Killing Burt Lancaster in the first ten minutes of a film may not be considered good form, but that is exactly what director Robert Siodmak does.
Siodmak knew good writing when he saw it, as did John Huston with a writer like Dashiell Hammett in “The Maltese Falcon”. “The Killers” on screen is a beat for beat portrayal of Hemingway’s short story of the same name. Dialogue is spot on. The tension palpable. But where the literary version gives a sense of shifting sand and uncertainty, rather like a piece of music constantly changing key, the movie instills palpable, unambivalent fear.