The Killing
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Movie Reviews of The Killing
Movie Review: Kubrick's Ticket to the Big Time
Summary: 5 Stars
Film noir has been an excellent launching pad toward the top ranks of directors, as exemplified by such up and coming cinema talent of the past as Edward Dmytryk, Richard Fleischer and Anthony Mann, to name a few.
One other cinema great had his ticket punched into the medium's big leagues with a highly imaginative low budget 1956 effort. That director was the youthful Stanley Kubrick and the film was "The Killing." Just one year later Kubrick would receive international praise for his brilliant anti-war vehicle "Paths of Glory" starring Kirk Douglas.
While "The Killing" has been compared stylistically as well as story-wise to John Houston's brilliant 1950 hit "Asphalt Jungle," Kubrick took an interesting u-turn from the "Asphalt Jungle" scenario to achieve a unique tour de force. While both films were built around scoring a big heist, "Asphalt Jungle" was structured around using professional criminal types while "The Killing" could have been sub-titled "The Criminal Amateur Hour" and herein Kubrick achieved solid dividends.
The Lionel White-Jim Thompson script featured three criminal professionals; mastermind Sterling Hayden, who also starred in "The Asphalt Jungle," Timothy Carey, a professional marksman, and strongman Kola Kwariani. Hayden, who has just been released from prison, culled the rest of his gang from the amateur ranks.
Many viewers who appreciated "The Killing" credit noir veterans Marie Windsor and Elisha Cook, Jr. of stealing the film. They form an odd relationship in which Cook fawns to please his faithless wife, who sarcastically derides him in turn.
One of the film's chief plot points emerges after Windsor is able to squeeze information out of Cook to leak to her boyfriend Vince Edwards, who is as faithless toward her as she is to her husband.
Jay C. Flippen provides the cash to Hayden and his team, funds he embezzled from the company where he works. Flippen's seedy downtown Los Angeles apartment is the meeting point for the makeshift mob of amateurs that hopes to pull off a big heist, A Killing as it were, by robbing a racetrack of its cash take the day of the biggest race of the season.
Hayden has two people who yearn to associate with him for different reasons. Flippen is despondent and feels life is passing him by. He dreams of traveling the world with Hayden, someone he looks on as a surrogate son.
A diplomatic Hayden lets Flippen down easily. He plans on spending his time with the girl who has loved him since their school days, played by Colleen Gray, another noir veteran who starred in "Nightmare Alley."
A daring caper like this can be more easily achieved with a crooked cop on its team. That element is satisfied with the participation of Ted de Corsia, a sinister element in many films, including the Jules Dassin police drama "The Naked City." Hayden is more of a putative criminal strategist than sinister. At one point Hayden calms de Corsia down when he wants to work over a meddlesome Marie Windsor.
Two other unique character types appear in the main cast. Timothy Carey plays a bizarre shooter who gets himself in trouble ultimately by hurling racial invective at James Edwards, a kindly racetrack parking lot attendant.
The other offbeat character type is stolid, muscular Kola Kwariani, who is hired to start a fight at the track to distract attention. A professional wrestler, Kwariani was a chess-playing friend of Kubrick's from his Brooklyn days.
In my book "L.A. Noir" I rated "The Killing" as one of the best noir films ever made. No lovers of the genre should miss it.
Movie Review: Did THE KILLING make a CLEAN BREAK from the Brinks'job?
Summary: 5 Stars
The movie: THE KILLING (1956) by Stanley Kubrick, was the film which brought the twenty-eight year old director to Hollywood's attention. Based on the 1955 crime novel CLEAN BREAK by Lionel White (and re-named THE KILLING for its 1988 redistribution), director Kubrick incorporated the author's use of the staggered time interval (which began in chapter eight) within this well balanced and tightly paced story of seven disparate characters brought together to orchestrate a logically planned two million dollar robbery of a race track in broad daylight.A brilliant effort of film making by Stanley Kubrick as he demonstrated an impeccable choice in cast selection, choosing established 'B' movie actors such as: Elisha Cook, Jr. as George Peatty and Jay C. Flippen as Marvin Unger (both actors had appeared in "The Three Stooges" skits more than once); then Sterling Hayden as the main character, Johnny Clay: though one of the beauties of this film is that all of the actors had such memorable performances. The limited acting abilities of these stars only added to the subtle gritty reality of their lumpenprolitariat roles which carried this film as much as any special effect.
