movie review the killers 1946

The Killers

Blu-ray edition reviewed by Chris Galloway
July 03 2015

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Ernest Hemingway’s simple but gripping short tale “The Killers” is a model of economical storytelling. Two directors adapted it into unforgettably virile features: Robert Siodmak, in a 1946 film that helped define the noir style and launch the acting careers of Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner; and Don Siegel, in a brutal 1964 version, starring Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, and John Cassavetes, that was intended for television but deemed too violent for home audiences and released theatrically instead. The first is poetic and shadowy, the second direct and harsh as daylight, but both get at the heart of Hemingway’s existential classic.

Picture 8/10

Criterion upgrades one of my favourite DVD editions of theirs, Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers , which features both the 1946 version directed by Robert Siodmak, and the 1964 version directed by Don Siegel. Both are presented in their original aspect ratios of about 1.33:1 and share the same dual-layer disc. The ’46 version is taken from a 2K scan of a 35mm fine-grain master positive, while the ’64 version comes from a 2K scan of the 35mm interpositive.

I found myself disappointingly underwhelmed, the 1946 version especially. In both cases it looks like Criterion is using newer transfers as they don’t look a thing like what was found on the original DVD release, with the 1964 version looking very similar to what was found on the Arrow edition released in the UK (I haven’t yet seen Arrow’s release of the 1946 version, so I cannot comment on that). For the 1964 “remake” colours are easily its strongest aspect and the biggest improvement over the DVD. The DVD looked a bit washed but the Blu-ray’s colours are far richer, especially Reagan’s maroon jacket and the various blues and reds that pop up. The image is sharp and detailed and textures are rendered adequately. Black levels are fairly decent, though some crushing occurs in darker scenes. Film grain is present and is nicely rendered, but there are moments (more than likely making use of stock 16mm footage) where grain gets substantially heavier, and the rendering of these moments aren’t as strong as the grain looks a bit blocky.

In both cases the prints are far cleaner than their DVD counterparts: the ’64 version has some minor damage here and there while the ’46 version presents more faint scratches and marks, but again is much cleaner than the old DVD. In all both versions are better and the new transfers here both offer noticeable improvements, but I can’t help but feel that maybe they could have been better.

The Killers (1946) : 7/10 The Killers (1964) : 8/10

Extras 8/10

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The Killers Reviews

...a mostly satisfying adaptation that fares better than one might've initially anticipated.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 9, 2021

Marvin is the un-McQueen. Not handsome, unconcerned with the audience and therefore compelling, he is distant and takes things personally. He's too smart to be monumental like other movie stars, but when he falls it's like a world got killed.

Full Review | Nov 29, 2018

Siegel's terse, seething, and stylish direction glows with the blank radiance of sheet metal in sunlight; the movie's bright primary colors and glossy luxuries are imbued with menace, and its luminous delights convey a terrifyingly cold world view.

Full Review | Aug 28, 2017

This low-budget neo-noir is really a different kind of riff on the Hemingway story's themes and the genre. It also serves as a bit of foreshadowing for Seigel's violent 1971 hit Dirty Harry.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 7, 2015

This color version of Hemingway's yarn is every bit as fatalistic as its black-and-white predecessor but nowhere near as impressive.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 22, 2015

The movie defines the violent, complex persona that would make Marvin a star, and he's cast alongside the irresistibly alluring Angie Dickinson ...

Full Review | Feb 23, 2014

A crime mystery that takes the best from every cast member and creates a hell of an ensemble piece.

Full Review | Jun 3, 2013

This take on the story by the invariably overrated Don Siegel is probably the most brightly lit, atmosphere-challenged movie ever to be tagged as noir.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 12, 2009

Ronald Reagan fails to crash convincingly through his goodguy image in his portrayal of a ruthless crook.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2009

The 1946 and 1964 versions of The Killers are vastly different, except for a couple of plot points, like the lack of surprise and failure to run the hitmen note with their target, and the double cross that is revealed at the end

Full Review | May 30, 2008

The second film version (1964) of Ernest Hemingway's short story, directed by Don Siegel with far more energy than Robert Siodmak could muster for his overrated 1946 effort.

Full Review | Mar 12, 2008

Um roteiro intrincado (ainda que excessivamente reminiscente de "Cidado Kane") que se beneficia ainda mais graas direo segura de Siegel e ao elenco excepcional (at Reagan, um ator geralmente medocre, est bem).

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 12, 2007

A familiar tale of robbery and betrayal unfolds, not enhanced by the glossy colour but given a terrific boost by the fact that the two killers stick around and are superbly characterised by Marvin and Gulager.

Full Review | Jun 24, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 1, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 4, 2005

Movie remakes seem to be pouring out faster and more frequently than ever before, and it's rare that a remake gets even close to an original, much less equals it or surpasses it.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 14, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 27, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 16, 2004

Even in today's violence-jaded era, the 1964 version of The Killers packs a punch when needed.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 16, 2003

The selfish cynicism on display, the every-man-and-woman-for-themselves bravado is a more cinematic than televisual conceit.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 9, 2003

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Blu-ray Review – The Killers (1946)

December 8, 2014 by Robert W Monk

The Killers , 1946.

Directed by Robert Siodmak. Starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmund O’Brien, Albert Dekker, Sam Levene and Jack Lamberto

A pair of hit-men carry out the murder of an unresisting victim. A partnership of insurance investigator and police detective try to establish the facts surrounding the crime.

Taking a classic Ernest Hemingway short story and expanding it to include a full variety of twists and turns, this crime drama directed by German émigré Siodmak was one of the originators of the film-noir genre. Starting off with the professional murder of its main star (Burt Lancaster, in his cinema début) is an ultra-modern approach to this whodunnit. A feast for fans of guess the outcomes, the motivations and fixations of the film’s main players are delicately balanced, and as a whole the piece benefits from a collection of superbly poised performances.

Lancaster brings a haunting quality to his role as ex-boxer tuned gangster Ole ‘Swede’ Andreson, with a bleak, doomed outlook to his final moments at the heart of the story. Matched to his almost existential levels of mis-fated action and endeavour is Ava Gardner’s tough femme fatale Kitty Collins. It is their story, mostly told through dreamy flash-backs, that contains most of the dramatic elements of the film. It is also her, that brings insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmund O’Brien) and city cop – and the Swede’s old friend, Sam Lubinsky (Sam Levene) into the mystery.

With so many changes in direction throughout the story, it would be a deadly shame to reveal too much of the actual plot. Suffice to say that noir-style crime projects and deadly dealings are littered with broken promises and, in the Swede’s case, a broken punching hand (and worse). The essentials are that it keeps the audience guessing, always with a dramatic outcome.

