One of the biggest frustrations of my long illness and recovery has been my inability to write a pulp fiction/film noir post. The last one was Woman In Hiding with Ida Lupino published on Sunday February 6. Instead, it’s been repeats of vintage posts. That ends today. For how long? Beats the hell outta me.

Born To Kill is not only one of the best films noir ever made, it’s one of the great American movies. It tells a deeply weird story that somehow slipped past the production code in 1947. Many films have love triangles, others have love quadrangles but Born To Kill has a love pentagon, which has nothing to do with the military. Save your salutes: I’ll get back to that later in the post.

As usual, I’ll be using the actors’ own names, not their character names. It’s impossible not to in a movie with such a stellar cast: Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak, Phillip Terry, Audrey Long, Elisha Cook Jr, and Esther Howard. The performances are superb, especially Trevor, Tierney, Slezak, and Cook.

My passion for this movie is one reason I named my cat for its star:

I’d be nervous to name a cat for Lawrence Tierney. He was a wild man who, according to my film noir muse Eddie Muller, was NOT acting in Born To Kill. The film’s tagline sums it up well: Bullet-Man and Silken Savage. Kitty Claire Trevor is also a silken savage, especially when we take her to the vet. Hellcat, thy name is Claire.

In the days before no-fault divorces became common, Reno, Nevada was the divorce capital of America, at least in the movies. Claire Trevor’s character is in Reno for the obvious reason. She boarded with Esther Howard who plays a lovable drunk who can usually be found with a beer in her hand. Claire Trevor is too grand to drink beer.

Howard’s next door neighbor, Isabell Jewell, is murdered in a jealous rage by Lawrence Tierney:

Before dispatching Jewell, Tierney killed a gentleman caller at her crib:

How noir are those images?

Tierney flees Reno, meets Trevor, and follows her to my other hometown, San Francisco. Tierney is not only a murderer, he’s a fortune hunter. He soon learns that Claire’s half-sister Audrey Long is the rich one, so Tierney marries her while still involved with the poor relation. Tierney is the cad’s cad.

Eventually, Walter Slezak shows up in San Francisco. He’s a shamus who’s investigating the Reno neighbor murder for the drunk landlady. That’s when the noir plot kicks into high gear. Slezak’s appearance unravels the plot’s knots and causes a crisis between Tierney, Trevor, and Audrey Long. That’s all the plot I’m willing to share. This feature is called pulp fiction, not pulp spoilers, after all.

I am, however, willing to share this swell picture of Walter Slezak and Claire Trevor:

The story is terrific but it’s the characters that make Born To Kill such a great film. Claire Trevor is a heartless, selfish, and sadistic femme fatale. She takes pleasure in the discomfort of others but is a masochist when it comes to Lawrence Tierney who is a controlling sociopath.

I mentioned the love pentagon earlier. Trevor is engaged to Phillip Terry when Tierney insinuates himself into their lives. That’s a triangle, add Audrey Long and you have a quadrangle. Elisha Cook Jr completes the love pentagon. Lawrence Tierney called him Cookie, so will I.

Since the movie was made in 1947, Cookie is presented as Tierney’s faithful sidekick, but he’s besotted with the Bullet-Man. If you doubt me, take another look at the featured image or this picture of the two men in their Reno hotel room:

Repeat after me: I can’t believe they got this implicitly homoerotic sub-plot past the production code. Was it because director Robert Wise was one of the nicest people in Hollywood? Or did Lawrence Tierney scowl and growl at the censors? Your guess is as good as mine.

My favorite line in the movie is uttered by film noir regular Elisha Cook. His favorite word is feasible, which he uses to dress Tierney down for murdering two people in Reno: “You can’t go around killing people whenever the notion strikes you. It’s just not feasible.”

Born To Kill was based on a 1945 novel by Phillip Gunn, Deadlier Than The Male:

Director Wise wanted to keep that title but was overruled by the studio suits. I need to do a Robert Wise Dozen with a focus on his pre-Sound Of Music career. Wise made some of the grittiest and smartest movies of the film noir era including  Odds Against Tomorrow, which I wrote about in this feature last fall.

Grading Time: I give Born To Kill 4 stars and an Adrastos Grade of A. It’s a stone cold noir classic.

Let’s get back to the roots of this feature with some posters:

Claire Trevor’s character was just as cold. She was a silken savage, after all.

Do you know what time it is or have you forgotten in the two months since this feature last appeared?

Unlike the movie, the lobby cards for Born To Kill are in living color as well as plentiful.

I have some trashy news:  The trailer isn’t online, but the scene featured in the second lobby card is.

Poor drunk landlady. First Cookie calls her “glamor girl” then murders her to protect his true love, Lawrence Tierney.

One more thing about Tierney. He never became a big star but went on to a long acting career. He played Elaine’s father in an episode of Seinfeld:

Was he as bad a dancer as Elaine? Beats the hell outta me but Tierney scared the shit out of the Seinfeldians costing him a recurring role on the show.

The last word goes to Eddie Muller with his Noir Alley intro and outro: