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The Killing (1956)
Legendary director Stanley Kubrick directed only 16 films during his amazing career, but most of them were pretty memorable. One of his earliest triumphs was a taut and economic crime drama from 1956 called The Killing.
Johnny Clay has been sprung from prison after five years and has put together a plan to rob $2,000,000 from a racetrack. Each member of the team has a specific task and two of the five men are actually employees of the racetrack. They plan to split the money five ways except for two outside "contractors" who have been hired for specific tasks at which they are considered expert, for a flat fee. In addition to watching the planning and execution of the crime, we also learn why these men are doing this.
Based on a novel called Clean Break, Kubrick and co-screenwriters Jim Thompson and Lionel White have constructed an intimate and detailed oriented story that requires full attention from the viewer as the players involved are introduced in a random fashion, as well as their reasons for getting involved in this complex screen. The most intriguing story for this reviewer was the story of George Petty, a racetrack employee who wanted in on the scheme so that he could smother his wife, Sherry in diamonds and furs, totally unaware that sharing is not only cheating on him with a guy named Val, but apparently has a past with Johnny as well.
Anyone who has seen Tarantino's The Usual Suspects or Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven franchise will see this film's influence on these future films. The gathering of the team and reviewing of their assignments reminded me a lot of Tarantino's and the execution of the crime, reminded me of the Ocean films, in that the execution seems to go off flawlessly, but there are unexpected bumps that Johnny doesn't see coming.
Kubrick creates a chilling atmosphere here as we know there's just no way this plan is going to come off as planned, but we don't know exactly how. The black and white photography is gorgeous, intensifying the atmosphere even further, s does Gerald Fried's jazzy music score. Sterling Hayden is beautifully understated as Johnny, but the film is easily stolen by the underrated Elisha Cook Jr. as the pathetic George and the fabulous Marie Windsor as the trampy Sherry. And yes, that is TV's future Ben Casey, playing Val. Despite some slightly dated elements, this one still packs a wallop.
Legendary director Stanley Kubrick directed only 16 films during his amazing career, but most of them were pretty memorable. One of his earliest triumphs was a taut and economic crime drama from 1956 called The Killing.
Johnny Clay has been sprung from prison after five years and has put together a plan to rob $2,000,000 from a racetrack. Each member of the team has a specific task and two of the five men are actually employees of the racetrack. They plan to split the money five ways except for two outside "contractors" who have been hired for specific tasks at which they are considered expert, for a flat fee. In addition to watching the planning and execution of the crime, we also learn why these men are doing this.
Based on a novel called Clean Break, Kubrick and co-screenwriters Jim Thompson and Lionel White have constructed an intimate and detailed oriented story that requires full attention from the viewer as the players involved are introduced in a random fashion, as well as their reasons for getting involved in this complex screen. The most intriguing story for this reviewer was the story of George Petty, a racetrack employee who wanted in on the scheme so that he could smother his wife, Sherry in diamonds and furs, totally unaware that sharing is not only cheating on him with a guy named Val, but apparently has a past with Johnny as well.
Anyone who has seen Tarantino's The Usual Suspects or Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven franchise will see this film's influence on these future films. The gathering of the team and reviewing of their assignments reminded me a lot of Tarantino's and the execution of the crime, reminded me of the Ocean films, in that the execution seems to go off flawlessly, but there are unexpected bumps that Johnny doesn't see coming.
Kubrick creates a chilling atmosphere here as we know there's just no way this plan is going to come off as planned, but we don't know exactly how. The black and white photography is gorgeous, intensifying the atmosphere even further, s does Gerald Fried's jazzy music score. Sterling Hayden is beautifully understated as Johnny, but the film is easily stolen by the underrated Elisha Cook Jr. as the pathetic George and the fabulous Marie Windsor as the trampy Sherry. And yes, that is TV's future Ben Casey, playing Val. Despite some slightly dated elements, this one still packs a wallop.