Miker,
One of my all-time favorites, one of the things that's
overlooked about THE KILLERS is that it's one of the best PI
films of the '40's. And also a damned good caper movie, on a
par with THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and THE KILLING.
It's basically an original screenplay, except for the first
20 or so minutes which is a very faithful dramatization of
Hemingway's short story, but Anthony Veiller, the
script-writer, treats that source material as though it was
the first chapter of a novel rather than a self-contained
work, and then go on to write that novel.
The hero of that "novel," is insurance investigator Jim
Reardon, who puts together the victim's past life
(CITIZEN KANE-style), and manages to solve a long unsolved
crime in the process, the long-ago payroll robbery of a
factory.
I've always wondered whether Edmund O'Brien's turn as the
claims cop might have been what got him hired as the first
actor (or at least one of the first) to play the title role
of "America's Free-Lance Insurance Investigator" on the best
of all radio private eye shows, YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY
DOLLAR.
JIM DOHERTY
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