kevroy7

Forget the lighting. The sexual tension in this scene is off the charts. And all within the rules of the time.

The camera moving in to Greenstreet, resting at a canted angle, makes Lorre's voice all the more prominent when he speaks off screen. Very effective and unexpected.

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.

WHOA! What a scene. If we're talking about music, we should mention the out-of-sync jazz combo in "Dementia", the film originally made as a silent flick in the 1950's. A masterpiece of noir expressionism utterly destroyed by the addition of narration by none other than Ed McMahon.

Something about the opening scene, the techniques used, seems to expand time. It feels ten minutes has elapsed when actually it is less than two.

Yeah, the point of view camera isn't working for me. It's too stiff, too staged, too fake.

That first shot was fantastic! You go, girl!

The shaky cam gives a feeling of being on the train.

The cop helping the little girl across the street feels disarming, effectively lessening the tension. It makes the half second view of a man leaning against the lamp post reading a paper seem intensely threatening.