Sun 22 Jan 2017
BORN TO KILL. RKO Radio Pictures, 1947. Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak, Phillip Terry, Audrey Long, Elisha Cook Jr., Isabel Jewell, Esther Howard. Screenplay: Eve Greene & Richard Macaulay, based on the novel Deadlier Than the Male, by James Gunn. Director: Robert Wise.
Do you know what? If you were to put Lawrence Tierney into a tuxedo about to marry a wealthy socialite of the caliber of Georgia Staples (Audrey Long), he’d still look like Lawrence Tierney. One of the premises of this story is that bad guys like Sam Wilde (a very appropriate last name) can be irresistible to women, no matter how much money and common sense they are supposed to have.
Another premise is that women can be as cold-blooded and filled with ice in their hearts as men can. The title of the film could also apply just as well to Georgia’s sister Helen (Claire Trevor), except she never kills anyone. But Sam does. When a girl he is going with in Reno (Isabel Jewell) decides to make him a little jealous by going out with another guy (Tony Barrett), the two of them end up dead.
But Helen, accidentally stumbling over their bodies, doesn’t turn a hair. She calmly evaluates the situation, decides she doesn’t need to become involved, and calls for a ticket on a train out of town. Although just divorced, she has a wealthy suitor waiting for her back in San Francisco. She has met Sam in a casino, however, and now again on the train, and if sparks ever really fly in this movie, it is then.
It is quite an opening, and considering that this movie was made in 1947, I am sure it was quite unique at the time. Unfortunately, and it is here that I may be going heretical on you, but the middle of the film falls to the depths of an almost frothy soap opera. (I did say almost.)
Only the presence of a scoundrel of a private eye (most excellently played by Walter Slezak) hired by the dead girl’s landlady (Esther Howard), having followed Helen and Sam to San Francisco and snooping around, is there to remind us what a hardboiled crime film it is that we have been watching all along. (Plus of course Lawrence Tierney’s glowering presence in every scene he’s in.)
This is good film, in my opinion, but not a great one. I think that all of the characters in this film are over the top, some more than others. Personally I stopped believing in it when Claire Trevor walks over the dead bodies without the batting of an eyelash, but I didn’t mind one iota, I’ve decided, in happily going along for the ride.
January 22nd, 2017 at 9:36 pm
No real heroes here. Everyone is a victim or a villain, but it’s a pleasure to watch them snipe, hiss, and bite each other.
January 22nd, 2017 at 11:40 pm
This is one of my all time favorite film noirs and what a great title. It also does more than hint at a homosexual relationship between Tierney and Elisha Cook, Jr. When Tierney kills his pal Elisha, it’s like he does it because he thinks Elisha has been unfaithful to him.
I’ve seen this film several times and it never fails to fascinate.
January 23rd, 2017 at 8:33 am
Lawrence Tierney’s period of stardom only lasted four years (1945-1948) and six movies. Many actors who started out as 40’s villains parlayed their talents into long careers: Richard Widmark, Kirk Douglas, Dan Duryea. Not Lawrence Tierney.
While people think of Lawrence Tierney as a villain, my favorites of his films cast him as a good guy: “Step by Step” (Phil Rosen, 1946), “Bodyguard” (Richard Fleischer, 1948).
January 23rd, 2017 at 8:48 am
James Gunn should not be confused with noted science fiction writer and academic James E. Gunn (THE IMMORTALS, THE ROAD TO SCIENCE FICTION, H. G. WELLS: CRITIC OF PROGRESS) or with film writer/producer/director/actor James Gunn (GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY)
January 23rd, 2017 at 2:43 pm
Back before information about authors was a whole lot easier to come by (i.e., pre-Internet), there was a lot of confusion about the two James Gunn’s. you’re right, Jerry. Two different men. I don’t know much about the mystery writer James Gunn, but according to Hubin, DEADLIER THAN THE MALE was his only work of crime fiction.
And maybe this is a good place to point out that co-screenwriter for BORN TO KILL, Richard Macaulay, is the same Richard Macaulay that Dan Stumpf was asking about as the author of the book the film THE GOOD DIE YOUNG was based on. His review of the latter is here: https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=45343
January 23rd, 2017 at 6:36 pm
Seems like Lawrence Tierney would’ve been a good choice to play Mike Hammer.
January 24th, 2017 at 12:03 am
Gary, you have a good idea, too late now, but it might have been perfect because Mike Hammer, in my view, was never well cast.
January 24th, 2017 at 3:18 pm
I’m not so sure that Tierney had the acting range I’d like to see in my Mike Hammer, but he’s not a bad choice. One thing’s for certain, he’d had been 500 times better than Darren McGavin.
January 24th, 2017 at 10:47 pm
Tierney is also his meanest and psycho in the movie “The Devil Thumbs A Ride”. In it, he kills a girl who won’t put out for him,
and that makes the dead girls friend all the more hotter for him! A must see movie for Tierney fans.