Why did Lee Marvin Give the Cops the Finger?

Lee Marvin, as Charlie Strom, a man in a quandary.

One of hitman Charlie Strom's victims didn't try to run and save his own life, and Charlie needs to get to the bottom of it

(Contains spoilers)

By Paul Parcellin

If you’ve seen “The Killers” (1964) starring Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager you might have an unsettling feeling about the film’s ending. I sure did. 

The 1964 movie has little in common with the Ernest Hemingway story upon which it’s based except for the title. Screenwriter Gene Coon insisted that the script should not quote any Hemingway dialog or include any scenes from the 1946 film adaptation starring Burt Lancaster. Director Don Siegel wholeheartedly agreed with Coon’s vision. He wanted to ignore the earlier screen adaptation and create a fresh, original take on the material. 

Also, Siegel had a bitter history with the earlier project. Producer Mark Hellinger asked him to direct the 1946 film, but studio boss Jack Warner forbid the rookie director from helming the project and veteran director Robert Siodmak was hired instead. 

Clu Gulager, as Strom’s fellow hitman, Lee.

Without question, the 1964 version is miles apart from the earlier flick. For starters, it’s in color, unlike Siodmak’s earlier black and white film. But mainly, Siegel’s film is told from one of the two hitmen’s point of view while the 1946 adaptation is seen through the eyes of an insurance investigator played by Edmund O’Brien.

Plus, Siegel’s film focuses on a question that gnaws at hitman Charlie Strom ( Marvin): Why didn’t the victim try to run and save his life? It’s an existential quandary that Strom carries with him and only bubbles up to the surface at the film’s end.

Strom is the consummate professional, in contrast with his less disciplined partner in crime, Lee (Gulager). Strom, the older of the two, maintains his focused demeanor and makes no mistakes until greed enters the picture and clouds his vision.

Angie Dickinson, as femme fatale Sheila Farr.

Surrounded by cops, Strom tries to escape, even though he’s trapped and certain to be captured. He ends up unarmed, so instead of blasting his way out he pulls his hand out of his pocket, aiming his fingers like a pistol and is immediately shot dead. It’s a brutally overpowering ending and it leaves us with another puzzle that flips his question about the victim of the hit, race car driver Johnny North (John Cassavetes):  Why does Strom not only allow but actually invite the police to shoot him?

In a short commentary included with the disc’s special features, critic Stuart M. Kaminsky says that the finger-gun move was a reflex action, but I beg to differ.

Strom is too cool a customer to make a fatal mistake like that. His final dramatic gesture is rooted in the riddle he needed to solve. He wonders why North didn’t try to avoid the angel of death when he and Lee shot him.

John Cassavetes, as race car driver Johnny North.

It’s rumored that North was in on a million dollar heist, and Strom decides to follow the money and perhaps get a piece of it. That sends him and Lee on a quest to find and question those closely associated with the victim. But underneath it all is that troubling question, and beyond the possibility of a big score, finding the answer to it is what most intrigues him.

After untangling North’s backstory, Strom finds the answer he’s looking for.

“The only man who’s not afraid to die is the one who’s dead already,” Strom tells femme fatale Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson). “You killed him four years ago.” Not literally, of course, but her double dealing crushed him and set him up for murder. She and North planned to double-cross gang leader Jack Browning (Ronald Reagan) and make off with a cache of loot. It’s no wonder Browning hired Strom and Lee to kill North — or did he? Sheila might have had a hand in that.

Ronald Reagan, as gangster Jack Browning. 

As Strom begins to understand Johnny North’s predicament, his time on earth grows shorter. Why did the question get under Strom’s skin? Perhaps he saw something of himself in the victim. 

Strom is a dark, brooding, steely professional. He seems to have no family or friends, save from his fellow hitman. His professional function as a killer is his life and nothing else seems to exists for him. He’s as dead inside as the murdered race car driver and the money is all he cares about. But the nagging question about North’s death won’t let him go. 

Strom traces the money to Browning, and he plans to grab it from him, but it all goes wrong. He’s caught in a shootout at Browning’s residence and all of his avenues of escape are cut off. He’s wounded — earlier, Browning shot him and killed Lee — and tries to get away, but police surround him. His sudden, impulsive move with his hand pointed like a gun draws fire and Strom is taken down, still gripping the money. It could be a suicide by police, or simply an act of defiance. 

Like North, he accepts or maybe even welcomes his fate. Rather than put up his hands and go to prison he chooses to go out in a blaze of gunfire. What does it matter when you’re already dead?

'The Killers': Nagging Questions In a Haze of Gunsmoke

Left, Burt Lancaster, “The Killers” (1946).
Right, Lee Marvin, “The Killers” (1964).

In both versions, sports heroes have tragic downfalls and alluring women enter the picture to offer a helping hand — it doesn’t turn out well for the wounded competitors

By Paul Parcellin

“The Killers” (1946) Robert Siodmak (director) — “The Killers” (1964) Don Siegel (director), The Criterion Collection, [Blu-ray]

Why on earth would a man facing the barrel of a gun fail to run away or at least try to evade death? That’s one question raised in both the 1946 version of “The Killers” and the 1964 film of the same title, both adapted from an Ernest Hemingway short story. 

