Wednesday, July 04, 2007



THE KILLING ( 1956 )

I've always been a huge fan of film noir and those great black and white detective films of the 40's. I havn,t reviewed many of these on my pages so here goes with one of the best! ' The Killing ' is an exceptional earlier film from Stanley Kubrick and is certainly not one of your usual run of the mill caper films. It involves the robbery at a horse racetrack. Superbly photographed in B/W with a dovetailed scrambling of time sequences..........plot , planning and robbery ;which works surprisingly well throughout. Like anything Kubrick did......very masterfulll!! ....Some of it is done in semi documentary style.
The technical aspects of the film too are outstanding with many very memorable exterior shots , close ups, and angles.

The Killing was a major success for Kubrick in the film industry even though it was produced for as little as 320,000 dollars....which does reveal itself in some of the cardboard looking sets. Sterling Hayden is once again excellent as' Johny Clay ' .....the tough but intelligent ring leader. Those who enjoyed him in Huston;s ' The asphalt Jungle ' will surely enjoy him here too. He is admirably supported by a host of character actors..........of particular note here is ' Elisha cook jnr ' as ' George Peatty ' the ticket seller at the racetrack who finally agrees to help out in the robbery ........A quiet man who loves his wife dearly and will do aything to please her ( played by Mary Windsor ) who is nothing more than a liar , cheat and go getter who eventually upsets the whole of the plans when letting on to her lover ( played by Vince Edwards )....... These have to be my favourite scenes ......the dialogue really crackles between these two. Then there's ' Ted de Corsia ' as the rather corrupt policeman who owes money. and ' Joe Sawyer , whose wife is sick and needs special attention. The backstage scenes of the robbery are expertly handled. We really become involved with all of the characters ......who for want or reason need money fast.........great pace from start to finish with plenty of excitement and thrills along the way........ i won't let on about the ending in case you havn't seen it........if you havn't you MUST!!!! ......Highly recommended as they say!!!

CRYSTAL EGG

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

great movie. i like the part where they were playing poker on a mac. lol.