Re-released as part of a Burt Lancaster season at the BFI Southbank, The Killers (1946) is a terrific film noir that makes great use of Lancaster’s intense, urgent screen presence. Lancaster plays “Swede” Andersen, a down-on-his-luck hoodlum who, at the start of the film, has resigned himself to his fate. The film pieces together glimpses of his earlier life, adding up to a portrait of a man betrayed by a drop-dead dame (a dazzling Ava Gardner).
PG, 102mins