Also, and I could be wrong about this, but it must also be one of the few films to include an insurance investigator as its main hero. This historical element is of an extra interest. Back in 1946, while Europe was nursing its post WW2 wounds, in the USA huge insurance companies could apparently afford to write off vast sums of money. This turning point in world superpowers is an extra element worthy of discussion, although perhaps not when being gunned down by gangsters.

In any case, the film is a classic example of a complex crime drama, pitted with tension and suspense.

Special Features:

The Blu-ray special edition of The Killers includes a video piece which introduces the film and offers a detailed commentary on four key scenes. Heroic Fatalism is a video essay adapted from Philip Booth’s comparative study of multiple versions of The Killers (Hemingway, Siodmak, Tarkovsky, Siegel. Three archive radio pieces inspired by The Killers : the 1949 Screen Director’s Playhouse adaptation with Burt Lancaster and Shelley Winters; a 1946 Jack Benny spoof; the 1958 Suspense episode ‘Two for the Road’ which reunited original killers William Conrad and Charles McGraw. Stills and posters gallery. Trailers for The Killers , Brute Force , The Naked City and Rififi.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert W Monk is a freelance journalist and film writer.

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The Killers

5 out of 5 stars
Recommended

Time Out says

This is the kind of noir thriller the word quintessential was minted for. ‘Tense! Taut! Terrific!’, ran the poster headline for Robert Siodmak ’s 1946 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s dark tale of two killers who arrive in Palookaville to top a former prizefighter. It might have added ‘Doom-laden! Curious! And Resigned!’.

‘The Killers’ – revived in a new print in the BFI Southbank’s Burt Lancaster Season – starts off in laconic Hemingway territory. ‘What do you want to eat, Al?’, says hitman Max ( William Conrad ). ‘I don’t know,’ says Al ( Charles McGraw ). ‘I don’t know what I want to eat’, with the goons displaying all the weary, matter-of-fact psychopathy Quentin Tarantino has spent a career trying to emulate.

Their quarry – boxer-turned-criminal ‘The Swede’ Andersen ( Burt Lancaster ) – plugged, the film spirals off in its expressionist, flashback-within-flashback investigation into his past, with Edmond O’Brien’s insurance man-investigator embodying a kind of fateful ‘curiosity’ in a pointedly less idealistic equivalent to the ‘tenacity’ with which Edward G Robinson unravels the themes and the characters in its pessimistic cousin, ‘Double Indemnity’.

It’s one of the great films of disenchantment. And one content to do without grandstanding moments – no crazy camera angles or paranoid rants. ‘High Sierra’ producer Mark Hellinger injects some of his taste for gritty realism into the location choice – boxing rings, ‘luncheon counters’, pool halls – just as cinematographer Woody Bredell ’s chiaroscuro, long shadows and enclosed lighting and composer Miklós Rózsa’s discordant piano and portentous brass artfully conjure the strangely seductive atmosphere of post-war pessimism.

But like much pulp art and classic noir, subtext is king. German exile Siodmak declares its broken, defeated heart in a great early scene, where Lancaster, in a transfixing debut, emerges slowly from the shadows of his bunk to offer a weakly welcoming arm to his assailants – it’s what classicists might call an embrace of Thanatos. Was he slain by Ava Gardner ’s femme fatale or his loser’s past? As contemporary audiences knew, he should have listened to his cell mate: ‘Stop listening to those golden harps, Swede’. Good advice, then and now.

Release Details

Duration: 105 mins

Cast and crew

Director: Robert Siodmak
Screenwriter: Anthony Veiller
Edmond O'Brien
Ava Gardner
Burt Lancaster
Albert Dekker
Vince Barnett
Charles McGraw
William Conrad
Virginia Christine

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Eye For Film >> Movies >> The Killers (1946) Film Review

The killers.

Reviewed by: Chris

The Killers is classic film noir. A gripping thriller from start to finish. The elements are so clearly defined it also makes an ideal example for study.

Burt Lancaster has his debut role but fails to survive his first scene. Unfortunate, apparently, as he spent months before shooting training with a champion boxer. But happily he is reprised in (11) flashbacks. So we can work out why he ends up at the wrong end of ten bullets.

But the story isn’t about that. True to noir, it turns with seductive femme fatale Ava Gardner as its axis. This torrid temptress is pianist Kitty Collins. And for added value, Ava sings the song herself. (A beautiful number called, The More I Know Of Love.) Kitty knows more about that and everything else. A sad reflection on the male punch bags involved. We too know she’s bad news. But hell. Her charisma fills the screen like cigarette smoke.

Lancaster is a garage attendant. Ex garage attendant. Called Olé. Or the ‘Swede’. Or Pete Lunn. He used to be a boxer. Olé/Swede/Pete leaves life insurance money to an Irish chambermaid who barely remembers him. Private Dick work is legged by Jim Reardon (Edmund O'Brien), an overly-motivated insurance investigator. And if Reardon had met Kitty earlier in the movie he might even have fallen for her himself. The policeman’s a nice guy married to Olé/Swede/Pete’s ex-girlfriend. But that isn’t why Swede gets suicidal. And somewhere there’s a heist...

Our eponymous killers are classic Ugly Mugs. They set the tone of the film early on and re-enter near the end. Tension is knife-edge and non-stop. The ‘clue’ is a green handkerchief with gold harps, wafted temptingly to the audience long before we have a chance of making sense of it.

It has been very fashionable to describe femme fatales as ‘liberating’ or ‘empowering’ to women. Indeed, they empowered a number of good actresses in need of roles. And The Killers is set in the late Forties - the heyday of womens’ lib and film noir. But the ‘liberated’ femme fatale could also be seen as a sad reflection on mens’ inability to face facts (including their own constitution). Kitty, like most trapped pussy-cats, pretends to be agreeable before her malicious pounce. She is neither genuinely romantic nor truly sexual, but sordid and bestial, a cardboard pretender. Her ‘weapon’ is the eroticised fantasy of the sexually frustrated male. She looks the part of a liberated woman but it is only an act.

Swede’s girlfriend is pleasant and puritanical. Her ‘chaste woman’ persona, ill-judged. It increases the frustration of the men - who are then more vulnerable to attack. When Kitty ‘pounces’ she has the trappings of what a self-made woman might want – looks, career, good taste, social skills, a mind of her own. But they are trappings (except for the looks) and illusory.

Kitty’s self-estimation is summed-up in a junkie-like admission. “I'm poison... to myself and everybody around me! I'd be afraid to go with anyone I love for the harm I do to them! I don't care harming him!” But there is no strong Bogarde to save her from herself. She goes the way of most of her kind, restoring male hegemony as retribution nears.

