darn that Kitty!