On this day in movie history - Born to Kill (1947 movie & novel):

Born to Kill

aka Lady of Deceit and Deadlier Than the Male,

directed by Robert Wise,

written by Eve Greene and Richard Macaulay,

based on the novel Deadlier Than the Male by James Gunn,

was released in the United States on May 3, 1947.
Music by Paul Sawtell.

Cast:

Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak, Phillip Terry, Audrey Long, Elisha Cook Jr., Isabel Jewell, Esther Howard, Kathryn Card, Tony Barrett, Grandon Rhodes, Demetrius Alexis, Symona Boniface, Ruth Brennan, George Bruggeman, James Carlisle, Ellen Corby, Sayre Dearing, Joe Dixon, Neal Dodd, Jean Fenwick, George Ford, Lee Frederick, Ben Frommer, Harry Harvey, Martha Hyer, Perc Launders, Sam Lufkin, Wilbur Mack, Beatrice Maude, Russell Meeker, Al Murphy, Tommy Noonan, Netta Packer, Jason Robards Sr., Romeo (the dog), Paul Russell, Scott Seaton, Sammy Shack, Stanley Stone, Phil Warren, Napoleon Whiting.

Recommended reading:

Deadlier Than the Male

By James Gunn.

Introduced by Curtis Evans.

Filmed as Born to Kill, aka Lady of Deceit and Deadlier Than the Male (1947), directed by Robert Wise.

Published by Stark House Press.

Film Noir Classics, 7.

First published 1942.

Paperback.

ISBN-13: 979-8886010824

ASIN: B0CW22PDN7

Description:

“Deadlier Than the Male is truly one of the strangest of all American crime novels. In fact it’s one of the strangest of all American novels… It is in no way a pleasant read but it is fascinating in a bizarre, morbid and very unsettling way. Gunn’s style is as extreme and as offbeat as his plotting. This is psychological noir at its darkest.” – Vintage Pop Fictions.

DEADLIER THAN THE MALE.

Helen is in Reno for her second divorce and staying with Mrs. Krantz and her daughter Rachel at their boarding house. Mrs. Krantz’s drinking companion, Laura Pollicker, lives next door. That night she is murdered, and Helen discovers the body—and wastes no time in returning to the San Francisco house she shares with his sister Georgia. How could she know that the very man who meets and marries her sister only days later is the same man who had slit Mrs. Pollicker’s throat.

Sam Wild is a powerful man, tall, muscular, with very little control over his emotions. His friend Mart watches out for him, but Sam sometimes just can’t help himself—he has to kill. Now he’s got a rich wife with an attractive sister, and he’s just biding his time until he can take over Georgia’s money and get rid of her, too. But that’s when Helen steps in with some plans of her own.