The Killers was a B-movie given prestige treatment by Universal. This at a time when the studio was roughing it financially. Somehow it hits on redeeming qualities in abundance. The script isn’t that memorable, and precise mise-en-scene leaves little room for actors to make mistakes or shine. But the paraphernalia boast the hallmarks of a classic. High contrast, low-key lighting, genre-perfect characters and plot, a claustrophobic sense of gloom from which we want to break out. (Ironically, one of the most uplifting scenes - and the most unrealistic - is set in a prison.)

As with any good thriller, sexual shenanigans in The Killers are not shoved down our throat. They are used like red wine in a rich meat sauce. The tight editing is impressive. He would miss the Oscar, but Editor Arthur Hilton still gets an extra credit towards the end of the film - on a poster near a nightclub. It modestly proclaims, “Sir Arthur Hilton presents...”

Director: Robert Siodmak

Writer: Anthony Veiller, Richard Brooks and John Huston, based on the book by Ernest Hemingway.

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker, Sam Levene, Vince Barnett, Virginia Christine, Charles D Brown, Jack Lambert

Runtime: 103 minutes

Country: US

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The Killers (1946) Directed by Robert Siodmak

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Review by Lucia Bozzola

Adapted (and expanded) by Anthony Veiller and an uncredited John Huston from Ernest Hemingway's story, Robert Siodmak's The Killers (1946) weaves a complex film noir tale of obsessive love and multiple double-crosses. Shrouded in shadows as he awaits and accepts his fate in the opening scenes, Burt Lancaster's ex-prizefighter Swede is already a mystery. Fragmentary flashbacks within flashbacks relate Swede's story to Edmond O' Brien's intrepid insurance investigator from multiple points of view, but they never entirely get inside his head even if they illuminate his fate. Ava Gardner's satiny Kitty Collins is equally, and more dangerously, enigmatic, as her actions become as unpredictably complex as the film's byzantine narrative structure. Stylishly shot, particularly in the opening night-for-night and sustained heist sequences, the film builds suspense through the deliberate accretion of details about a foregone conclusion. Lancaster's film debut as the physically imposing but psychologically devastated Swede made him a star, while Gardner's poisonously beautiful siren turned her into a love goddess on a par with Rita Hayworth. A critical and box office success, The Killers received Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay.

The Killers

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Film Details

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Brief Synopsis

Cast & crew, robert siodmak, burt lancaster, ava gardner, edmond o'brien, albert dekker, photos & videos, technical specs.

Two hitmen, Al and Max, drive into Brentwood, New Jersey, in search of Pete "Swede" Lund, and stake out a diner he frequents, questioning, among others, customer Nick Adams about Swede's whereabouts. After the men leave, Nick races to Swede's boardinghouse room to warn him and is stunned when Swede seems resigned to his fate. Shortly after Nick's departure, Al and Max find Swede waiting in his room and shoot him to death. When it is discovered Swede had a small life insurance policy with Atlantic Casual, insurance investigator James Riordan begins investigating his murder. Jim first questions Nick, who worked with Swede at a filling station, and Nick recalls that Swede stopped coming to work the week before his murder after waiting on a wealthy, middle-aged stranger at the station. Jim then calls on Swede's beneficiary, Mary Ellen "Queenie" Doherty, a cleaning woman at an Atlantic City hotel. Queenie recalls Swede staying at the hotel some six years earlier, when she stopped him from throwing himself out of the window. Upon returning to his office, Jim learns that Swede was a former boxer, whose real name was Ole Anderson, and that after his fight career ended, he served three years in prison for robbery. Jim visits Swede's arresting officer, police lieutenant Sam Lubinsky, who tells him that he and Swede had grown up together in Philadelphia and that his wife Lilly dated Swede before her marriage. Lilly then recalls her final date with Swede at a party given by Jake "the Rake" in a lavish apartment owned by "Big Jim" Colfax, where they met Blinky Franklin and singer Kitty Collins, to whom Swede is immediately attracted. Then Sam adds that some time later, while working on a jewelry heist, a tip led him to Jake and Kitty, whom he suspected of wearing a piece of the stolen jewelry. When Sam tried to arrest her, Swede intervened and claimed responsibilty for stealing the jewlery, which landed him in prison. Sam asks Jim if he can help with the investigation and later that afternoon, at Swede's burial service, Sam points out Charleston, a small-time hood and acquaintance of Swede's, to Jim, who later questions him. Charleston reveals that he and Swede shared a prison cell together and that Swede referred to Kitty as "his girl," and asked Charleston to visit her upon his release: After Swede is released, Charleston is sent by Colfax to summon him to a meeting with Blinky, another thug, Dum Dum, and a mysterious woman. Colfax has planned a payroll heist at a hat company which promises a $250,000 payoff, but the older Charleston finds the risk too great and withdraws, and never sees Swede again. After leaving Charleston, Jim digs up information that Atlantic Casual insured the hat company and discovers details of the heist. Sam then contacts Jim to inform him that Blinky has been discovered shot and near death. Both men hurry to the hospital, where Blinky, semi-conscious, rambles about the robbery: After the heist, the group was forced to change their meeting place as the scheduled halfway house had burned down unexpectedly. Swede arrives last and after accusing Colfax of trying to cheat him, takes all the money and flees. Back at the hospital after Blinky dies, Jim feels sure the robbery is connected to Swede's murder and stakes out his old room at the boardinghouse. Soon after, Dum Dum rents Swede's old room and begins an elaborate search. Jim breaks in on him and demands to know more details of the robbery, specifically why the meeting place was changed. Dum Dum admits Kitty was the woman involved and that just after midnight the night before the robbery she had told each of them separately about the change, which Swede later claimed he was not told. Jim tells Dum Dum that Swede had run off with Kitty and that later in Atlantic City, Kitty had disappeared with the money. Dum Dum escapes from Jim and despite a police cordon, gets away. Later when Jim receives notification that the halfway house burned down after two a.m., not midnight, he is certain Colfax and Kitty are behind Swede's murder, but Sam insists Colfax has gone straight. Jim goes to the factory Colfax is now managing, but Colfax claims no knowledge of the robbery or Kitty's whereabouts. Later, however, Jim receives a telephone call from Kitty, suggesting they meet. Driving away from their agreed-upon rendezvous spot, Kitty and Jim are unknowingly trailed by Al and Max to a night club. There, Kitty tells Jim that the night before the robbery, she convinced Swede that the others were double-crossing him, so he would agree to take her away from Colfax. She insists that she left Swede in Atlantic City with the money and pleads with Jim not to involve her further as she is now married and has a good home. Jim demands that she give him proof of Colfax's participation and she agrees, but as they prepare to leave the club, she disappears into the ladies room. Meanwhile at the bar, Al and Max begin to move in on Jim, but are cut off and shot by Sam who is also at the bar. Jim realizes Kitty has escaped and, with Sam and a police backup, heads to Colfax's house. They arrive to a series of gunshots and find Dum Dum dead at the bottom of the stairs and Colfax fatally wounded on the landing with Kitty hovering over him. Jim tells Colfax he had discovered Kitty was his wife and could not testify against him. Colfax admits to having Swede killed, in fear that the other gang members would find him and realize that Colfax and Kitty had double-crossed them and kept all the money. Colfax dies as Kitty pleads for him to declare her innocent.

