You won't be disappointed!

Beautiful, moving film.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Claire Trevor (Helen) returns home after a night out celebrating her divorce. When she arrives at her boarding house, she discovers that her fellow lodger Isabel Jewell (Laury) has been murdered along with boyfriend Tony Barrett (Danny). There is another boyfriend on the scene – psychotic Lawrence Tierney (Sam) – and you had better not make a monkey of him. He WILL kill you. The whole beginning sequence is well acted by all and throws you straight into the story. On discovering the bodies, Claire goes to call the police, picks up the phone but then stalls, puts the receiver down and walks away from the scene. She thinks and then returns to pick up the phone again……..and she calls the train station! Ha ha – fooled us all. It's at the train station where she meets the killer Tierney and a relationship is formed. There are complications to this relationship alongside the added pressure of boozy floozy landlady Esther Howard (Mrs Kraft) hiring PI Walter Slezak (Arnett) to find out who killed her lodger.All the cast are excellent, especially Claire Trevor and Esther Howard. They all have screen presence. The relationship between Tierney and fellow criminal Elisha Cook Jr (Marty) is given a very obvious gay subtext. Cook Jr is his bitch – no doubt about it. Tierney is scary and each member of the cast is given at least one powerful, emotional scene and delivers it as required. At the end of the film I think it's a bottle of beer for Ms Howard please!

A hard boiled near-masterpiece from Robert Wise. After killing two people (including his own girlfriend) in Reno, demented Lawrence Tierney makes tracks to San Francisco where he hooks up with society girl Claire Trevor. Tierney, who creeps everyone out, makes a play for Trevor's well-to-do sister, marries her and causes Trevor to go nuts. This is probably one of the most grim noirs. Top-billed Tierney gives a ferocious performance (says his doomed girlfriend, "He's the quiet sort. And yet you get the feeling if you stepped out of line he'd kick your teeth down your throat"). Trevor matches him step for step. Walter Slezak appears as pretty unsavory private eye. The supporting cast is excellent and includes Elisha Cook Jr., Isabel Jewell and Esther Howard as a very wacky (and very resourceful) landlady. Robert De Grasse did the great cinematography.

"Born to Kill" tells the story of a man and a woman, but mostly the man. Played by Lawrence Tierney, Sam is a simple man--as simple as the shark from Jaws. He is a predator and a sociopath. He may not be constantly moving, but when he does stand still, his brain is calculating his next move toward conquest. He trusts no one. He has a persecution complex and believes everyone is out to put him down. His life strategy is to put the other guy down first.Tierney is the perfect person to portray Sam. Robert Osborne, host of TCM, said he thinks Tierney looks like he has a jaw of granite. He fills the screen with menace. Even when he attempts to behave sociably, a cloud inevitably passes over his face--resulting from some perceived slight--and he is back to a squint and a snarl."Born to Kill" is adapted from the novel "Deadlier Than the Male", but Sam is the definition of deadly. He runs into a woman who has the perception to see him at his core (because she sees herself similarly), but is Helen (Claire Trevor) really any match for a predator?The story is filled with supporting actors who somehow hold their own with the two powerful leads. Elisha Cook, Jr. plays Marty, Sam's cohort who is a cold calculator. Esther Howard plays Mrs. Kraft--a landlady who is rough around the edges and to her core. She loves only two things: her neighbor, Laury, and a bottle of beer. Howard plays the part with gusto. It feels like she takes this role from the script and makes it her own. When Laury is murdered, Mrs. Kraft hires a private detective, a Mr. Arnett (played by Walter Slezak). Slezak holds your attention when he is on screen. He is an "operative" who just gets by, a man who would probably take any job that pays the bills. He is literate, willing to take risks, and overtly intelligent. They could have built a few more films around his character.When Helen realizes she cannot afford to keep a man as volatile as Sam around forever, she steers Arnett in his direction. Proving that she is as sinister as Sam, she gives him a kiss to keep him close. She is as ruthless as Sam, but Sam has no conscience. At one point, she compares Sam with her fiancé Fred. She says, "Fred is goodness" and "you're depravity". It's a depravity she can identify with, and she knows she can never trust Sam, but she flies to close to his flame for too long.Sam stupidly lets slip details of the murder scene, which Helen notices. What remains is the inevitable resolution of the conflict between Sam's evilness and Helen's revenge. It's a dark story dominated by an iconic character who exudes villainy.It has been suggested that Tierney did little acting in this film, that he was--in real life--as tough and coarse as the character he portrayed. If so, there is no wonder he is so convincing.This film did not do well at the box office, and critics savaged the film for its lack of morality. Imagine how audiences viewed this film in 1947. Now we know it was ahead of its time.

