Kill or Be Killed

Rarely acknowledged by noir enthusiasts, Max Nosseck’s Kill or Be Killed is a strange but engrossing low-budget jungle noir that stars Lawrence Tierney as a moral hero for a change. The tale unfolds in two halves: first, Tierney’s Robert Warren, an American engineer in Brazil, is falsely accused of murder, so he flees town by stowing away on a river steamer heading down the Amazon to the captain’s plantation; second, having impressed the plantation’s co-owners, Sloma (George Coulouris) and Marek (Rudolph Anders), with his engineering background, and Marek’s wife Maria (Marissa O’Brien) with his rugged good looks, Warren is hired for a design job and becomes acquainted with the local laborers and rumors about the owners’ criminal ploys. Despite some leaps of logic and over-the-top circumstances (one character is killed by piranhas, another by a snake), Kill or Be Killed demonstrates how a charismatic lead actor like Tierney can carry even a small, peculiar film. Despite the low budget, art director Scharf creates dramatic sets whenever possible (the gossamer sheets draped throughout Maria’s elaborate sleeping quarters, the wavy tiles and Venetian arches of Warren’s studio, etc.), while the relatively happy ending is depicted entirely through shadows on a wall, the only such denouement in all of noir.