Although it pales beside Andrei Tarkovsky’s version of the same 1927 Ernest Hemingway story, “The Killers,” ten years hence, Robert Siodmak’s version is entirely different. Whereas Tarkovsky’s film conforms to the story, exhausting it and being exhausted by it, only the opening of Siodmak’s film conforms to the text, which is a springboard for the rest of the film, which finds an insurance investigator trying to answer the question why two hit men murdered Ole (here) Andersen (Andresen in the story). Whereas Tarkovsky’s film is existential, Siodmak’s is a film noir structured as a series of flashbacks—flashbacks, one must add, that show us many lies, four years before Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, but without dusting up outrage and controversy.
Siodmak’s direction is stunning, somewhat justifying the Oscar nomination that Siodmak won for it; but he has applied visually imaginative filmmaking to essentially mediocre material. The extension or expansion of Hemingway’s story always feels instead like something grafted onto the story. Nowhere does it seem to be penetrating the story, discovering a reality of treachery and double-dealing behind the execution of Ole Andresen, “the Swede.” It’s all convoluted nonsense; the final flurry of twists and revelations feels irrelevant, a blast of hot air.
Still, one cannot say about many films that they made overnight stars of the magnitude of Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, neither of whom is particularly good, mind you, but whose generic roles—dupe and femme fatale—provide them with the appropriate emotional marks to hit. Indeed, the only good acting comes from Edmond O’Brien as the indefatigable insurance investigator, Jim Reardon.
Perhaps what is most intriguing here is Kitty Collins’s ambiguity, how her treachery to one man, through the other end of the morality telescope, becomes her loyalty to another man.
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Tags: Siodmak/Grunes, Tarkovsky Grunes
This entry was posted on June 26, 2009 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Formal Capsule Film Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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THE KILLERS (Robert Siodmak, 1946)
Although it pales beside Andrei Tarkovsky’s version of the same 1927 Ernest Hemingway story, “The Killers,” ten years hence, Robert Siodmak’s version is entirely different. Whereas Tarkovsky’s film conforms to the story, exhausting it and being exhausted by it, only the opening of Siodmak’s film conforms to the text, which is a springboard for the rest of the film, which finds an insurance investigator trying to answer the question why two hit men murdered Ole (here) Andersen (Andresen in the story). Whereas Tarkovsky’s film is existential, Siodmak’s is a film noir structured as a series of flashbacks—flashbacks, one must add, that show us many lies, four years before Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, but without dusting up outrage and controversy.
Siodmak’s direction is stunning, somewhat justifying the Oscar nomination that Siodmak won for it; but he has applied visually imaginative filmmaking to essentially mediocre material. The extension or expansion of Hemingway’s story always feels instead like something grafted onto the story. Nowhere does it seem to be penetrating the story, discovering a reality of treachery and double-dealing behind the execution of Ole Andresen, “the Swede.” It’s all convoluted nonsense; the final flurry of twists and revelations feels irrelevant, a blast of hot air.
Still, one cannot say about many films that they made overnight stars of the magnitude of Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, neither of whom is particularly good, mind you, but whose generic roles—dupe and femme fatale—provide them with the appropriate emotional marks to hit. Indeed, the only good acting comes from Edmond O’Brien as the indefatigable insurance investigator, Jim Reardon.
Perhaps what is most intriguing here is Kitty Collins’s ambiguity, how her treachery to one man, through the other end of the morality telescope, becomes her loyalty to another man.
Like this:
Tags: Siodmak/Grunes, Tarkovsky Grunes
This entry was posted on June 26, 2009 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Formal Capsule Film Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.