Wise Noir Watch: Born to Kill (1947)

Watched:  02/07/2026

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Robert Wise

In the world of film noir, there's movies that are a bit gritty, and then there's movies like Born to Kill (1947) that look around at the shadier movies and say "hold my beer".  

First - we don't talk enough about Claire Trevor.  Stunningly good actor who has been largely forgotten by non-classic film buffs, but who won an Academy Award the year after this movie for her remarkable role in Key Largo.  Trevor didn't just work in noir, but in noir - she's one of the most active women of the genre, and is who you give a role to when you know the character is going to get extreme and you need for them to still feel like someone you might know in real life.  She's also fantastic in Murder, My Sweet, Raw Deal, Dead End, and you might know her from Stagecoach.    

Here, she plays a woman seeking a divorce in classic 1940's fashion - by going to Reno for six weeks and then being granted her divorce.  As she's planning her return home, her neighbor is murdered by a jealous boyfriend, played by Lawrence Tierney.*  She doesn't know it was him, but she stumbles on the bodies but doesn't call the cops - wanting to stay out of whatever happened and just get home.

On the train ride she meets Tierney and they flirt hard - as well as possibly do other things off screen on the train.  But back in San Francisco she returns to her fiancée and millionaire foster sister.  Tierney shows up, figures out what he could get from the sister and marries her.  Meanwhile, an investigation has begun into who killed the neighbor, funded by the landlady in Trevor's boarding house.  

Tierney also has a little buddy played by Elisha Cook Jr. who modern eyes would sure read as being in love with him, but the relationship is vague, and who doesn't like a toady?

What drives the film is that Trevor and Tierney have an irresistible connection - and like some of the best noir films, if these two people never met, maybe the world would have just been a better place (think: Double Indemnity).  It's a toxic combination, Tierney would have eventually got caught for killing someone despite Elisha Cook Jr.'s intentions to keep him alive.   Trevor likely would have continued on, keeping herself in check, maybe becoming (even more) bitter and ruthless, but likely without a body count.  But game recognizes game here, and Trevor thinks she's found someone who might get her.

The movie is odd as no one is really "good" in it.  Even the sister who will hurt no one is painted as just naive and maybe ignorant, protected by her money.  And Trevor's fiance is at least savvy enough to know sort out that Trevor is marrying him for money - he's no dupe or innocent.

Tierney's form of darkness in the movie is a collection of neuroses, from narcissism to psychopathy.  But Trevor is twisted in her own way, a survivor, but someone who will use and abuse people to get her way.  The movie also sets up Tierney as a sort of Homme Fatale, someone with a sexual allure that the women can't seem to resist, leading them to their corruption.  And while Trevor's character starts off savvy and jaded, and maybe a touch shady - she's also also got hints of what's living inside Tierney, walking off from the discovery of the murder of a woman she's come to know, and going downhill rapidly from there.

As Jamie said - there's not really anyone to like in this movie.  No one is charming, trying to make it all better.  Even the woman trying to uncover the truth is a souse and the private dick she tires to unravel the mystery of what happened to Laurie Palmer is easily bought off.  No Philip Marlowe, this fellow.  We're just diving headfirst into the muck with this one.

I like it, but I do think it can be a shock on a first watch.  Our protagonist has no notes of heroism, and the movie doesn't hint that her womanliness makes her a devil or an angel - it treats her as a solid, three-dimensional character who happens to be terrible.  Plus, she has some great outfits.

Per Wise as a director - he's being given bigger pictures at RKO.  Claire Trevor was no lightweight, and this script is a doozy.  He's shown he can handle horror and thrillers, and some of that was required to set the tone of doom in this movie.  But he's also got a deft hand dealing with actors.  He's getting good talent and he knows how to use them.  

*I usually tap dance around it, but Tierney was nuts in real life.  He may have played characters like this so well because he was such a piece of work.  Stories abound from even during his career in the 90's when he was Joe in Reservoir Dogs or Elaine's scary dad on Seinfeld.  In both cases, people felt physically threatened.