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Rating: 9 stars

All movies seen on 07/04/2011

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The Killing (1956)

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Crime

Most recently watched by sleestakk, philipjablon, loganpm, tylermager

Overview

Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.

Rated NR | Length 85 minutes

Actors

Sterling Hayden | Coleen Gray | Vince Edwards | Jay C. Flippen | Ted de Corsia | Marie Windsor | Elisha Cook Jr. | Joe Sawyer | James Edwards | Timothy Carey | Kola Kwariani | Jay Adler | Tito Vuolo | Dorothy Adams | Herb Ellis | James Griffith | Cecil Elliott | Joe Turkel | Steve Mitchell | Mary Carroll | William Benedict | Charles Cane | Robert Williams | Tom Coleman | Franklyn Farnum | John George | Art Gilmore | Kenner G. Kemp | Carl M. Leviness | Sol Gorss | Harry Hines | Hal J. Moore | Harvey Parry | Richard Reeves | Frank Richards | Arthur Tovey | Finn Zirzow | Oliver Cross | Charles Fogel | Rudy Germane

Viewing History (seen 2 times)

Viewing Notes

Having watched Cruel Gun Story earlier in the day made me fire up Kubrick’s The Killing, which I hadn’t revisited in a few years. CGS was obviously influenced by The Killing, but I was having troubles picturing the particulars, so it seemed like a good idea to rewatch.

I’m a big fan of Jim Thompson’s pulp novels, and the dialogue he wrote for The Killing is just a joy to listen to. It’s pulpy goodness in the best way possible. My only real issue with the movie is some of the voiceover stuff. I still feel like The Killing could be a better movie if it’d moved that exposition on to the characters themselvs. Still, it serves it’s purpose and doesn’t intrude on the movie too much.

The real standout actor in this is, of course, Sterling Hayden, in the main role. He’s just good looking enough to be likable despite being a pretty hardcore criminal underneath. He really sells the whole plot and his performance is great.

Other standout performances include Elisha Cook as the whipped racetrack teller, who perhaps has the best scenes in the entire movie; and Kola Kwariani, a real Russian chess playing wrestler who pretty much plays himself here in his only film appearance.

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