Born to KillBorn to kill is a hardboiled tale of murder, love and sexual impulses. For a film that came out in 1947 the film is certainly bold as within the first few minutes subjects such as: divorce, gambling, promiscuity and murder arise. The thing I loved about this movie the most, was the dialogue, it almost verged on semantics, very intelligent and witty and very true to Film Noir form of being incredibly epic and not so realistic. Robert Wise's transition to noir went amazingly, I could not pick one flaw within this film and was really knocked over by the sets, the imagery, the story, dialogue and the acting. From a director who made films such as The Body Snatcher, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Sound Of Music!! he certainly has talent to adapt, because this film stands up against any 'noted' Film Noir Movie. From directing B Movies to a classy film noir is a major achievement if you pull it off well, in my opinion Wise did. The main character Sam is a handsome narcissistic / megalomaniacal brute of epic proportions who has a very short fuse and is inclined to kill before he thinks, the fact that he is extremely handsome seems to help him get what he wants, or drives people to do what he wants them to do. Within the first few minutes of the film, he kills young Laurie Palmer and her boyfriend out of jealousy, then leaves the scene of the crime and another main character Helen Brent enters and discovers the grizzly murder scene. Helen does not call the police but heads to the train station to go to back to San Francisco. Sam also flees Reno and heads for San Francisco and ultimately meets up with Helen on the train. From here you can tell that some form of relationship or love triangle is going to evolve. Whilst on the train Helen and Sam converse and in some warped way Helen falls for his strength and aggressiveness. They part when they get to San Francisco and swap phone numbers. To skip forward a bit, Sam ends up marrying Helens foster sister Georgia as Helen is already engaged, now the sexual impulses between Helen and Sam start to get stronger and harder for them to resist. Back in Reno, Mrs. Kraft (a drunk aging glamour girl) has hired an obese detective to find out who killed her dear friend Laurie. The detective manages to get a lead on Sam and heads to San Francisco to investigate further, going as far as getting a job washing dishes at Sam and Georgia's wedding to dig up some dirt on Sam. Helen discovers the detective and boots him out before giving him a lead on the sly. I loved Helen's disposition, her burning desire for Sam and how she fights it, maybe its those Joan Crawford-esque eyebrows and facial mannerisms that made her more interesting but she struck me as being a very great and intense actress. Without spoiling too much more of the story, I will briefly summarize the end. Helen finds out what Sam has done and tries to pay the detective off so the issue won't go to the police, his price is too high and she can't meet the price. Mrs. Kraft nearly gets killed by Sam's friend (who Sam ends up killing in the heat of the moment) and Helen threatens her and tells her to shut up or else she will loose her life. There are 2 more deaths but you will have to watch it to find out who gets killed. Basically everyone gets what they deserve, well certain characters anyway. Born to Kill is an expose of sorts into the underbelly of the rich, the life of the criminal, the gold-digger, the promiscuous and the drunk. The sets were exquisite the clothes gorgeous, right down to the flashing Drugs sign outside of Sam's bedroom window. The Noir elements of the film surpassed my expectations (after seeing Preminger's There is a commentary on the disc (Which I haven't listened to yet but will soon) with Eddie Muller, author of The Art of Noir and Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir and with audio excerpts of Director Robert Wise.
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