328 - The Killers, United States, 1964. Dir. Don Siegel.

Friday, November 24, 2017

328 - The Killers, United States, 1964.  Dir. Don Siegel.

Yesterday we watched The Killers.

Today we watch The Killers.

Yesterday's 1946 film noir masterpiece was produced by Mark Hellinger and directed by Robert Siodmak.  It starred Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker, and Sam Levine, with a host of strong supporting character actors.

Today's 1964 color film, originally filmed for television, was produced and directed by Don Siegel, who became known as Clint Eastwood's director, directing Clint in Coogan's Bluff, Two Mules for Sister Sara, The Beguiled, Dirty Harry, and Escape from Alcatraz.

Hellinger had originally wanted Siegel for the 1946 version.  Siegel had spent several years working as a Montage Editor and Assistant Director and was now an up-and-coming director with his Warner Bros. crime drama The Verdict, starring Warner staples Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.  But Hellinger could not get him, so he hired Siodmak instead.  Siodmak, as it turns out, made one of the great film noir films in history.

With this film Siegel gets the chance to come back and film his own version--probably one that is different from what he himself would have filmed 18 years earlier.

Today's The Killers stars Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes (see our entries from 1/31 to 2/04 on the films he directed!), Clu Galager, Claude Akins, Norman Fell, Virginia Christine, Don Haggerty.

And Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan packs a punch.  Or in this case a slap.  His character Jack Browning famously slaps Angie Dickinson's character Sheila Farr.  (On the left cheek.  She turns and clutches her right cheek.  Both times it is the downstage side.)

With this film, Reagan, who often plays the good guy, has the opportunity to explore a darker side.

Claude Akins, known as a dependable slow-paced heavy, also famously cries in this film.  He has the opportunity to explore a more sensitive side.

Don Siegel has provided a venue at least in which the actors may explore things.

Because Ernest Hemingway's source story is a short story and takes up only the beginning minutes of both versions, each version has the freedom to create its own explanation for why the Swede does not resist the killers.

In this case, Siegel changes the short story itself.  He changes the opening scene.  The killers' victim is no longer the Swede but an American, Johnny North, and the killers no longer obtain knowledge of his whereabouts from the local diner but at the local school for the blind.  Johnny further is not shot at home but upstairs at the school, in his classroom, at his desk.

Another change is that rather than having an insurance adjuster follow clues to discover why the victim does not resist, Siegel turns the search over to one of the killers himself.

Charlie Strom, played by Lee Marvin, is so puzzled by Johnny's unwillingness to flee, that he himself, with partner Lee in tow, played by Clu Galager, does the investigating.

Some of the other elements that follow retain some similarities to the earlier story that was basically fleshed out by John Huston, as well as credited screenwriter Anthony Veiller.

The film would have been one of the first made-for-TV movies but was considered too violent at the time to air on television, so it was made into a feature film.

Now sit back and relax and enjoy.

The Killers.