Rent Born to Kill (1947)

3.6 of 5 from 64 ratings
1h 32min
Rent Born to Kill (aka Lady of Deceit / Deadlier Than the Male) Online DVD & Blu-ray Rental
  • General info
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Synopsis:
Sam Wild (Lawrence Tierney) is a real lady-killer. He's irresistible to women - but has a murderous and uncontrollable temper. He's already killed twice, without conscience or remorse - and he's ready to kill again.... Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) already has her suspicions about Sam when he marries her vulnerable half-sister and heiress Georgia (Audrey Long). At the same time she's irresistibly drawn to his brutal animal magnetism. Should she turn him into the police - or seduce him and share in his vicious crimes?
Actors:
, , , , , , , , , , , , Stanley Stone
Directors:
Producers:
Herman Schlom
Writers:
Eve Greene, Richard Macaulay, James Gunn
Aka:
Lady of Deceit / Deadlier Than the Male
Studio:
Odeon
Genres:
Classics, Drama, Thrillers
Collections:
Top 10 Films About Trains: Thrillers, Top Films
BBFC:
Release Date:
16/07/2012
Run Time:
92 minutes
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono
Subtitles:
None
DVD Regions:
Region 0 (All)
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Full Screen 1.33:1 / 4:3
Colour:
B & W

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Reviews (2) of Born to Kill

Hard Boiled. - Born to Kill review by Steve

Spoiler Alert
21/09/2022

The opening credits roll over a still of long legs in heels, promising salacious glamour. But nothing in all of film noir prepares us for how sleazy this film is. Maybe the censors were asleep; the narrative is occasionally sluggish. But Born to Kill lands a low punch of astonishing brutality. Even the good guy, the droll investigator (Walter Slezak) will let the murderer walk for a price.

It's a hard boiled noir about two insatiable sociopaths: Lawrence Tierney (Sam) is a violent, egotistical killer; Claire Trevor (Helen) is a poor relation who wants some of the family fortune and doesn't mind how she gets it. Together they free each other from guilt or ethics. He kills a woman, and she covers up. Sam marries Helen's wealthy step-sister (Audrey Long) but prefers sex with Helen, who is engaged to someone normal.

Everyone is compromised in some way. Sam has a (plainly) homosexual relationship with his submissive, scuzzy sidekick, brilliantly played by Elisha Cook, who will kill to clear any obstacles to Sam's desires. The spoiled step-sister will protect her psychopathic husband from the police to satisfy her sexual obsession.

The dialogue is startlingly frank. When Helen tells an old woman how it will feel when Sam kills her, she seems to experience physical pleasure. The lovers take a sensual thrill from how corrupt they are. This is a morally and visually dark film, with a rich film noir look. Tierney and Trevor are phenomenally trashy as well as degenerate. This one has to be seen to be believed.

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Caught in a Trap - Born to Kill review by CH

Spoiler Alert
18/02/2024

The hills are alive with the sound of... murder.

Perhaps most widely known for an epic account of the von Trapp family, Robert Wise began life as a director with a number of brisk thrillers such as the real-time night of The Set-Up, the masterly Odds against Tomorrow and, most startling, Born to Kill (1947).

From a now-very scarce novel Deadlier than the Male by James Gunn, it opens in Reno where sultry Claire Trevor - to the hilt what was once called a mean broad - is now divorced. New-found equilibrium is disturbed by her chancing to find - and flee from - the bodies of an attractive woman and potential lover freshly killed in a dark kitchen by a hulking, psychotically jealous Lawrence Tierney.

Come the railroad station, they meet on the platform, unaware of this connection. They talk, and, naturally, all this takes such a noir turn as his meeting her again amidst the San Francisco hills and wide staircases of the house where he meets, and marries, her rich sister. Such a man, of course, remains dangerously smitten, and Claire Trevor does not brush him off.

All the while, did he but know it, there is a Fury to match Ida from Brighton Rock. Esther Howard is the redoubtable landlady of the Reno rooming house who has her suspicions and, what’s more, has engaged the services of private detective Walter Slezak, a man born for rôles as sleazy as his surname. The trail hots up, with the strange diversion of Tierney being aided - even to the point of sharing a bed - by that familiar fellow, the slight, ever-nervous Elisha Cook.

Here is no star-driven “vehicle” but ensemble playing which risks treachery at every step (the detective gives a masterclass in the niceties of being bought off). Born to Kill carries its superior hokum aloft. Wise reaches for the familiar haunts and dark streets of noir while keepng up a pace which also allows time for the characters to talk - beguilingly or threateningly, as circumstances require.

It would be difficult to picture Julie Andrews in any remake of this. With all its shades of the creepy, here is a cult item - a status enhanced by David Lynch adopting the name of its first victim Laury Palmer as the Laura of that ilk whose early end caused so much trouble in small-town Twin Peaks.

There is even a reference here to the aroma of coffee.

A damn fine film.

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