The Killers

A man arrives in a small town and settles into a quiet job at a gas station, but two gunmen come looking for him, and he offers no resistance when they find him. An insurance investigator takes an interest in the case because the dead man had a policy, and his inquiries into the victim's past reveal a story that stretches back years. The trail leads to a former boxer's attempts to rebuild his life, his entanglement with a woman named Kitty Collins, and the shadowy figure behind a robbery that went badly wrong.

Robert Siodmak directed this 1946 crime mystery for Universal, placing it second in the run of films he made in the mid-1940s between Son of Dracula and The Dark Mirror, and later The Spiral Staircase. Richard Brooks, John Huston and Anthony Veiller wrote the screenplay, and Mark Hellinger produced. Edmond O'Brien plays investigator Jim Reardon, Burt Lancaster appears as the doomed "Swede" Andersen, and Ava Gardner plays Kitty Collins, with Albert Dekker, Sam Levene and Vince Barnett among a credited cast of 64.

On IMDb, the film's critics' rating stands at 8.3 out of 10 from 35 reviews, indicating strong approval from professional reviewers, while on TMDB it holds 7.4 out of 10 from 447 votes, showing solid but somewhat more measured approval from viewers. The gap suggests critics have rated it higher than general audiences have. Running 103 minutes, it remains a representative example of the crime thrillers Siodmak made during this period of his career.