There are few actors who are prepared to take on the role of evil again and again. Tough guy Lawrence Tierney was one such actor, appearing in The Ghost Ship (1943), Dillinger (1945), The Devil Thumbs A Ride (1947) and The Hoodlum (1951) plus a few outings in westerns playing outlaw, and Jesse James twice, even.The storyline on the main page gives you enough to know about the plot at the outset; so, I won't repeat much here. Instead, I concentrate of the characters and the revealing implications contained in the whole story.In this story, Tierney is true to form: arrogant, petulant, egocentric, coldly homicidal, and psychologically insecure. In today's parlance, he'd probably be classed as clinical sociopath. Assisting him (as Sam Wild – what a deliciously appropriate name!), we see Claire Trevor as Helen Brent, a quick-witted gold digger with the morals of a corrupt cop or politician, who is, respectively, attracted to and repulsed by Sam Wild's forceful persona and his ruthless, take-no-prisoners modus operandi.Sam's the dominant partner in crime; Helen's along for the exciting ride, or so she says. Together, they make a formidable pair in crime. Accompanying Sam, we see Elisha Cook Jnr as the affably degenerate Marty Waterman who, as the plot develops, is revealed as not just a verbal punching bag for Sam, but also an alter ego who can get things done – including functioning as an effete gunsel for Sam, in more ways than one. The two men have been together for five years or more, obviously sleeping on the same double bed in their rented room – an aspect that certainly points to more than just a business partner relationship, given the character of both.And, given the year of production of this movie and the power of the Hays Code at that time, I wonder how much was left on the cutting-room floor to satisfy its demands prior to distribution.On the sidelines, and as a growing presence, we see Walter Slezak as Arnett, a sleazy, greasy, all-too-easily corrupted PI who is always on the make and on the take – from whom ever he can. He'd been hired by Mrs Kraft (Ester Howard) to track down Sam Wild who'd murdered two people in Reno and was now in San Francisco. So there, while digging up the dirt on Sam, Arnett discovers he can maybe get a bigger payoff by twisting Helen's arm, so to speak, for a bigger cash prize than the fee he's currently getting from Kraft. Unfortunately for Arnett, he gets what he deserves, instead.And throughout all of these insidious shenanigans, the "nice" people of San Francisco – Phillip Terry as Fred, and Audrey Long as Georgina – struggle to make sense of Helen and Sam. Fred and Georgina represent the epitome of what The American Dream is supposed to be; instead, we see them enmeshed in the American Nightmare that has invaded their oh-so-idealistic, consumer-driven lives. It's a powerful message that suffuses the story from the very first, and which gradually builds on each and every dirty trick and deed perpetrated by the Unholy Three of Sam, Helen and Marty. As film noir, it's an excellent example with an inexorable build-up of suspense and dread. Lawrence Tierney is simply made for the role of sociopath, and Claire Trevor, as femme fatale, responds in a similar fashion. Sure, it's melodrama; that, however, makes the implicit indictment of The American Dream all the more effective, and ironic, as the dark side of business in America is stripped bare. Elisha Cook Jnr, as always, plays his supporting role to the limit; and Walter Slezak never fails to entertain.Add in the professionalism of Robert Wise's direction and you can be assured of an entertaining and thought-provoking 92 minutes.The production is in black and white, of course; and overall, it's up to the mark to qualify as an excellent B-movie. Recommended for all Tierney fans and lovers of film noir.Give this 8 out of 10.January 18, 2013.