Born to Kill (rewatch)
Posted by martinteller on March 21, 2010
Might as well do back-to-back Lawrence Tierney flicks. He’s even more menacing and psychotic here, really a scary mofo. Walter Slezak and Esther Howard are also both very memorable in their small roles. The movie has a lot of trashy, campy charm to it, and with its dark psychological themes of sexual obsession it’s much closer to noir than Dillinger. But on the whole it’s just too soapy, largely due to the terrible, string-heavy score and the upper-class setting. There’s also not much of the style later evident in Wise’s The Set-Up. A few of the scenes really sing, but a number of them come off as flat. Rating: 7
