Born To Kill (Wise, 1947) #DTC 942

A reckless murderer seduces a naive heiress when her adopted sister falls for his brutal charms and tries to manipulate him.

Although the plot is a bit convoluted - and I have indeed forgotten most of it - the characters were extremely memorable in all their bold and rottenness. I enjoyed Tiereney and Trevor both equally, and they both had it coming, I guess. Although there is the happy ending obligatoire I felt that there was a silent agreement between director and the audience (me) that it was just tagged on to comply with some unseen movie force - it's not real and the story actually sinks into an ocean of evil and the bad triumph.

Esther Howard, Walther Slezak, and Elisha Cook are just as enjoyable in the smaller roles and those details make the film much more enjoyable as it is already.

As I was not really too familiar with Tierney it was amusing to learn that he mostly played variations on this role up to Tarantino's Reservoir dogs. Worth re-watching if just for that - and to support the color-blind.

Definitively worth to look again closer at Tierney's character on this one.

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