But the main puzzle, the one that drives the action, is who’s in possession of the cash that was swiped in a brazen holdup? 

Criterion’s release offers both versions on a single disc that demands a comparison of the two.

Charles McGraw, William Conrad, Harry Hayden, "The Killers" (1946).

In director Robert Siodmak’s 1946 film, insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O’Brien) seeks the beneficiary of former prizefighter Ole “Swede” Anderson’s (Burt Lancaster) life insurance policy. The Swede went down for the final count in a shabby rooming house when two gunmen burst in and opened fire. 

Reardon finds the woman who is to receive the policy payout, but in doing so discovers that the Swede lived a complex life. The ex-pugilist fell on hard times and was involved in a heist that netted a big pile of cash that’s still missing. Reardon decides to find and retrieve the loot for the insurance company and get to the bottom of the Swede’s mysterious death.

John Cassavetes

In Don Siegel’s 1964 film, the search is on for the proceeds from another big robbery, but this time the ones doing the investigation are hitmen Charlie Strom (Lee Marvin) and his partner in crime, Lee (Clu Gulager). The duo murder former race car driver Johnny North (John Cassavetes), and are determined to recover loot from a heist that North took part in. Charlie is focused on recovering the money, but he’s also bothered by a question — why did North not try to save himself when the hitmen came calling?

Both victims have the makings of one kind of Hemingway hero, skilled competitors in macho professional sports, and each with a dark side. Lancaster’s Swede sees his prizefighting career fade away as he breaks his right hand in a bout that turns out to be his last match. Cassavetes’s Johnny, the headstrong race car driver, pushes his luck and damages his eyesight in a wreck, leaving him unable to compete. Both he and Swede feel diminished and their excessive pride takes a beating.

Angie Dickinson

Before meeting their unfortunate comedowns, each is smitten with a dangerous girl who’s apparently cozy with a powerful crime boss. After their accidents, they struggle to maintain a hold on their respective aggressively material girls. No longer the cocky, virile competitors they once were, both has-beens struggle for the woman’s love and admiration to revitalize their lives. They remind us a bit of Hemingway’s Jake Barnes in “The Sun Also Rises,” who is left impotent by a wound received in the Great War.

The ladies, Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner), Swede’s love interest, and motorsports groupie Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson), reel them in and then offer to connect them with some pals who are plotting a big score. Both guys can’t resist the opportunity to win their respective girl by grabbing a pile of loot and showering her with minks and diamonds — or so they think.

The story takes a number of twists as the two fallen heroes submerge into the criminal world. In short, they’re two prideful tough guys eventually broken by femmes fatale. Neither one catches on to the cold truth that the deck is stacked against them until it’s much too late.

Ava Gardner

Anthony Veiller, who adapted Hemingway’s story for Siodmak’s film, also co-wrote “The Stranger” (1946) and was an uncredited collaborator with John Huston and Truman Capote on the screenplay for “Beat the Devil” (1953). His version of the story is structured like “Citizen Kane” (1941), with Reardon chasing down clues and interviewing people who knew Swede. The bulk of the story is told in flashbacks as those closest to the deceased man recount their dealings with him. 

In contrast, Siegel’s film proceeds in a more linear fashion with a minimum of flashbacks. For the most part, the story simply follows Charlie and Lee as they chase after a pile of cash and, in true Lee Marvin fashion, wreak havoc on anyone who tries to stop them. The opening sequence is a corker. The two killers track down Johnny in a school for the blind where he teaches auto mechanics and take him out in a roomful of unsighted witnesses.

While both films have similar plots, their look could hardly be more different.

Edmond O’Brien, Sam Levene, “The Killers” (1946).

Veteran cinematographer Elwood “Woody” Bredell photographed Siodmak’s moody black and white noir. His rock-solid crime film credits also include “Phantom Lady” (1944), “Lady on a Train” (1945) and “The Unsuspected” (1947).

Because Siegel’s film was created for TV, Richard L. Rawlings, a cinematographer with extensive television credits was chosen to shoot it, and on the surface it’s as un-noir-like as a film can get. Like most other TV shows of that era, scenes are bombarded with bright light and nary a shadow is in sight. Each shot pops with saturated color — producers felt that TV shows needed to be visually vibrant to compete with household distractions.

Ronald Reagan's last film role
"The Killers" (1964)

That strategy didn’t pay off as expected. Broadcast executives wanted no part of the film’s violent onscreen action. Siegel shopped it around for a while, then decided to release it theatrically. It was not a major box office hit, but stylistically it was influential. Siegel later directed “Dirty Harry” (1971), and “The Killers” helped set the tone for that mega-successful Clint Eastwood film as well as many others throughout the coming decades. 

Oddly enough, Siegel was initially tapped to direct the 1947 version of the film, but studio higher ups put the kibosh on that, citing the young director’s lack of experience. Instead, Siodmak, a veteran behind the camera, was chosen. 