Vince Barnett

Virginia christine, jack lambert.

Charles D. Brown

Donald Mcbride

Charles Mcgraw

William Conrad

John Miljan

Queenie smith, harry hayden.

Bill Walker

Wally Scott

Gabrielle windsor, harry brown, beatrice roberts.

Howard Freeman

John berkes, john sheehan, george anderson.

Charles Middleton

Noel cravat, rev. neal dodd, howard nogley, perc launders, geoffrey ingham, milton wallace, nolan leary, john trebach, ann staunton, william ruhl, therese lyon, ernie adams, jack cheatham, ethan laidlaw, michael hale, audley anderson, mike donovan, woody bredell, jack brooks, bernard b. brown, carmen dirigo, russell a. gausman, william hedgcock, mark hellinger, arthur hilton, d. s. horsley, martin obzina, jack otterson, jack p. pierce, e. r. robinson, miklos rozsa, melville shyer, anthony veiller, photo collections.

Hosted Intro

Award Nominations

Best director, best editing, best writing, screenplay, the killers (1946).

The Killers (Criterion Edition) - THE KILLERS - A Double DVD exclusive featuring the 1946 & 1964 versions

The killers (criterion edition) - the killers - a double dvd exclusive featuring the 1946 & 1964 versions.

He's dead now, except for he's breathing. - Doctor

How much time has he got. - Jim Reardon

He's behind schedule now. - Lieutenant Sam Lubinsky

She took a powder. The dough went with her. - Jim Reardon

Good morning, Stella. - Reardon

Good morning, dream boy. - Stella

I'm poison, Swede, to myself and everybody around me. - Kitty Collins

Don't ask a dying man to lie his soul into Hell. - Lt. Sam Lubinsky

In-joke: In the scene towards the end of the film where Edmond O'Brien arranges to meet Ava Gardner outside of a nightclub, O'Brien stands on the street in front of the club, waiting for Gardner to drive up. On the wall behind him is a poster beginning, "Sir Arthur Hilton presents..." Arthur Hilton, an Englishman, was the film's editor.

The musical theme used whenever the killers appear was later used in expanded form as the theme music for the TV show "Dragnet" (1951)

The boxing match in the third flash-back was filmed in a boxing arena for an audience of two thousand spectators. Burt Lancaster trained for two months with a boxing champion and played the part of Sweeney with realism, against a real boxer, until his 2nd KD and TKO.

The opening title cards read: "Mark Hellinger Productions, Inc. presents Ernest Hemingway's The Killers ." The Killers was the fourth Hemingway work to be adapted to the screen, following A Farewell to Arms (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1931-40 ; F3.1275), For Whom the Bell Tolls and To Have and Have Not (see below). The entire plot of the Hemingway short story occurs in the film's opening sequence; the remainder of the film, written by Anthony Veiller, explains the murder of "Ole (Swede) Anderson." Papers in the Mark Hellinger Collection at the USC Cinema-Television Library indicate that Hellinger paid Hemingway approximately $50,000 for the rights to the story, but that publicity items inflated the figure to $75,000. Richard Brooks stated in a modern interview that he wrote a version of the script; his contribution to the final film is undetermined. According to a Hollywood Reporter news item, M-G-M agreed to loan Audrey Totter to Universal for the role of "Kitty Collins," but a production reshuffle at M-G-M, brought about by Robert Montgomery's walkout on Desire Me , nullified the agreement. Universal then borrowed Ava Gardner from M-G-M for the role. Other information from the Hellinger Collection notes a clause in Gardner's contract requesting that her singing voice not be dubbed in The Killers . The film marked Hellinger's first producing assignment at Universal and the screen debuts of Burt Lancaster (1913-1994), William Conrad (1920-1994) and African-American character actor William "Bill" Walker (1896-1992). According to contemporary sources, after Lancaster made a notable appearance in the brief Broadway run of the 1945 Harry Brown play A Sound of Hunting , he was brought to Hollywood. Hollywood Reporter and New York Times praised Lancaster's performance in The Killers and noted his star potential. A Hollywood Reporter news item indicates Barbara Powers was cast in the film, but her appearance cannot be confirmed. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Score and Best Screenplay, but lost in all four categories to The Best Years of Our Lives . Composer Miklos Rozsa's "Danger Ahead" refrain, which is heard in The Killers , later became the inspiration for the highly recognizable Dragnet theme song (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1951-60 ). Burt Lancaster recreated the role of "Swede" in a Screen Directors Playhouse radio broadcast on June 5, 1949. Shelley Winters co-starred as "Kitty." The Killers was remade by Universal in 1964 (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1961-70 ; F6.2593). The remake, which utilized both the Hemingway story and Anthony Veiller's screenplay, was directed by Don Siegel and starred Nick Cassavetes, Angie Dickinson and Ronald Reagan in his last film role.

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Review by The Film Foundation HQ

The killers 1946.

Watched Jun 29 , 2023

The Film Foundation’s review published on Letterboxd:

Join us for a free online double-feature screening of Robert Siodmak's THE KILLERS (1946) and Don Siegel's THE KILLERS (1964).

It's screening for free, July 8th - July 11th in The Restoration Screening Room

passes.delphiquest.com/the-killers

THE KILLERS, the first screen adaption of Ernest Hemingway’s deceptively short story, is a terrifying and taut film noir, one that would not only help create the genre but also come to define it. The iconic opening diner scene, filled with a deep sense of dread, gives way to a layered story of heartbreak and disappointment that is perfectly embodied in everything star Burt Lancaster—in his first movie role—does on screen. Director Robert Siodmak effortlessly takes Lancaster’s handsome exterior and infuses it with a startling innocence. Combined with an unforgettable Miklós Rósza score, haunting black and white photography from Woody Bredell, and a star-making turn from femme fatale Ava Gardner, THE KILLERS is a film you won’t soon forget.

Restoration Details: THE KILLERS (1946) was restored using the original 35mm nitrate negative. 4K workflow and restoration services provided by NBCUniversal StudioPost.

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10 Best Ernest Hemingway Movie Adaptations, Ranked

T he American Noble and Pulitzer Prize winner Ernest Hemingway is among the most celebrated authors who ever lived. His work, which was mostly produced between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, often offers audiences thoughtful meditations on solitude and the complications of life, making for some of the most intriguing novels ever written.

