When things became too dangerous for the mob, they retreated to the suburb of Summit, where "The Killers" takes place. Not long before the story was written, the Chicago mob had ordered the killing of a popular boxer of the time, Andre Anderson. Leo Mongoven went on the run after the killing in 1926 and was captured following a road accident which claimed the life of Chicago banker John J Mitchell and his wife in 1927 - Hemingway was probably unaware of the accident as his short story went into print. Anderson once knocked Jack Dempsey off his feet, likely Hemingway's source for the Swede. Despite Hemingway's knowledge of organized crime, he omitted much of that background from the story. Hemingway himself said, "That story probably had more left out of it than anything I ever wrote. I left out all Chicago, which is hard to do in 2951 words." In 1984, Oak Park and River Forest High School published the anthology Hemingway at Oak Park High and included short works that Hemingway had written for his school newspaper and literary magazine. One of the stories, "A Matter of Colour", involves the plot of a boxing manager's having a man named Swede hide behind a curtain and hit an opponent during a bout. The Swede fails, and the reader is left with an impression that in retaliation, the boxing manager puts out a contract on his life. Adaptations The short story has been the basis for several movies, and stories by Jorge Luis Borges and Tobias Wolff: The Killers (1946), starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner The Killers (1956), a short film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, Aleksandr Gordon and Marika Beiku The Killers (1959 television) starring Ingemar Johansson, Dean Stockwell, and Diane Baker on CBS's Buick-Electra Playhouse, televised on November 19, 1959. The Killers (1964), starring Lee Marvin, Ronald Reagan, and Angie Dickinson Carnal Circuit (Original Italian title: Femmine insaziabili) (1969), an unofficial adaptation as a giallo. "The Wait" ("La espera" in Spanish) (1950), a short story by Jorge Luis Borges that retells and reinterprets the meaning of this Hemingway story "Bullet in the Brain" (1995), a short story by Tobias Wolff "The Killers in the Diner", the fourth episode of Lupin the 3rd Part 6 (2021), features a retelling of "The Killers" as the cast searches for a rare printing of the short story. See also Pulp Fiction References