I love many Don Siegel films. His The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is paranoid bliss, and Dirty Harry is an amazing, gritty (and some say fascist) take on the cops and robbers genre. The Killers, though, is probably my favorite film of his. I can't quite put my finger on why, though I figure it has something to do with having one of the greatest casts in movie history and the fact that the movie is absolutely brutal.
Arbitrarily connected to the Ernest Hemmingway story upon which it was supposedly based, the film follows two hired killers (the growling Lee Marvin and too-cool-for-school Clu Gulager) as they wipe-out stockcar racer turned grandlarcenist Johnny North (John Cassavetes). Along the way, they untangle Johnny's past with the sultry Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson) and Ronald Reagan's crime boss, Jack Browning. It's a story told in flashbacks but it's never difficult to follow and it contains some of the frankest sexuality and violence to be found in early 1960s cinema.
The best part of the film, for me, is Lee Marvin, one of the world's most under-appreciated actors. He had charisma and goodlooks that could match anyone in Hollywood, but he, like, say, Robert Mitchum, had a meanstreak and a seedy-side that makes him many times more interesting than Cary Grant or Clark Gable or John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart. There's something so nasty about him that, frankly, it's difficult to not enjoy his performances.
Arbitrarily connected to the Ernest Hemmingway story upon which it was supposedly based, the film follows two hired killers (the growling Lee Marvin and too-cool-for-school Clu Gulager) as they wipe-out stockcar racer turned grandlarcenist Johnny North (John Cassavetes). Along the way, they untangle Johnny's past with the sultry Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson) and Ronald Reagan's crime boss, Jack Browning. It's a story told in flashbacks but it's never difficult to follow and it contains some of the frankest sexuality and violence to be found in early 1960s cinema.
The best part of the film, for me, is Lee Marvin, one of the world's most under-appreciated actors. He had charisma and goodlooks that could match anyone in Hollywood, but he, like, say, Robert Mitchum, had a meanstreak and a seedy-side that makes him many times more interesting than Cary Grant or Clark Gable or John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart. There's something so nasty about him that, frankly, it's difficult to not enjoy his performances.