Thanks to his straightforward writing and approach to both novels and short stories, Hemingway has revolutionized modern literature, inspiring many writers even today. Given how many incredible and highly influential books the prolific Hemingway has worked on over the years, it only makes sense that a good chunk of those were adapted to the big screen at some point. As such, we celebrate the artist's work by looking back and analyzing the best Ernest Hemingway movie adaptations , from The Sun Also Rises to To Have and Have Not .

'The Sun Also Rises' (1957)

Director: henry king.

Filmed on location in France, Spain, and Mexico, The Sun Also Rises stars Tyrone Power , Ava Gardner , Mel Ferrer , and Errol Flynn . It focuses on a journalist injured in World War I, who moves to Paris for a fresh beginning. Complications arise when he forges new connections with a group of expatriates living a carefree life and finds himself in love with a woman named Brett Ashley, played wonderfully by Gardner.

Although it is not the best of the best Ernest Hemingway adaptations (it can feel a bit underwhelming after reading the book), The Sun Also Rises is still an entertaining and beautifully illustrated take on the novel of the same name , which is a fictionalized account of the events that the author experienced in Pamplona ( via Town&Country ) and one of his major works. Supposedly, according to Hemingway himself, the best part about the film is Errol Flynn.

Rent on Apple TV

'A Farewell to Arms' (1932)

Director: frank borzage.

The first Hemingway novel to make it to the big screen tackles themes of war and purpose. A Farewell to Arms sees an American serving as an ambulance driver, Lt. Henry ( Gary Cooper ), and an English nurse named Catherine Barkley ( Helen Hayes ) fall head over heels for each other against the backdrop of World War I Italy.

Frank Borzage's pre-code romance drama, which was based on Ernest Hemingway's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, earned Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Sound, though it was also nominated for the big prize, Best Picture, as well as Best Art Direction. Although it sent out a hopeful message about such dark times, A Farewell to Arms was one of the films banned for its treatment of war as well as sexual content when it premiered.

Watch on Amazon Prime

'Islands in the Stream' (1977)

Director: franklin j. schaffner.

Franklin J. Schaffner 's Oscar-nominated feature is set in the British-controlled Bahamas and stars George C. Scott as the lead character. The movie portrays the story of an isolated sculptor who has left the civilized world to live a simple life in the Caribbean and revolves around the visit of his three sons before the start of World War II.

Islands in the Stream is undoubtedly one of the best Hemingway big screen adaptations ; it was assembled by his widow, Mary Hemingway , from among 332 works in progress Hemingway left behind at his death (via The New York Times). It ultimately resulted in an enthralling narrative that intrigues audiences, strong performances at its heart, and a great meditation on freedom and courage.

'For Whom the Bell Tolls' (1943)

Director: sam wood.

Directed and produced by Sam Wood , 1943's For Whom the Bell Tolls is now regarded as an epic American war film. It stars Gary Cooper and the extraordinary Ingrid Bergman (in her first technicolor movie) and tells the story of an American International Brigades volunteer, who is fighting against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. He ultimately falls for a young woman fighter.

Nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award, Wood's engaging movie earns a spot among the best movies based on Hemingway books , and that is thanks to its masterful acting and great casting. While far from a masterpiece (and definitely not everyone's cup of tea), For Whom the Bell Tolls is undeniably well-made.

Rent on Amazon

'The Killers' (1964)

Director: don siegel.

While John Cassavetes is known for being the father of independent cinema, given his career as a filmmaker , he was also a talented actor. The Killers proves this as he steps into the shoes of a car driver, the victim of a hit man ( Lee Marvin ) and his crime partner ( Clu Gulager ) who surprises them both by not getting away.

Don Siegel 's neo-noir crime film based on the Ernest Hemingway novel of the same name is the second big-screen adaptation of the book. Although not as good as the first one (nor the director's best effort), 1964's The Killers is nonetheless tense and stylish , offering an entertaining narrative that will likely satisfy viewers who have read the novel. What's more? Expect Ronald Reagan in his final film role before retiring from acting in 1966 to enter politics.

Watch on Criterion

'The Old Man and the Sea' (1958)

Director: john sturges.

Viewers are introduced to an elderly Cuban fisherman, played by Spencer Tracy , who hasn't caught anything for 84 days in this Ernest Hemingway big-screen adaptation. His only companion? A young boy, Manolin ( Felipe Pazos ), is forbidden to join him on his fishing journey. On the 85th day, he finally catches a marlin, struggling to bring it back to the shore for three days and nights.

The Old Man and the Sea deservedly took home the Academy Award for Best Score. However, despite the incredible music John Sturges' movie features, its strongest aspect is perhaps the message it sends about persistence and courage . Despite its flaws, Hemingway's tale — which earned the author a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Prize — is perfectly brought to life in this beautifully shot 1958 film. Tracy was Oscar-nominated, too.

'Captain Khorshid' (1987)

Director: nasser taghvai.

Made in Iran by talented filmmaker Nasser Taghvai , Captain Khorshid is one of the few Ernest Hemingway adaptations that aren't English-spoken. Taghvai's work is based on the author's novel To Have and Have Not but changes the setting to Cuba, the south of Iran, and the Persian Gulf. The plot follows a sailor ( Dariush Arjmand ) who is asked to take dangerous criminals out of the country with his boat. He manages to do this despite only having one hand.

Considered one of the best Iranian movies of all time, Captain Khorshid does a brilliant job of altering Hemingway's story's backdrop , adapting it to different circumstances, and providing audiences with a fresh and intriguing new take on the well-known novel. With great music and performances, the engaging and graphic Captain Khorshid is, all in all, a really solid adaptation.

Captain Khorshid is not available for streaming, renting, or purchasing at this time.

'The Breaking Point' (1950)

Director: michael curtiz.

The Breaking Point is the second adaptation of To Have and Have Not and features John Garfield (in his second to last film role) and Patricia Neal as the lead. In the movie, the captain of a charter boat who is facing financial difficulties finds himself forced to resort to illegal activities to keep up with the payments on his boat.

While Michael Curtiz 's The Breaking Point is arguably on a different level than that of Howard Hawks ' movie, the filmmaker does a pretty good job at adapting the Ernest Hemingway novel — perhaps an even better one, if we consider how faithful to the book both film versions are. Be that as it may, Curtiz's classic film noir is a heart-wrenching and fascinating tale of desperation and corruption .

'The Killers' (1946)

Director: robert siodmak.

Featuring Ava Gardner in one of her best roles (though she could've gotten more screen time), the first adaptation of The Killers endures the best. In this version, audiences take a sneak peek into an insurance detective's investigation into the execution by two professional hitmen of a former boxer, Swede ( Burt Lancaster ), who was unresistant to his murder.

