The problem with The Killers is Burt Lancaster‘s Pete Lund, a loose cannon and pretty close to a blithering idiot with the emotional constitution of a sullen, poorly raised ten-year-old.

If you ask me Lund had those bullets coming for ripping off his partners in that robbery so he could spend the dough on Ava Gardner, except she was no good for the start…that was obvious. So he was a fool, a sap. Not in the least bit sympathetic, and altogether the weakest link in the film.

What saves The Killers are four performances — Edmond O’Brien ‘s insurance investigator with an attitude, and the three tasty bad-guys — William Conrad, Charles McGraw and Albert Dekker.

Posted on 12.29.20: As a longtime chronicler of those wraparound DeMille/Mayfair billboards, this is fairly unique. For Robert Siodmak and Mark Hellinger‘s The Killers didn’t play the Mayfair but the legendary Winter Garden theatre. United Artists briefly turned the decades-old venue into a movie palace between ’45 and ’46.

The Killers opened in August 1946

Jules Dassin’s Night and the City opened on 6.9.50.