her." Release Critical response When the film was first released, Bosley Crowther gave it a positive review and lauded the acting. He wrote, "With Robert Siodmak's restrained direction, a new actor, Burt Lancaster, gives a lanky and wistful imitation of a nice guy who's wooed to his ruin. And Ava Gardner is sultry and sardonic as the lady who crosses him up. Edmond O'Brien plays the shrewd investigator in the usual cool and clipped detective style, Sam Levene is very good as a policeman and Albert Dekker makes a thoroughly nasty thug. ... The tempo is slow and metronomic, which makes for less excitement than suspense." In a review of the DVD release, Scott Tobias, while critical of the screenplay, described the drama's noir style, writing, "Lifted note-for-note from the Hemingway story, the classic opening scene of Siodmak's film sings with the high tension, sharp dialogue, and grim humor that's conspicuously absent from the rest of Anthony Veiller's mediocre screenplay. ... A lean block of muscles and little else, Burt Lancaster stars as the hapless victim, an ex-boxer who was unwittingly roped into the criminal underworld and the even more dangerous gaze of Ava Gardner, a memorably sultry and duplicitous femme fatale. ... [Siodmak] sustains a fatalistic tone with the atmospheric touches that define noir, favoring stark lighting effects that throw his post-war world into shadow." The film was considered a great commercial and critical success and launched Lancaster and his co-star Ava Gardner to stardom. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 100% based on 32 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.12/10. Accolades Wins Edgar Award: Edgar; from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Motion Picture, Anthony Veiller (writer), Mark Hellinger (producer), and Robert Siodmak (director); 1947. Nominations—1947 Academy Awards Best Director: Robert Siodmak. Best Film Editing: Arthur Hilton. Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture: Miklós Rózsa. Best Adapted Screenplay: Anthony Veiller. American Film Institute Lists AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills - Nominated AFI's 10 Top 10 - Nominated Gangster Film Adaptations The Killers was dramatized as a half-hour radio play on the June 5, 1949, broadcast of Screen Director's Playhouse, starring Burt Lancaster, Shelley Winters and William Conrad. In 1956, director Andrei Tarkovsky, then a film student, created a 19-minute short based on the story which is featured on the Criterion Collection DVD release. The film was adapted in 1964, using the same