Born To Kill
(Wise, 1947)
Also known as “Lady Of Deceit” in the UK.
Some filmmakers go to great lengths to produce characters of great depth, complexity and unpredictability of intent. Some you can read a mile off, but at least the writer has the good grace to provide you with the odd bit of double-dealing and bluff.
Then there are films like Born To Kill, where the players are painted with such broad strokes as to make their motives transparent as a cat rubbing up against your leg every time you go anywhere near the kitchen. This is murder, avarice and blackmail by numbers.
That’s not to say that Born To Kill is a bad film. On the contrary, it’s sometimes quite nice to know exactly where you stand with characters: a hulking psychopath who will not only do whatever it takes to get what he wants, but will openly admit it to anyone who asks; a gold-digging coquette who is happy to use anyone who puts their trust in her; and a morally vacuous private investigator willing to sell out everyone in sight to achieve a better profit.
The morality of Born To Kill is almost exclusively black and white. Characters exist to exploit or be exploited, and betrayal is never more than a phone call away. Lawrence Tierney’s character is the destructive force that drives the film, and while he is rather one-dimensional, his frank callousness and barely-concealed rage give him credibility as an irredeemable noir heel.
The story, while not especially complex, keeps you guessing as to which, if any of the deeply unpleasant characters will come out on top in the end. This isn’t deep enough to qualify as noir at its best, but is definitely worth a watch for the entertaining individual performances and the unflinching fatalism of the narrative.
tl;dr: A film ahead of its time in terms of the gritty unpleasantness of its seedy little world, Born To Kill is enjoyable, stock film noir with an uncomplicated plot and three wickedly depraved central characters.
