Directed by: Stanley Kubrick.
Written by: Stanley Kubrick and Jim Thompson based on the novel by Lionel White.
Starring: Sterling Hayden (Johnny Clay), Coleen Gray (Fay), Vince Edwards (Val Cannon), Jay C. Flippen (Marvin Unger), Ted de Corsia (Policeman Randy Kennan), Marie Windsor (Sherry Peatty), Elisha Cook Jr. (George Peatty), Joe Sawyer (Mike O'Reilly), James Edwards (Track Parking Attendant), Timothy Carey (Nikki Arcane), Kola Kwariani (Maurice Oboukhoff), Jay Adler (Leo the Loanshark), Tito Vuolo (Joe Piano).
Although it was his
third feature, when people talk about Stanley Kubrick’s career, they usually
start with 1956s The Killing. The film is a massive leap forward for Kubrick,
who took everything he learned in his first two films, and ended delivering a
tight, taut thrilling heist picture. Part of that is obviously because Kubrick’s
collaborators were better on this film – the dialogue was written by the great
crime novelist Jim Thompson, and the cast is full of professionals, who are
perfectly cast – none better than Sterling Hayden, who can do more with silence
than most actors could do with pages of dialogue. The Killing is a terrific
film.
The film is about the
planning and execution of a daring racetrack robbery. Ex-con Johnny Clay
(Hayden) has gathered a group of men who will all have very specific roles in a
daring robbery during a high stakes horse race. Most notable among them is
George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.) – the nebbish, neurotic racetrack cashier who
needs money to keep his sexpot wife Sherry (Marie Windsor) around. Hayden has a
very specific plan and if everyone just followed it, things would have gone off
without a hitch. But of course, when a man like George is married to a woman
like Sherry, he’s going to talk – and then she’s going to talk as well – and
things will go horribly wrong.
The film wastes very
little time setting everything up – it shows Johnny in action from the start,
as he gets the various pieces of his plan set in motion. The movie moves
methodically throughout the setup and execution of the robbery – often aided by
an all knowing narrator, which can be slightly annoying at times, but I see no
other way that Kubrick could have told his story, especially during the
execution of the robbery, which at various points goes back and forth in time.
The plot is complex, with so many different moving parts that right up until
the end; I think only Johnny – and Kubrick – truly understands all of them, and
how they will work together. That doesn’t mean the movie is confusing – far
from it – Kubrick keeps things moving at a breakneck pace, and at any given
moment, it’s clear precisely what is going on, even if we do not quite
understand how they will fit together in the end. At one point, Johnny visits a
chess club to hire a goon to start a fight at the racetrack – and chess is a
good metaphor for the plan Johnny is hatching – in both, he has to think well
beyond the next move to figure out the end game.
Interesting for a heist
film, Kubrick doesn’t lay out the plan ahead of the actual robbery. Think of a
film like Oceans 11, which does precisely that – explaining how everything is
supposed work, and then showing us what worked right, and what didn’t going
according to plan. In The Killing, until the actual robbery is underway, I had
no real idea what anyone’s role would be – with the exception of the wrestler
who is to start a fight, and a sharpshooter who is to kill a horse – both will
cause confusion and chaos. We only learn anything else as it happens – right
there along with the characters.
It would be tempting to
compare Johnny and Kubrick together. Like Johnny, Kubrick was obsessive about
the details of his movies – and on later films, would often require 100 takes
of a single shot to ensure he got what he wanted. He knew what he needed
everyone to do, and would do whatever possible to ensure he got that. The same
is true for Johnny – who has everything planned right down to the smallest
detail. When the plan goes awry – as, alas, it must – it isn’t because of the
plan – but because others deviate from it, or something unexpected happens. You
can plan and plan and plan, but you cannot predict the future. And sometimes
things all fall apart because of a woman – or a dog.
The Killing is the first
great film of Kubrick’s career. For many directors it would be a career
highlight. It says more about Kubrick’s career than it does about the movie to suggest
that The Killing doesn’t rank near the top of Kubrick’s filmography. It’s a
great film – it’s just that he was about to make ones that were even greater.
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