Born to Kill (1947) on Netflix

Approved19471h 32mCrime Drama Film-Noir

In Reno for a divorce, Helen Brent finds her neighbor and a man dead, then leaves for San Francisco without telling the police. There she meets Sam Wilde.

Netflix3.9/5
IMDb7.2/106,804 votes
Rotten Tomatoes83%

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Plot summary

Helen Brent, a San Francisco socialite, is living in a Reno boarding house owned by Mrs. Kraft while she waits for a divorce decree. Her neighbor Laury Palmer says she has a date with Danny to stir jealousy in her beau, Sam Wilde. Helen later finds Laury and Danny dead and leaves for San Francisco without calling the police. She meets Sam there, and neither knows what the other has done. Mrs. Kraft brings in the detective Albert Arnett to look into the killing. Sam turns up at the home of Helen's wealthy foster sister, Georgia Staples.

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Born to Kill (1947)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

Director Guillermo del Toro credited Born to Kill as a primary influence on his 2021 film Nightmare Alley, noting that a couple of the murders in it are shocking even in 2022.
RKO production head Dore Schary publicly distanced the studio from Born to Kill days after its release, vowing to lessen the "arbitrary use of violence" in RKO films and pledging the studio would make no more "gangster pictures". The film posted a net loss of $243,000 after its initial run.
Censors in places including Ohio, Chicago and Memphis rejected Born to Kill outright, while the National Legion of Decency judged it objectionable for accepting divorce but declined to condemn it.
On the day before Born to Kill's official release, star Lawrence Tierney made headlines over a drunken brawl and for violating probation from an earlier public drunkenness conviction. His off-screen troubles drew scrutiny of his films from state review boards and local censors, some of whom sought to ban Born to Kill.
RKO wanted Tallulah Bankhead for Helen Brent in Born to Kill but she was unavailable, so the part went to Claire Trevor in January 1946; Lawrence Tierney was the studio's first choice for Sam Wilde after his performance in Dillinger.