While Stanley Kubrick wrote the screenplay and maintained a number of elements from the book, he eliminated Lionel White's character of Maurice Cohen and had Johnny Clay assume those duties; and also replaced the boxer, Tex, with the burly (and hairy) wrestler Maurice Oboukhof for the spectacular bar room fight diversion. In the book, Marvin Unger deeply despised Johnny Clay; but in the movie, Unger demonstrated a fatherly pride and deep paternal admiration for Johnny Clay - the movie is noted for its admirable male commeraderie!
But how much more was Stanley Kubrick influenced for this movie outside of the Lionel White novel was suggested during the actual stick-up scene performed by Sterling Hayden's character, Johnny Clay. In the book, Johnny tied a loose handkerchief around his face as a disguise, but this was changed in the movie to a full rubber clown mask - almost an exact duplicate of the masks published in police photographs used by the bandits in the 1950s Brinks robbery in Boston; a robbery that was then nationally advertised as "The Crime of the Century"! The similarities continued as the Brinks building was robbed of two million dollars by seven armed men in rubber masks and got clean away. This is too strong a resemblance to be ignored, and the well-read Stanley Kubrick may have also been influenced by this event, coupled with the novel CLEAN BREAK, to produce his advanced and visionary robbery debut film.
Still, the movie: THE KILLING by Stanley Kubrick, is a brilliant and typically Kubrickian ahead-of-its-time work of art which is a *must* watching experience in black & white for all its lasting and provocative scenes.
Movie Review: Early Kubrick is a Killer
Summary: 5 Stars
The Killing was on of the first film directed by the great Stanley Kubrick and is definitely one of his best. This is a straight caper film. No bells and whistles just a great story. This story is told in what would become know as "Dragnet", a monotone narrator giving the facts.
Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) is a small time crook looking for one last score to retire. He's been setting this up for some time and has all the inside people in place. This will be the perfect crime where no one will get hurt.
The plan is to rob a race track. Johnny plans on using the money to run away with his girlfriend, Fay (Coleen Gray). He has collected a group of desperate people, none of which are career criminals, just people in too deep.
Mike O'Reilly is the track bartender, his wife is dying of cancer. George Peatty (Elisha Cook) is a track cashier, his he married a woman who wants to live above George's abilities. Marvin Unger is an accountant who is financing the job. Patrolman Randy Kenyon has gambling debts that he cannot pay. These men plus Johnny make the heist gang.
There are two men outside the gang. They are hired for a specific purpose for a set amount. The first is strongman Maurice and the other is gunman Nikki Arone. Maurice is to start a fight at the track and Nikki is to kill a horse in the seventh race. Both of these are to be distractions.
But things were already unraveling. George is boasting to his wife. His wife then tells her lover Val Cannon (Vince Edwards).
At the heist, Nikki's escape runs afoul and he is killed. The rest of the team's parts go off without a hitch. They all meet up at Marvin's apartment awaiting Johnny and the split of the take. But Val is not satisfied with taking just George's split, he wants it all and ambushes the boys at Marvin's before the money arrives. George kills Val and Val's shotgun discharges killing the others.
Johnny arrives to find all dead and runs off to his own fate.
This film is not told chronologically. It is told by character story lines. So it jumps back and forth in time. But there is a method to the madness. This film shows the same events from different points of view. It does not fragment scenes to show everything when it happened. Unlike future filmmakers who use the distorted time line as a gimmick to hide the flaws in their films, Kubrick uses this to make his film more complete.
This film shows the early genius of Stanley Kubrick.
DVD EXTRAS: None
Movie Review: "But then you've never been very smart, have you, Johnny?"
Summary: 5 Stars
Think about it. Sterling Hayden. Ted de Corsia. Elisha Cook, Jr. Joe Sawyer. Jay C. Flippen. How in the world could THIS assortment of misfits, have nots, and bunglers ever pull off "The Big Heist?"
