{"id":16057,"date":"2015-07-07T01:07:32","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T05:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=16057"},"modified":"2015-07-07T01:10:02","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T05:10:02","slug":"the-killers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2015\/07\/07\/the-killers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Killers<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
Review of The Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition:\r\n\r\nThe Killers<\/em><\/strong>\r\nd.\u00a0Robert Siodmak\u00a0(1946)\r\n\r\nThe Killers<\/em><\/strong>\r\nd. Don Siegel (1964)\r\n\r\nSpine: #176\r\nBlu-ray Release Date: July 7, 2015\r\n\r\nScreen captures below are taken from The Criterion Collection Blu-ray discs, but resolution has been reduced from 1920x1080 to 900x506 and slightly compressed. You may click on them to view the 900x506 image. Once again, because I still haven't had a chance to replace my Blu-ray drive, I've availed myself of Gary Tooze of DVD Beaver, who has kindly granted me permission to use stills he posted on his website DVD Beaver (here<\/span><\/strong><\/a>) until I get my drive fixed.<\/pre>\n
In 1927 Ernest Hemingway published a short story called “The Killers” in Scribner’s Magazine<\/em>. Hemingway’s places his often used protagonist Nick Adams in a little diner, just before 6:00 p.m. However, in “The Killers” Adams is more or less a side character who happens there when two men come in asking\u00a0about the Swede. These men, after intimidating the three men in the diner, have no problems telling them that they’re there to kill the Swede, though not because of anything he did to them: “He never had the chance to do anything to us.” We wait and wonder when the Swede will show up and what will happen when he does. But he doesn’t. The two men, confident they have nothing to worry about from the three scared men in the diner, leave. Nick runs off to warn the Swede, but what does he find? A man lying on his bed and who is not interested in the warning, other than to\u00a0offer a genuine\u00a0thanks for the concern. The Swede tells Nick not to do anything. Nothing can be done.<\/p>\n
Hemingway doesn’t explain why the Swede accepts his fate in this manner, resigned and withdrawn, as if he’s already dead.\u00a0The open question is\u00a0one of the story’s most compelling features, though the intimidating killers of the title, with their cruel comedy, are compelling as well. To the killers, this is just a job. The Swede\u00a0accepts that and\u00a0has no wish to stop them. Why?<\/p>\n
There are two film versions that open the story up and give us protagonists (or killers) who track the answer to their own wretched ends. Both titled The Killers<\/em>, the first is Robert Siodmak’s 1946 film noir, starring Burt Lancaster, in his debut,\u00a0and Ava Gardner; the second is Don Siegel’s 1964 crime drama, starring Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes, and Ronald Reagan in his final film. Today,\u00a0The Criterion\u00a0Collection is releasing an upgrade\u00a0of their great double feature disc, so you can now watch each film on Blu-ray.<\/p>\n
\"The<\/p>\n
While both films are great on their own — indeed, Siodmak’s version is one of my favorite films noir — there is a lot of value in watching them side by side as well, for they take similar material and express a similar narrative in strikingly different styles, making this double feature a wonderful examination of how style affects the story.<\/p>\n
Each takes as its starting point the basic premise of the Ernest Hemingway story: a man is confronted by two killers and does nothing to stop them (in fact,\u00a0Siodmak’s\u00a0opening is incredibly faithful to the short story itself, giving us, and then completely disregarding, the Nick Adams character). In Siodmak’s version, an insurance investigator, who is looking into\u00a0the Swede’s life insurance policy,\u00a0just has to know why the Swede did nothing to escape his fate, though his boss keeps telling him it’s simply not worth it from a business perspective. In Siegel’s version, the killer himself, played by the menacing Lee Marvin, is perplexed that the man he was hired to kill did not run — indeed, did nothing to escape the gun, perhaps welcomed it. What follows in each film is an investigation, leading to several key witnesses and their accompanying flashbacks, all because we just have a hard time accepting that a man\u00a0values his life at zero.<\/p>\n
\"The<\/a>
The killers, Charles McGraw and William Conrad.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Rendered beautifully in black and white, the 1946 version gives us Burt Lancaster as a washed out boxer succumbing to his demons in the shadowy opener.<\/p>\n
\"The<\/a>
The victim, Burt Lancaster.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A particular demon, we come to learn, is a relationship with Eva Gardner’s femme fatale, who has links to the criminal underworld, links on a chain that unfortunately lead to a possessive ring leader named “Big Jim” Colfax (Albert Dekker).<\/p>\n
\"The<\/a>
The woman, Ava Gardner.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Edmond O’Brien plays the insurance investigator who tries to put the pieces together and figure out just what happened between all of these characters, all in an effort to understand the final actions of a dying man.\u00a0Because of this quest, it has\u00a0been called the Citizen Kane<\/em> of film noir (though Citizen Kane<\/em> itself has been called a film noir.<\/p>\n
Siegel’s version is not a film noir. Rather, it is a sunny film filled with cool.<\/p>\n
\"The<\/a>
The killers, Clu Gulager and Lee Marvin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I was surprised to learn that this version was initially meant to play on television but that it was so violent it was sent to the movie theater instead. Honestly, simply having Lee Marvin on screen is an exercise in violence. Every time the man intimidates a character one cannot help but squirm.<\/p>\n
But, again, there is one<\/em> man who is does not fall back. This is John Cassavetes as the race-car driver Johnny North. When the film begins, the two killers enter a school for the blind at which Johnny teaches. They track him down, he’s warned they’re coming, and he just waits.<\/p>\n
\"The<\/a>
The victim, John Cassavetes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Hitman Lee Marvin, feeling like something is up since this is not the usual protocol, starts shaking people down, uncovering a story of greed and corruption that leads him to Ronald Reagan’s only role as the outright villain, pulling the strings of Angie Dickinson’s Sheila Farr, who courts Johnny at the race track.<\/p>\n
\"The<\/a>
The woman, Angie Dickinson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
These are two fine films, coming together nicely in one package and for the price of one spine number.<\/p>\n
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Besides the two films, the disc comes with a number of supplements, though reportedly not as many as were found on the original DVD:<\/p>\n