Amoral Natural Born Killer

BORN TO KILL (1947)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

For extreme depravity and soullessness in equal doses, you won't find a more amoral noir picture from out of the past than "Born to Kill," one of the meanest and cruelest in the genre. Not exactly a good film but certainly an energetic and frightening one, thanks to the evil charms of the notorious Lawrence Tierney.

Claire Trevor is Helen Trent, a glamour girl in Reno who is settling a divorce so she can marry a rich San Francisco boyfriend of hers. She rooms at the house of a certain Mrs. Craft (boisterously played by Esther Howard), who appears to be a madame or a former madame. Another roommate is Laury Palmer (Isabel Jewell), who boasts about her dynamite boyfriend she's eager to see at the casino. Helen also gambles and is awestruck by Sam Wilde (Lawrence Tierney), who spots Laury with her new beau. Sam is mad as hell as he tracks them down and kills them both. Helen spots the bodies and leaves with an air of detachment on a train to San Francisco, not knowing Sam was responsible. And wouldn't you know that Mr. Smooth Operator Sam is also on board the same train and trying to make some advances towards Helen. Once Sam is in San Francisco and looks up Helen, he decides to pursue her foster sister, Georgia (Audrey Long), a newspaper heiress. Eventually, Sam marries her but Helen knows what kind of man he is, or maybe she is deeply attracted to him.

On the surface, "Born to Kill" sounds more like a soap opera with some rather operatic twists. One involves Sam with a keen interest in running Georgia's newspaper. Huh? Why would a brute force like Sam have an interest in newspaper publishing? And then there is Helen who is so drawn to Sam that the idea of murder doesn't frighten her, it is an unsettlingly erotic idea to her.

There are hindrances in the screenplay, mainly the introduction of a curious detective that simply drags things a bit into conventionality. Also recapitulating some of the earlier characters like Mrs. Craft simply underwhelms the narrative and focus on Sam Wilde. A nice addition and worth a mention is reliable Elisha Cook, Jr. as Sam's partner who tries to protect Sam (they knew each other from their prison days). Cook has a great line that sums up the movie: "You can't just go 'round killing people whenever the notion strikes you, it ain't feasible."

Robert Wise (who helmed 1949's "The Set-Up," one of the best noir pics ever) directed this grim, relentlessly bleaker than thou noir picture but the screenplay gets too needlessly complicated with peripheral characters possibly implemented to reduce the rampant amorality. Still, for Tierney and Elisha Cook, Jr. alone, "Born to Kill" is occasionally a blazingly intense and powerful film.