Then throw in the drooling, snarling, sociopathic Tim Carey and presumed wrestler Kola Kwarian (who would be marvelous if you could understand 30% of what he's talking about), and you have a motley crue of amateurs that could screw up a liguor store job.
But watching the inevitable unraveling of the "perfect crime" is non-stop fun worth viewing time and again.
As if these guys ever had a chance, Marie Windsor, Vince Edwards, and the ubiquitous (especially in Kubrick films) Joe Turkel are on the scene determined to cut themselves in on the take and, of course, wind up complicating matters even worse.
In many ways, this film is a companion piece to "The Asphalt Jungle," another Hayden vehicle where the caper is way over the heads of the losers who are trying to pull it off.
At least the brains of the outfit in "Jungle," Sam Jaffe as Erwin "Doc" Riedenschneider, is a pro, albeit one with a fatal flaw.
But, in this film, Hayden's Johnny Clay is just an engaging, well intentioned buffoon.
The very last shot is priceless. I won't give it away, but suffice it to say that you leave the film feeling exactly as Johnny would have.
With the exception of Coleen Gray, who, as Johnny's dutiful, awestruck girlfriend, turns in another embarrassing performance rivaling the primer of bad acting she gave us in "Kiss of Death," the rest of the cast is spectacular.
Ted de Corsia and Carey particularly shine as the indebted, crooked cop and homespun professional killer, respectively.
After watching de Corsia in "The Enforcer," "The Joker is Wild," and this film, you can't help but think that Central Casting must found him in San Quentin and convinced the parole board to grant an early release.
And Carey purloins a scene from the star by rubbing his eye, yawning, spitting, and hilariously doing everything else he can think of to lure the camera away from Hayden.
The one aspect of this film that becomes a bit dificult to stomach is the constant haranguing and verbal abuse that Marie Windsor heaps on her feckless husband, Cook.
But then, he probably deserved it for kicking Bogart in the face in "The Maltese Falcon."
Movie Review: a "B" masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
One of my favorite movies of all times, I've probably seen it over 100 times since 1973 and I never tire of it. My dad introduced me to this film, and told me that I had to pay very careful attention to it [because of the overlapping flashbacks via which the robbery sequence is told]. I was puzzled at first, but caught on quickly enough, and even at the age of 16 I knew i was watching something special which would withstand the test of time.
It is amazing that 40 years later Quentin Tarantino would be praised, as if he was the second coming of Orson Welles, for employing a similar non-linear narrative in "Pulp Fiction." The latter is bigger, more contemporary, but compared to "The Killing" it's clear how shallow and how empty PF really is, just a triumph of glitzy style over substance.
"The Kiling" has it's faults, especially the penultimate scene when the robbers are in turn [almost] robbed by Vince Edwards and Joe Turkel, and Elisha Cooke Jr., the victim of cuckolding at the hands of Edwards, touchs off a shootout which ends ina bloodbath. The final scene at the airpiort with the stupid little dog is unforgettable, but likewise unconvincing. After executing an elaborate robbery [actually, it's a fairly simple robbery, it's the non-linear narrative which makes it seem much more complex than it really is], Sterling Hayden is caught because he stuffs the cash into an ultra-shoddy second-hand valise? Why not have bought a new one? Or left the cash in the duffel bag and just shoved that duffel bag into the valise? Or bought some electricians' tape or plumbers' tape and securely sealed the valise? Yeah, we know, than the film could not have ended as the downer that it did.
A must see for all fans of B movies, crime drama, film noir [thought it's not strictly speaking of that genre] and the works of Kubrick. An excellent investment of just under 90 minutes of your time.
The DVD release is a relative disappointment. A movie which cries out forextensive Special Features, in particular feature commentary by any noted film critic or film historian [in particular guys like Alain Silver or James Ursini or Eddie Meuller who have done so many commentary tracks for the Fox film noir release] has none. That's a real shame. Perhaps it will be rectified in future versions of this DVD reelase. I for one hope so.