Character actor extraordinaire Edmond O'Brien's insurance investigator is actually the focus in Robert Siodmak's The Killers, but Burt Lancaster is quite powerful in his big-screen debut. And then there's the stunning Ava Gardner as the devious femme fatale. The entire cast is solid, the story is layered in its flashback structure (which is similar to Citizen Kane), plus, the main insurance-claim storyline is similar to what happens in Double Indemnity. And it all works really well. So steal money from your fellow thieves as the 712th podcast on Have You Ever Seen looks at the sinister intrigue and sudden violence in The Killers.

Well, Actually: at the 41:00 minute mark, the line should have been "co-starring a WOMAN who doesn't love the main character."

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