Siegel’s film is perhaps his vengeance for that disappointing incident years before, as he finally caught up with the one that got away.

Like Siegel, hitman Charley Strom finds that patience pays off. Eventually he discovers the answer to his question about Johnny’s meek acceptance of his fate. Nick Adams (Phil Brown), Swede’s young co-worker and friend is left to ponder the same question. When Nick goes to warn him that his life is in peril, Swede doesn’t explain his downfall, but tells him, “I did something wrong, once.” It’s a puzzle that remains an open ended question, but eventually we see the reasons for Swede’s powerlessness to resist the gunmen. He’s been reduced to a shell of himself and death is inevitable — a sad fate for a wounded hero whose life takes a tragically wrong turn.

The Criterion disc features new high-definition digital restorations of both films, plus extras such as a 2002 interview with Clu Gulager, an audio excerpt from Don Siegel's autobiography, “A Siegel Film,” Screen Directors Playhouse radio adaptation from 1949 of the 1946 film, starring Burt Lancaster and Shelley Winters as well as essays by novelist Jonathan Lethem and critic Geoffrey O’Brien. It’s a feature-packed disc that noir fans ought to add to their libraries.

British Invasion: Boorman Uncorks Psychedelic Noir

Angie Dickinson, Lee Marvin and Carroll O'Connor
in 'Point Blank' (1967).

Why is L.A. the location of choice for so many crime films and stories about the dark side of life? Maybe it’s just because the bulk of all film production is done in Hollywood and it’s cheaper to shoot in your own backyard.

But that doesn’t explain why so many of the great crime novels take place in the City of Angels. A writer can set his story anywhere in the world without a thought of budgets, weather or union constrictions.

Clockwise from top left, Lee Marvin,
Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn and John Vernon.

It might be that L.A. is different from most American cities, especially those that were built long before the two World Wars. They project stability and tradition, while L.A. is still considered part of the Wild West — a desert outpost full of transients, dreamers and hucksters. The city is branded as uncontrolled urban sprawl with a casual atmosphere that fosters a variety of lifestyles and eccentricities. In other words, it’s what the rest of the country thinks is wrong with America. Be that as it may, the city might just be the perfect laboratory in which to examine 20^th century mores.

So, it’s no wonder that British director John Boorman begins "Point Blank" in San Francisco and moves it to the City of Angels. San Francisco may be one of the country’s cradles of personal liberty, but it still has the look and feel of a city built on the bedrock of traditional values.

Staged as a sort of brutally real saga that slips into vaguely hallucinatory passages, "Point Blank" is the sort of altered reality you’d expect to see in a 1967 film, but the director is too good to let meaningless psychedelic spectacle overpower the story.

Walker is double-crossed by his ex.

Lee Marvin’s Walker, the career criminal who wants what is rightfully his, is cool and avoids the obnoxious pleased-with-himself vibe that a lesser actor would bring to the part.  He’s down to earth, deadpan, resourceful and unstoppable.

Some conclude that the entire story is merely Walker’s dream. He’s left alone to die after being double crossed, but of course he gets back on his feet and goes after the ones who did him wrong. 

Keenan Wynn plays Yost, the mysterious agent who always seems to appear on the scene whenever the action is about to be pumped up. Throughout the film, he and Walker never make eye contact — could the agent be a mere figment of Walker’s imagination? But stranger events occur when Walker finds his two-timing wife. Check out the scene with the disappearing furniture – and the disappearing corpse. 

Prior to "Point Blank" Boorman directed only black and white television and the film, "Catch Us If You Can" ("Having a Wild Weekend" in the U.K.), starring The Dave Clark Five. He says that he liked shooting "Point Blank," his first color movie, in the dark because it makes the color palette monochromatic. Trivia fans will want to note that, at one point, the action moves to a house with a swimming pool in Hollywood Hills. It’s the same house that the Beatles lived in during their first tour of America.

Bright yellows and golds prevail in Angie's scenes.

Despite his emphasis on darkness, Boorman uses color as an expressive element throughout the film, and carefully controls the range of tones filling each scene. The film begins in washed out grays and blues, progresses to yellows and golds, especially in Angie Dickinson’s scenes, shifts to greens, and as the action heats up toward the end, reds and oranges prevail. Walker, wearing a red-brick colored jacket seems to fade into the walls as the film comes to its conclusion.

You could call Point Blank a revisionist noir, because it’s in color and is not dialog driven. Perhaps the film's (then) modern-day take on the genre might be the missing link between black and white crime dramas of yesteryear and the sun-drenched Technicolor world of neo-noirs such as "Chinatown" and "L.A. Confidential."

Color aside, "Point Blank" is thoroughly character driven. Walker is relentless in his pursuit of the money he’s owed, but his doggedness only grows more intense even when the money becomes unimportant. He’s driven to get to the bottom of the mystery that has been plaguing him. His world is in shambles, but without this maniacal game of cat and mouse he’s initiated there’s nothing left in his life. Once the battle is over, there will be nothing to celebrate, but he continues because he has no other choice.