Robert Siodmak 's compelling movie is told in reverse, which was kind of innovative for the time it was released. For film noir buffs, the quintessential The Killers is essential viewing, standing among the best of its genre during the 1940s. Plus, what is so great about Siodmak's movie is how it fully expands on Hemingway's story and gives it greater dimension , resulting in a way-better-than-average adaptation. As expected, Gardner shines brightly in her breakthrough role.

'To Have and Have Not' (1944)

Director: howard hawks.

Regardless of how far from a close of an adaptation it is, To Have and Have Not is an undeniable romance classic . Starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in two of their most memorable roles (the iconic real-life couple met on the set), the movie is set during World War II and follows Harry Morgan as he helps transport a French Resistance leader ( Walter Surovy ) and his wife ( Dolores Moran ) to Martinique. In the meantime, he finds himself swept off his feet by a beautiful lounge singer.

The fantastic acting performances and incredible narrative elevate this Ernest Hemingway performance to higher grounds. However, it is Bogart and Bacall's chemistry that makes To Have and Have Not so irresistible. The film was understandably one of the highest-grossing movies of the 1940s and endures as one of the most influential American features of all time.

NEXT: The 10 Best F. Scott Fitzgerald Movie Adaptations, Ranked

10 Best Ernest Hemingway Movie Adaptations, Ranked

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'Manhunt' dramatizes Lincoln's assassination, and the 12-day search for his killer

David Bianculli

A new, seven-part series on Apple TV+ unfolds like a period-piece Columbo . First John Wilkes Booth plans and commits the murder, then the lead investigator deciphers clues to catch the elusive killer.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. On Friday, Apple TV+ presents the first two episodes of a new seven-part historical miniseries. It's called "Manhunt," and it dramatizes the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the 12-day hunt for his killer, John Wilkes Booth. Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.

DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, five days after the end of the Civil War in April 1865, has inspired filmmakers for more than a century. And that's not an exaggeration. In 1915, almost 110 years ago, director D.W. Griffith released "Birth Of A Nation." That was his epic silent movie that recreated in careful detail the shooting of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre. Other portions of that film were less careful and a lot more odious. Griffith presented the Ku Klux Klan as heroes and gloried in cartoonish racist stereotypes. A century later, in 2012, another influential filmmaker, Steven Spielberg, cast Daniel Day-Lewis in his impressive historical movie called "Lincoln." But Spielberg intentionally avoided restaging the assassination itself. In between those two movie milestones have been many, many artistic examinations of Lincoln's life and death, from films and television to the theater. One stage musical, 1990's "Assassins" by John Weidman and Stephen Sondheim is, in my opinion, the best take on the subject ever produced and still is vital and thought-provoking whenever it's revived, which is often.

But now comes "Manhunt," a seven-part Apple TV+ miniseries created by Monica Beletsky. She was a writer on Season 3 of TV's "Fargo," the season where Ewan McGregor played a dual role, so she's got some instant cred. And she's working from a well-received source material, James L. Swanson's Edgar Award-winning 2007 book "Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase For Lincoln's Killer." As the story is presented in this new production, it's almost like a period piece "Columbo." We see the criminal - in this case, Anthony Boyle as John Wilkes Booth - plan and commit the murder. Then we see the lead investigator - in this case, Tobias Menzies as Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's secretary of war - pursuing leads and deciphering clues to catch the elusive killer.

Scenes set before the assassination make clear the tensions around the country as the Civil War came to an end. Secretary of State William Seward got the news, delivered by Stanton himself, that Confederate General Robert E. Lee had just surrendered. This was five days before Lincoln's assassination. Larry Pine plays Seward. And his warning after Menzies, as Stanton, delivers the good news is not only so prescient about what was about to happen but is pointedly resonant today.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MANHUNT")

TOBIAS MENZIES: (As Edwin Stanton) Lee's army was without a white flag.

LARRY PINE: (As William Henry Seward) So?

MENZIES: (As Edwin Stanton) They surrendered to us with a dish towel.

PINE: (As William Henry Seward) I'll draft a press release for the international community. But we should refrain from claiming a conclusive blow until every major general knows the fight is over and their side has accepted it.

MENZIES: (As Edwin Stanton) The press already know. I've ordered cannon-fire illumination. Everyone is ready to celebrate, Bill. Lee surrendered.

PINE: (As William Henry Seward) Lee and his followers can be extremists.

MENZIES: (As Edwin Stanton) We'll celebrate. We won the damn thing.

PINE: (As William Henry Seward) I'll celebrate when they show us no more bloodshed.

BIANCULLI: Another early scene in "Manhunt" presents Booth's plan to assassinate Lincoln as at least partly based in coincidence. Booth, played by Anthony Boyle, is drinking at a bar adjacent to Ford's Theater, where "Our American Cousin" is playing. Portraits of Booth's father and brother, who, like him, are stage actors, hang on the barroom wall. And a fellow patron, who recognizes John Wilkes Booth, sits next to him at the bar and strikes up a conversation. Booth doesn't know the man but soon learns a few facts that shape Booth's murderous plans.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) You won't mind me saying, I think you'd be much more famous, like your brother or your pa, if you played the heroes. Why don't you?

ANTHONY BOYLE: (As John Wilkes Booth) You know, tomorrow I'm going to be more famous than anyone in my family.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Yeah?

BOYLE: (As John Wilkes Booth) I'm going to be the most famous man in the whole world.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Really? What show are you in?

BOYLE: (As John Wilkes Booth) "Our American Cousin."

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Why I ain't seen you on stage?

BOYLE: (As John Wilkes Booth) I haven't made my entrance yet.

BIANCULLI: "Manhunt" is one review where I don't have to worry much about spoiler alerts. Abraham Lincoln dies early in the first episode, and John Wilkes Booth gets caught near the end of the last one. It's the in-between part that seems less familiar and that drew me in. There are a lot of things here that may be new to many viewers, from the depth of the many conspiracy theories to the clues leading investigators to Booth's eventual hiding place. But as with all historical dramas of this type, you can't presume that everything presented is fact. Also, some segments of the story are staged either with too much clumsy exposition or with moments of jarring anachronisms. When Patton Oswalt, as a detective rounding up his squad, tells them, if you see something, say something, it just feels wrong. But enough of "Manhunt" feels right, from the narrative itself to Lili Taylor's appearance as Mary Todd Lincoln, to justify the time spent watching it.

