The Hemingway short story adapted into the 1946 Burt Lancaster film was “The Killers.” Published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1927, the story begins with two professional killers arriving at a small-town diner to find and murder Ole “the Swede” Anderson.
Robert Siodmak’s film keeps the story’s opening largely intact but expands it into a full film-noir investigation. Insurance investigator Jim Reardon reconstructs Anderson’s past and uncovers the criminal scheme that led to his death. Much of that investigative plot was created for the screenplay rather than taken directly from Hemingway’s brief original.
The film marked Burt Lancaster’s screen debut and also starred Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien, and Sam Levene. Lancaster played the doomed former boxer known as the Swede, while Gardner played Kitty Collins, a central figure in his downfall.
Hemingway reportedly admired the adaptation, an unusual reaction from a writer often dissatisfied with Hollywood versions of his work. The film was later selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2008.