John Carpenter is one of my favorite directors. Like many horror fans who grew up in the 80s and 90s, I fell in love with his visual aesthetics. Moreover, I was impressed by his keen understanding of tension-building tactics.

Like his legion of loyal fans, Carpenter was raised on a steady diet of movies that spoke to him. The Halloween the director recently hung out with loved ones from Criterion and shared some of his influential favorites.

Among Carpenter’s top ten Criterion releases are noir thriller murderers. Carpenter said the following about the 1946 effort:

“All of Robert Siodmak’s films are great, but I really like his version murderers. It is simply fabulous. I love watching Burt Lancaster; he was the biggest. What an actor. . . and also a very nice man. His chemistry with Ava Gardner is unforgettable.”

The setup for this John Carpenter favorite is as follows:

Two assassins enter a restaurant asking for a man called “The Swede” (Burt Lancaster). When the killers find the Swede, he waits for them and doesn’t fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator (Edmond O’Brien), with a hunch, decides to investigate the murder. As the Swede’s past is revealed, it is revealed that he was in love with a beautiful woman (Ava Gardner) who allegedly lured him into carrying out a bank robbery overseen by another man (Albert Dekker).

murderers has an unexpected origin story.

Fun fact: The first 20 minutes of murderers is based on an Ernest Hemingway short story of the same name that first appeared in Scribner’s Magazine. The film’s balance, however, departs from the source material and comes from the minds of the film’s writers. Anthony Veiller has his only credit here. However, it appears that John Huston and Richard Brooks each took an uncredited pass.

If you like film noir and feel compelled to check it out murderers after hearing about Carpenter’s respect for the image, you’re in luck. You can find the movie streaming Prime Video (as of publishing this post).

That’s all we have for you right now. Please keep an eye out for more interesting recommendations from top names in horror as we manage to uncover them. Also, make sure you follow @DreadCentral on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter (stop trying to make X happen) so you never miss one of our informative updates.

Labels: John Carpenter Prime Video murderers

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