DAVIES: David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed "Manhunt" on Apple TV+. On tomorrow's show, we talk with Peter Pomerantsev, who argues that fact-checking doesn't stand a chance against effective propaganda. His new book is about a man he describes as the forgotten genius of propaganda. Pomerantsev co-founded a project recording Russian atrocities in Ukraine to combat Russian disinformation. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram @nprfreshair.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Susan Nyakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHRIS THILE AND BRAD MEHLDAU'S "INDEPENDENCE DAY")

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Oscar Winners 2024: The Full List of Winners From the 96th Academy Awards

Oppenheimer, barbie, poor things, the zone of interest, and many more..

The 96th Academy Awards, also known as the 2024 Oscars, have celebrated the best of the best in the world of movies from 2023. While there were a ton of worthy victories in the 23 categories, Oppenheimer walked away as the big winner.

Alongside securing Best Picture, Oppenheimer also took home the awards for Best Director (Christopher Nolan), Actor in a Leader Role (Cillian Murphy), Actor in a Supporting Role (Robert Downey Jr.), Cinematography, Music (Original Score), and Film Editing. These wins also mark the first Oscar wins for Nolan, Murphy, and Downey Jr.

Poor Things followed right behind with four wins including Actress in a Leading Role (Emma Stone), Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Costume Design. The Zone of Interest was the only other film to win multiple awards as it won International Feature Film and Sound.

You can check out the full list of the Oscar winners below, and be sure to let us know in the comments how you feel the show went!

Oscar Winners 2024

Best picture.

American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer - WINNER
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest

Best Director

Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall)
Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) - WINNER
Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)
Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest)

Actor in a Leading Role

Bradley Cooper (Maestro)
Colman Domingo (Rustin)
Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)
Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) - WINNER
Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction)

Actress in a Leading Role

Annette Bening (Nyad)
Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall)
Carey Mulligan (Maestro)
Emma Stone (Poor Things) - WINNER

Actor in a Supporting Role

Sterling K Brown (American Fiction)
Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Robert Downey Jr (Oppenheimer) - WINNER
Ryan Gosling (Barbie)
Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)

Actress in a Supporting Role

Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer)
Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple)
America Ferrera (Barbie)
Jodie Foster (Nyad)
Da'Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers) - WINNER

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

American Fiction - WINNER
Oppenheimer

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Anatomy of a Fall - WINNER
May December

Cinematography

Animated feature film.

The Boy and the Heron - WINNER
Robot Dreams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Music (Original Score)

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Music (Original Song)

The Fire Inside (Flamin' Hot)
I'm Just Ken (Barbie)
It Never Went Away (American Symphony)
Wahzhazhe - A Song for My People (Killers of the Flower Moon)
What Was I Made For? (Barbie) - WINNER

Production Design

Poor Things - WINNER

Film Editing

Documentary feature film.

Bobi Wine: The People's President
The Eternal Memory
Four Daughters
To Kill a Tiger
20 Days in Mariupol - WINNER

Documentary Short Film

The ABCs of Book Banning
The Barber of Little Rock
Island in Between
The Last Repair Shop - WINNER
Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó

International Feature Film

Io Capitano
Perfect Days
Society of the Snow
The Teachers' Lounge
The Zone of Interest - WINNER

Makeup and Hairstyling

Visual effects.

The Creator
Godzilla Minus One - WINNER
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Costume Design

Animated short film.

Letter to a Pig
Ninety-Five Senses
Our Uniform
War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko - WINNER

Live-Action Short Film

Knight of Fortune
Red, White and Blue
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar - WINNER

Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.

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Lili Taylor and Hamish Linklater as the Lincolns in Manhunt.

Manhunt review – almost as exhausting as tracking down Abraham Lincoln’s killer yourself

This historical drama about the search for the US president’s assassin takes itself very seriously indeed. But the astonishing performances make it all worthwhile

E dwin Stanton was Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war, confidant and friend, as well as an asthmatic and a workaholic. In the wake of the president’s assassination, he led a 12-day search for the killer, John Wilkes Booth, trying to get ahead of Booth’s plans while coping with his own ill health. I think it’s a toss-up as to whether he or I, after getting through Apple TV+’s miniseries about his endeavours, ended up more exhausted.

There is a lot going on in Manhunt. There is the assassination and the cat-and-mouse chase itself, obviously. But we know (roughly) how that ended, so to add a sense of jeopardy and uncertainty, the timeline is vastly fragmented. We begin on the day Lincoln is killed, then cut to 30 minutes before, then 10, then five days, then 10 hours, and sometimes we take leaps of years. Usually these are clearly captioned but sometimes they are not, and that’s almost more confusing than captioning nothing at all.

Then there is the History-with-a-capital-H. All the period details scream: “I’m correct, me!” A full Lincoln impersonation is delivered (by Hamish Linklater) and careful exposition is provided about the Confederacy, the Union, Reconstruction, Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson (Glenn Morshower) failing to share the abolitionist vision, the conspiracy to kill not just Lincoln but other cabinet members, too, the secessionist south and most points in between.

Then there is the resonating, the parallels drawn between 1865 America and the US of today – both in a state of high emotion, both at tipping points, both still riven by racism and strewn with politicians who will exploit people’s bigotries and fears for their own advancement. “This is America,” says Stanton (Tobias Menzies) at one point to an antagonist. “We replace our presidents with elections, not coups.” Take that, Proud Boys!

It is all quality stuff. But it takes itself very seriously and the insistent detailing makes you yearn for the leaner, keener beast buried within this lumbering one to break free. The chase is the thing, but its narrative is so broken by the time-jumps and diversions that it becomes another handful of pieces in a jigsaw puzzle rather than a driving force carrying us with it.

But oh – the performances! The performances lift and save it at every turn. Most obviously is a surely career-making turn by Anthony Boyle as the actor-cum-assassin Booth, as charismatic as he is dangerous, and convinced of the rightness of his cause – which is ultimately less the Confederates’ than the belief that John Wilkes Booth deserves to be famous, however he can achieve that. The meticulous, principled Stanton is his polar opposite and Menzies’ customary spareness as an actor is the perfect match.

Their scenes vitally leaven the whole, but they are ably backed by the rest of the cast; especially Lovie Simone as Mary Simms, a former slave to a doctor who treats Booth’s broken leg after he escapes, and who despite a lifetime of fear becomes a key witness in the trial. Lili Taylor, too, is mesmerising as the volatile Mary Anne Lincoln, and Betty Gabriel does so much in her few scenes as the widow’s dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley that they should be cut together as a masterclass. She and Simone bring home just how much was at stake as they face the prospect of going backwards, of this mighty chance to abolish so much of their people’s misery being lost.

This evocation and the cast are enough to make what would otherwise feel quite overwhelmingly like medicine go down and make Manhunt worth the time and careful attention required from viewers.

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For Casting Directors, the Hunt for a Killer Never Stops

Procedural dramas are often relaxing to watch, but the hectic sprint to find and cast new patients, clients and crooks each week is anything but.

