The Killers

A crime film taken from a Hemingway story. Two hired killers walk into a school for the blind and shoot a man who teaches there. He does not run, does not resist, and waits as though he knew. One of the killers finds that strange. He wants to know why the man did not run and starts asking questions after the job. The narrative proceeds in flashback. The man was a racing driver; he met a woman and she drew him into a robbery. Where the money went is still unclear, and now the killers are after it too. What the film is interested in is not the crime but why the man was finished. The narrative gives it piece by piece. It was made for television. The result was considered too hard, and instead of being broadcast it was released in cinemas; one of the first American films made for television to go out theatrically. Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager play the killers, Angie Dickinson the woman and John Cassavetes the driver. Ronald Reagan is in the cast, in his last film role. Don Siegel directed. A strong example within its genre for anyone who likes noir and the hard American cinema of the 1960s. For a viewer expecting classical noir, this one is in colour and its register is colder.