Turfseer When Born to Kill came out in 1947, it was hated by many critics of the day, including Bosley Crowther, the NY Times critic, who was put off by the stark depiction of the two amoral protagonists. But that's exactly why I find it has some merit-it pulls no punches in suggesting that there are psychopaths out there who look for innocent victims as their prey!Directed by Robert Wise (of "Sound of Music" fame), he was from the old school who emphasized the screenplay as the most important aspect of the filmaking process. The film isn't filled with a lot of visuals emphasizing all that film noir atmosphere which we typically see in films of that period and genre. Nonetheless, Wise has his nice touches (when Sam Wilde played by tough-guy Lawrence Tierney murders a couple in a Reno home, Wise cuts to the barking dog, cleverly preventing us from seeing the final murderous coup de grace and building further suspense).Lawrence Tierney indeed is perfectly cast as the psychopathic Sam Wilde who murders the aforementioned innocent couple in the first ten minutes of the film and then goes on to kill his best friend Marty (the wonderful ubiquitous Elisha J. Cook) as well as Helen Brent, the "femme fatale" most cooly played by Claire Trevor.Tierney was perfect because he was a hot-head in real life-it's believed he did serious harm to his career by getting arrested so many times for assaulting fellow thespians and regular people on the street (that includes shoving Quentin Tarantino later in life on a movie set!).Trevor as Helen is a perfect complement to Tierney's Sam, as they both portray street savvy, vicious operators, mowing down anyone in their paths. While Helen is a femme fatale, she's different than the usual one found in film noirs (as pointed out by noir expert Eddie Mueller who provides excellent commentary on the DVD extras). Most femme fatales end up ruining their man, but here, Sam is so deranged and too tough for her to bring him down.Sam is actually worse than Helen, unable to control his temper whenever he feels slighted. His philosophy is simple-he wants to attain power so he can "spit" in anyone's eye, if he feels like it. Helen on the other hand is conflicted-she realizes she has a dark side but that's tempered by her supposed love for her "foster" sister Georgia Staples (Audrey Long) as well as her connection to the wealthy man she plans to marry, Fred (Phillip Terry).Unfortunately, it's the characterization of both Georgia and Fred that drags the film down. Georgia, the daughter of a wealthy newspaper magnate, a goody two shoes, has all that money but isn't generous at all (for some reason) in helping resentful Helen (if she is so nice, why is she so stingy with her money?).Worse than that is her supposed animal attraction to Sam. Yes I get it that all the women are smitten by him, but most normal people would still be a little curious as to the background of the person they're going to marry. She never seems to make any serious inquiries as to what he does for a living or anything about his past, and the next thing you know, they're tying the knot! Georgia is a dull character, and the film scenarist obviously spent little time in fleshing her out.The same goes for Georgia's male counterpart, Fred, who also deserves the goody two shoes appellation. His wet fish personality is obviously created to contrast with the wicked Helen-and when all this "pure goodness" decides to break it off with Helen, we know then she's doomed.The sub-plot involves the alcoholic Mrs. Kraft (played by the more than colorful Esther Howard), owner of the boarding house back in Reno where her boarder and good friend Laury and her date was murdered by Sam. She pays portly detective Albert Arnett (Walter Slezak), to investigate who did the tragic couple in.In addition to the electric interchanges between Sam and Helen, the scene where Marty decides to bump off Mrs. Kraft in a deserted beach area of San Francisco, is a most welcome diversion from the main plot and adds to the growing suspense. It's a real twist and turn in the plot, when Sam shows up and bumps off Marty in a fit of jealousy, allowing Mrs. Kraft to escape.Helen goes over completely to the dark side when she threatens Mrs. Kraft, ordering her not to go to the police. Her attraction for Sam overwhelms any reason she has left and she now is willing to sacrifice her good relationship with Georgia, whom is still smitten with the brute. Helen shatters Georgia's illusion as she passionately kisses Sam, as Georgia sits hidden in a chair nearby and sees everything! Helen of course gets her comeuppance at film's end as she must as those femme fatales who have swayed-must pay!Born to Kill was ahead of its time in depicting two ruthless protagonists who in the end deserve each other. If only the characters who represent the morally good side of society were better drawn, then perhaps you could have called this a noir masterpiece.

