THE KILLERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 399, 14 February 1947, Page 24

THE KILLERS

(Mark Hellinger-Universal)

F only the crisp suspense of the opening sequence could have been sustained throughout; if only the atmosphere of casually sinister pur-

pose could have been spread over the whole film and not confined to those first scenes; if only Ernest Hemingway had written all the dialogue; if only ..... But it is useless to repirie, for what I am asking for is a film quite other than what we are given here. I am asking, in fact, that instead of writing a short and simple story which is a brief masterpiece of terror-by-suggestion, Hemingway should have written a long and equally good one, and that Director Robert Siodmak should have been equally as diligent and successful in transferring it to the screen as he has been for the first ten minutes of The Killers, That is an unreasonable request, because the essence of Hemingway’s story is that it is short and inconclusive, terminating with a large and horrible question-mark. * * *

WITH characteristic abruptness Hemingway launches us into a nightmarish yet matter-of-fact situation in which two professional killers casuclly walk into a restaurant and with cool deliberation prepare to shoot a regular customer known as "The Swede" who is expected at six for his even:ng meal. Their manner is detached and impartial; it is just a job to them, this killing. With off-hand thoroughness they hold up the horrified proprietor and the few customers already in the place, arrange the scene to suit the:r purpose, and then sit down to wait patiently for their victim. When finally convinced that he won’t be showing up that evening, they just as casually walk off again into the night, leaving the onlookers with the impression that they have plenty of time and plenty of patience. And that is exactly the attitude adopted by their intended victim when one of the customers rushes over from the restaurant (continued on ‘next page)

(continued from previous page) to warn him of his danger and urge him > td escape. "The Swede" is lying on his | bed when the message reaches him; he | doesn’t even bother to get off it, but with | tited resignation simply waits for his doom. * * * T is at this point in the film that the Hollywood s¢fiptwriter takes over from Hemitigway and tries to dispose of the author's question-mark. Having stiown us "The Swéde" being murdered, hé attempts to explain why. But to me his answer is neither convincing nor clear; certainly not clear. An insurance investigator (Edmund O’Brien) pries into the murder and starts to ufedver a pretty sordid mess of mayhetn and intrigue; all kinds of questionable characters ate introduced, including a sultry temptress (Ava Gardner) who was involved in "The Swede’s" love-life, and a big-shot tacketeer (Albert Dekker) who led him into a career of ¢rime and in the end made his life not worth living. The further the investigation proceeds the thicker bécomes the tangle of plot and counterplot, double-crossing and triple-crossing, clues, false scents, and explanations. I suppose some members of the audience found their way out satisfactorily, but frankly, I was still in the middle of the | thicket when the curtain went down. , Robert Siodmak is a much-better-than-average director for this variety of melodrama: he has the Hitchcock flair for introducing menace into evefyday situations and surroundings and, particularly when he phofogfaplis street, scenes at night, he manages to convey a feeling that something dangerous afd urnexpécted is lurking in the shadows or waiting round the corner. He is assisted here by acting which is competent if not sensational. Yet the net result of his labours is that, in the process of blowing up The Killers into a full-length melodrama, he succeeds only in reducing an unusually brilliant short story to the level of a conventional, tough Hollywood whodunit, This does not mean that The Killers is not a useful entertainment in its class; the type of thriller which talks all the time out of the corner of its mouth. But | if it is remembered at all five years from | néw it will be because of those first ten minutes.