I was absolutely bowled over by the marvellous narrative strength, brilliant editing and wonderful casting of this film.Classic film noir it is and ROBERT SIODMAK puts together a wonderful narrative that weaves back and forth taking the viewer on an amazing ride in putting the pieces of this puzzle together.Simply loved the film .
shareHi! My name is Mercedyz. I, too, enjoy the movie. My favorite actor, Charles McGraw (Al. the Killer)is wonderful in his short but memorable stint in the movie. He and William Conrad set the tone at the beginning and the movie doesn't skip a beat from there. Everything including the music works in this movie. Who cares if there are a few mistakes.
shareJust saw it and really liked it as well. I particuarily loved the visual style of the film; Siodmak puts together some astonishing visual set pieces (a particular standout being the robbery, which is all done in one amazing crane shot). In addition, Lancaster is excellent.
My only real problem was that the best part of the film was the first ten minutes; quite possibly the greatest opening to any film I've ever seen. ("I'll tell you what's going to happen. We're gonna kill the Swede.") After that, basically everything else was an anti-climax, if admittedly a very well done anti-climax.
I'm now very interested to see the Don Siegel film and compare/contrast the two.
Well if you loved the first 10 minutes of the film then you'd absolutely LOVE Hemingway...! cause the opening scene right up to where Nick Adams rushes over to the boarding house to warn Swede is taken WORD for WORD from his short story that makes up the first 10 minutes of the film..anything after that is pure hollywood!
shareI'm sure you all have observed the similarity of McGraw's and Conrad's hitmen to John Travolta's and Samuel L. Jackson's hitmen in Pulp Fiction.
I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn't get the money... and I didn't get the woman.
anything after that is pure hollywood!
The opening sequence is good, but after seeing it 5 or 6 times I start laughing at the scene in the diner: the pistol barrel protruding through the gap in the sliding panels, the repetition of "bright boy", etc. What kind of professional killers let a crowd of people see their faces, then go wandering off into the night before the job is done?
On the other hand, the scene of the Swede in his room waiting passively for the killers sets the perfect noir mood of doom, just as it did in the Hemingway story.
IMHO, the piece de resistance is the scene where Kitty pleads with the dead Colfax to "Tell them Kitty is innocent!" That few seconds earned Kitty Collins a place in the femme fatale Hall of Fame and made Ava Gardner a star.
I find the diner opening to be somewhat stilted, as if they were being overly reverent to the Hemingway original. It's after Swede is shot that it really opens up and starts to move, as if they were finally free from the restrictions of "Papa's" short story.
"I think it would be fun to run a newspaper"
I felt the beginning 10 minutes are the best 10 minutes of the whole movie. The heist scene was basicly shot by one take, it is a textbook example for camera movement.
shareI really agree about the first 15 minutes or so, I only watched the first 50 minutes I didn't have much time and my recording thing was getting full so I just erased it. If the rest of the movie is even half as enjoyable I'll love it, I can't wait to see the entirety.
"Have you ever danced with a refrigerator?"
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A good movie, but not fantastic...
It's really not noir; it comes across as a crime/melodrama film I think.
Too much O’Brien and too little Lancaster and Gardner makes it rather too.
Worth a quick view but not really "re-watchable". ;-)
marvellous narrative strength
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