The Killers (1964)

Surprised that their contract victim didn't try to run away from them, two professional hit men try to find out who hired them and why.

Director:

Don Siegel

Writers:

Ernest Hemingway (story), Gene L. Coon (screenplay)

Stars:

Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes

Won 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Lee Marvin	...	Charlie Strom
Angie Dickinson	...	Sheila Farr
John Cassavetes	...	Johnny North
Clu Gulager	...	Lee
Claude Akins	...	Earl Sylvester
Norman Fell	...	Mickey Farmer
Ronald Reagan	...	Jack Browning
Virginia Christine	...	Miss Watson
Don Haggerty	...	Mail Truck Driver
Robert Phillips	...	George Fleming
Kathleen O'Malley	...	Miss Leslie - the receptionist
Ted Jacques	...	Gym Assistant
Irvin Mosley Jr.	...	Mail Truck Guard (as Irvin Mosley)
Jimmy Joyce	...	Salesman
Davis Roberts	...	Maître D'

Storyline

Supposedly based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway. In this film noir, two hitmen want to find out why their latest victim (a race car driver!) "just stood there and took it" when they came to shoot him. Ronald Reagan plays a rich, double-crossing bad guy. A young Angie Dickinson (looking just like Ellen Barkin) plays the femme fatale.

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Plot Keywords:

robbery | teacher | school for the blind | steak | helicopter shot | 

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Taglines:

There is more than one way to kill a man!

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 July 1964 (USA)

Also Known As:

Ernest Hemingway's The Killers

Filming Locations:

Northern California, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Revue Studios

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Among other actors considered for Ronald Reagan's role were Barry Nelson, Gig Young, John Forsythe, Leslie Nielsen, Van Johnson, Richard Conte, Steve Cochran, Richard Basehart and Walter Matthau.

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Goofs

Early in the movie, Johnnie comes in off the track after a solo test session. There are no other cars on the track and he has "goggle eyes" i.e. dirt on his face except where his driving "glasses" were. Drivers only look like that after having been in a race. Since he was on the track by himself, there would be no source of that dirt (from other cars).

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Quotes

Johnny North: [to Sheila behind the steering wheel] Slide over - nobody drives for me.

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Connections

Referenced in Icarus Descending (1998)

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Soundtracks

"Too Little Time"
Music by Henry Mancini
Lyrics by Don Raye
Sung by Nancy Wilson

User Reviews

Lee Marvin vs. Ronald Reagan--What a matchup!

One of Hollywood's greater contract directors, Donald Siegel, brought Hemmingway's short story to TV, but NBC turned it down because, for 1964, it was too damn brutal. Although it pales in comparison to the 1946 original, this cheap (thanks to the gawd-awful production values of Universal in the sixties) remake holds it own.

When button-men Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager show up at a school for the blind to empty their silenced revolvers into former race-car driver John Cassavetes, they don't expect him to just stand there and take it. Marvin, exuding clean-smelling and lean menace and Gulager, a carrot-juice swilling sociopath travel cross-country in their search for Cassavetes' story. They find that the race driver, washed up after a near-fatal crash gains employment with mobster Ronald Reagan (I can just see Ronnie giving Gorbachev the same look at the 1986 summit that he gives Cassavetes when the driver challenges the mobster for control of Reagan's girl, Angie Dickinson). After lots of double-crosses and a fair amount of "why did he or she do that?," Marvin comes calling at Reagan's door.

Lee Marvin was excellent when portraying a killing machine and he holds the movie together. He and Gulager are there to punctuate the sometimes good and sometimes not-so-good flashbacks and they are suave and eerily debonair grim reapers. If anything, they're more interesting than the flashbacks; all good action flicks need good bad guys and Reagan looks too bored with the whole thing. Is it possible that, after seeing him so successful and upbeat for eight years in the White House, a grim and petty Reagan seems anachronistic? Yet, it really is Marvin who makes this movie rise above the cheap production values, the cheesy matte photography, and the canned John(ny) Williams score.

Marvin was about to begin a string of successes that would last into the early seventies. That voice is so distinctive! When he talked, he sounded, as another reviewer once said, "like a dinosaur growling." He is so evil and you can't stop liking him. Although Marvin and Robert DeNiro are completely different actors, they both have the same effect on me when they inhabit the screen--I stop doing everything else and just watch them. Pure charisma. When asked by David Letterman why he was so popular, Lee Marvin simply grinned and, with his index finger extended, growled, "Ratatatat!" Don Siegel would go on to make other tough movies; his style was clean, tough, and with just enough style to leave the audience with a satisfied taste in it's mouth. Under his direction, Clint Eastwood would establish himself as a superstar. One can only imagine how far Marvin would have gotten under the command of the button-man director!