James Hitchcock This is a film with three different titles; it was released in America as "Born to Kill", in the U.K. as "Lady of Deceit" and in Australia as "Deadlier than the Male", a misquotation from Kipling's "The Female of the Species". (Kipling actually wrote "more deadly than the male"). The British and Australian titles refer to the film's main female character Helen Brent, the American one probably to her partner-in-crime Sam Wilde who, pace Mr Kipling, is more deadly than the female. Helen may be callous and amoral, but it is Sam who is the really dangerous one. (Helen never actually kills anyone during the film; Sam kills several people).The action begins in Reno, Nevada, where Helen, a San Francisco socialite, has gone to obtain a divorce. (We never see Helen's husband or learn why their marriage broke down; this detail seems to have been a moralistic touch pandering to those cinema-goers who would automatically assume that any divorcée was a "bad woman"). While in the city she meets, and is attracted to, the handsome Sam, who follows her back to San Francisco. Sam has a motive for leaving Reno, quite apart from Helen's good looks. He has just murdered his unfaithful girlfriend Laury and her lover, motivated less by jealous passion than by an insane obsession with saving face; he will not allow anyone to (as he puts it) "make a monkey" out of him.In San Francisco Sam makes two discoveries. The first is that Helen is engaged to be married. (Indeed, it would appear that she became engaged even before her divorce was finalised). The second is that Helen has a step-sister, Georgia, who is not only equally attractive but also the really wealthy one of the family. Sam therefore starts paying court to Georgia and, after a whirlwind romance, marries her, but their marriage does not prevent him from pursuing an affair with Helen.The film is sometimes described as "film noir" because of its lurid and violent plot, but only a few scenes are shot in the classic expressionist noir style. Much of the action takes place in Helen and Georgia's elegant mansion, making it, in visual terms at least, more of a high society melodrama. Noir tended to be a male-dominated genre with female actors in secondary roles ("Gilda" is perhaps something of an exception), but here Lawrence Tierney as Sam and Claire Trevor as Helen are roughly equal in prominence. The strong female character in a central role recalls "women's pictures" such as "Mildred Pierce", with the obvious difference that the heroine of a "women's picture" was generally someone admirable, or at least likable, and Helen is far from being either of those things.The main problem with the film, in fact, is that none of the characters are particularly admirable or likable. Tierney and Trevor throw themselves into their roles with gusto, and there is a good cameo from Walter Slezak as a worldly, cynical private detective. (Neither his worldliness nor his cynicism prevents him from quoting from the Bible or from well-known hymns; his favourite quotation, taken from Reginald Heber's "From Greenland's Icy Mountains", is "Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile").The more virtuous characters, on the other hand, are generally weak or inconspicuous. Helen's fiancé Fred tends to fade into the background (although at least he has the sense to call off their engagement when he realises just how heartless Helen is). Audrey Long's Georgia comes across as weak and naïve; if she couldn't spot the arrogant, overbearing Sam as a wrong'un from the start she must have been naïve indeed.The film's other flaw is that characters often act in inexplicable ways. Although the story opens with a double murder, nobody seems to want to go to the police. (Indeed, the police do not make an appearance until the very end). Helen is the first to discover the bodies of Laury and her boyfriend, but for some reason doesn't think that a double killing is worth reporting to anyone. (Why?) Laury's landlady has her suspicions about Sam, but instead of reporting these suspicions to the police she decides to spend her own money in hiring a private detective to investigate. (Why?) Unanswered questions like these mean that the plot is full of holes.Robert Wise was a versatile director, able to turn his hand to a number of different genres. He started his career, for example, with that fine supernatural fantasy "Curse of the Cat People", and among his later hits was "West Side Story", one of the greatest musicals ever made. On the basis, however, of this overheated, lurid melodrama and of some of his other efforts in the genre, such as "The House on Telegraph Hill", I suspect that crime dramas may not have been his forte. 5/10

AaronCapenBanner Robert Wise directed this film noir that stars Lawrence Tierney as Sam Wild, a cold and ruthless killer who meets up with equally ruthless Helen Brent(played by Claire Trevor) on a train leaving San Francisco. They fall in love, but decide to marry other people in an effort to social climb and get rich, which includes Sam marrying Helen's wealthy foster sister! Helen doesn't know at first that Sam murdered a woman that she had known, but never told the police about because she didn't want to get involved, and that will come back to haunt her as suspicions and jealousies spiral out-of-control... Well-acted and directed thriller overcomes its contrived story by being quite interesting.

Red-Barracuda Born to Kill is a pretty hard edged film-noir. This is perhaps unsurprising when you consider that it has Lawrence Tierney in its lead role. Tierney was a pretty brutal character in real life and he certainly looks and acts the part. In this one he is violence incarnate. The character he plays is quite one dimensional but he is very convincing nevertheless. His evil is offset by the character played by Claire Trevor, who is the Machiavellian femme fatale who orchestrates Tierney's brutality behind the scenes. Trevor is very good in this more complex role. She is only matched by Walter Slezak who plays a low-life private investigator; Slezak basically steals every scene he is in.The plot-line is a fairly standard rise and fall narrative that many crime films had. The only real weakness to the story is in the marriage between Tierney and Trevor's rich half-sister. They make an incredibly unconvincing couple and you tend to forget they are even married most of the time. But this is a relatively minor complaint all things considered. The director is Robert Wise, who proved himself to be somewhat reliably versatile. He was responsible for films as different as the horror movie The Haunting and the science fiction film The Andromeda Strain; Born to Kill proves that he could certainly make an entertaining film-noir too.