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A woman in a green coat, pink mittens and pink hat and big bag smiles at another woman in a tan coat and black blouse and bag

By Alexis Soloski

On a Monday afternoon in February, Findley Davidson and Jonathan Tolins met for a video call. Tolins, the showrunner for the new CBS procedural “Elsbeth,” and Davidson, the show’s casting director, were finalizing casting for the sixth episode, which visits the offices of an exclusive plastic surgeon, and discussing the seventh, which attends a country club wedding.

“Elsbeth” is a “howdunnit,” in which Carrie Preston’s cheery, distractible legal savant (a character first introduced on “The Good Wife” ), identifies a murderer already known to the audience. Each episode requires a buzzy guest star to play the murderer — the show had already secured the likes of Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jane Krakowski and Blair Underwood. In the seventh episode, the killer is the father of the bride, a man who projects country club clout. Davidson and Tolins, who had each come with a list of preferred actors, batted A, B and C-list names around like so many celebrity tennis balls. Quickly, they assembled a ranked list of about a dozen men, more diverse in ethnicity and mien than Tolins’s initial character description — “old WASP-y money” — might suggest. (They eventually landed on the live-wire comic actor Keegan-Michael Key.) Then it was time to blue-sky the eighth episode.

“They just keep coming,” Davidson said.

Procedural dramas — legal, medical, homicidal — are a durable form of comfort television, with familiar bands of lawyers, doctors and cops solving thorny problems in about 45 minutes of screen time. But each week’s new cases require new clients, new patients, new victims and killers and crooks, some at least mildly famous and each of them plausible for whatever fantastical circumstance the writers have dreamed up.

All of which means that delivering the satisfying, sink-into-your-sofa consolation of such shows involves a hectic, grueling, often maddening sprint to assemble new troupes of actors week after week, with casting directors receiving hundreds, sometimes thousands of submissions for every role. Within just a few days, auditions are vetted, offers are made, parts are cast. Then the process begins all over again.

“It’s go, go, go,” said Jason Kennedy, the casting director for the CBS series “NCIS.” He noted that the pandemic and the actors’ strike had constricted the process further. “There seems to be even less time there than there was before, and a lot more actors to consider,” he said.

Though each casting director does the job differently, most adhere to a similar sequence. Approximately a week out from the casting deadline, they talk to the showrunner or producers about the upcoming episode. (If a name actor is desired for promotional or other reasons, the process typically begins a little earlier.) An outline is then delivered, sometimes a full script. From there, casting directors release breakdowns — brief descriptions of the characters’ ages and types — either on websites or to a select group of agents and managers. At the same time, they are making their own lists based on actors they have seen before.

“You can’t wait around and just let it all come to you,” said Philip Huffman, who casts Dick Wolf’s roster of shows including the “Law & Order,” “FBI” and “Chicago” franchises. “You have to be proactive.”

When the submissions arrive, casting directors or their assistants quickly make a first pass, based on looks alone, then a second, considering résumés. Selected candidates are then invited to audition using either the real scripts or, for more spoiler-sensitive shows, fake ones the writers whip up. Before the pandemic, most auditions were in person, but now self-tapes or Zoom sessions are the norm.

Once the tapes come in, they are evaluated. Sometimes actors are called back, though this is increasingly rare given the time constraints. “It puts more pressure on us to get it right the first time,” said Jonathan Strauss, a co-producer and another casting director for Wolf Entertainment. “You really have to be confident and surgical about how you’re seeing talent.”

A short list, usually of two to five options for each speaking role, is then sent to the producers for consideration. Of course, some actors are so prominent that they no longer audition, a designation referred to in the industry as “offer only.” This is a typical dilemma in procedural casting: Whether to cast a recognizable “offer only” actor who can feature heavily in series promos or to cast an unknown who can more easily disappear into the texture of a series.

Strauss and Huffman have tried it both ways. There was a period when “Law & Order: SVU” actively pursued a star-of-the-week model, attracting guest stars such as Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg and Carol Burnett. That was exciting, Strauss said, but some stories depend on keeping an audience in the dark, which a celebrity guest would compromise. (Whodunit? Usually the most famous person onscreen.)

“We don’t want the audience to be ahead of the detectives,” he said.

Sometimes the choice has less to do with story demands. Libby Goldstein and Junie Lowry-Johnson, the casting directors for the CBS legal show “So Help Me Todd,” are wary of what Goldstein calls “overcasting.”

“Most people would say, you want somebody that pops, but you actually sometimes just want to service the role,” Lowry-Johnson said.

Yet the actor still has to be skillful enough to share the screen with better-known series regulars, which means that those unknowns often don’t stay unknown for long. Kennedy, of “NCIS,” had a ready list of actors he had cast before they were famous: Zac Efron, Hong Chau, Patrick J. Adams, Millie Bobby Brown. Strauss, of the “Law & Order” shows, likes to watch the Oscar nominations and point to the stars he and his team cast long before the academy took note. This year? Colman Domingo, Bradley Cooper and Sterling K. Brown.

Some roles are more difficult to cast than others. Some demand special skills, like opera singing or, as in an upcoming “Elsbeth” episode, expert tennis playing. Then there are those parts that an actor might find distasteful or reputationally dangerous. Strauss said that lawyers are the easiest to cast, then victims, then murderers, then rapists. Characters who sexually abuse children are the trickiest.

“That is a hunt for a unicorn, when we’re doing those roles and they want someone of some renown,” he said. “It’s easier to get women to shave their heads.”

But even in the simpler, non-shaving roles, many casting directors try to think expansively. Linda Lowy, the original casting director for the ABC series “Grey’s Anatomy,” said that she would often ask the writers to re-conceive characters as female, and she kept an eye on the ethnicities of doctors and patients. “We did all ethnicities,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure everything was fair and felt real, and then get the best actors.”

Strauss said that he aims to have the “Law & Order” and “Chicago” shows mirror the demographics of the cities in which they’re set. “Because the stories wouldn’t be truthful otherwise,” he said. In that vein, he tries to expand opportunities for performers who might otherwise be overlooked, such as suggesting actors with disabilities for roles in which a disability is not specified. “Those things are constantly top of mind for us,” he said.

It is remarkable that anything can be top of mind given the punishing schedule: There is often just a day or two to decide on as many as 40 speaking roles. So its gently ironic that the shows that help millions of Americans relax are so very unrelaxing to prepare.

“It does feel a little like I’m on a continual treadmill, and each week the incline just keeps getting steeper,” Davidson said. “But I like to run.”

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of Dick Wolf’s production company. It is Wolf Entertainment, not Wolf Productions.

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Alexis Soloski has written for The Times since 2006. As a culture reporter, she covers television, theater, movies, podcasts and new media. More about Alexis Soloski

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