The Killing
Composite Score: 86.6
Starring: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Ted de Corsia, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook Jr., Joe Sawyer, James Edwards, Timothy Carey, and Kola Kwariani
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubrick and Jim Thompson
Genres: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
MPAA Rating: Approved
Box Office: $203 worldwide
My take on Watching This Film:
The Killing is Stanley Kubrick’s sophomore feature, and his first film to achieve critical acclaim. It’s a noir heist film based on Lionel White’s novel Clean Break, which follows an eclectic group of would-be criminals as they seek to rob a racetrack on the day of the big horse race. The convoluted plan is masterminded by ex-con Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden), financed by the independently wealthy Marvin Unger (Jay C. Flippen), aided by track bartender Mike O’Reilly (Joe Sawyer) and track cashier George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.), and covered and given plausible deniability by corrupt cop Randy Kennan (Ted de Corsia). Meanwhile, George’s faithless wife Sherry (Marie Windsor) has her own designs on the score, sharing the details of the plan with her boyfriend/lover Val Cannon (Vince Edwards). All of these players, supported by a police-procedural-adjacent voiceover narration from Art Gilmore, produce a fast-paced and complex story of betrayal, crime, love, and justice. It’s interesting to think of this film as a noir because it technically does feature most of the requisite pieces of a noir – stylized visuals, moral ambiguity, a femme fatale, the inevitable failure of this bunch of crooks – but it also feels like an evolution of the genre with far less idealization and far more violent take on all that it entails. The characters feel more drawn from the real world, grounded in a more realistic “bad” side of town than your typical noir gangsters. This is a film full of people down in the grit and grime, and not in some idyllic, “Oh isn’t crime cool?” way. Even Sterling Hayden, a conventionally attractive lead, feels more rugged than your typical noir lead. None of these criminals wear nice suits or live in penthouses; they just want what they feel the system owes them one way or another. It’s these contradictions that make Kubrick’s work so impressive, as he gives the audience these flawed rooting interests, knowing that in the end it probably won’t work out for them. He then plays it all off, playing in the face of the era’s code of ethics in the process, with two strikingly tense but also cynically humorous sequences where everyone involved gets what they’re owed in the end. While I will admit that I didn’t love every bit of the film – the narration sometimes brought it too close to a 1950s/60s police serial, and I’m still not convinced that every character actually did get what they deserve – there’s no denying that it’s a strong and unique entry in the world of film-noir that warrants checking out for any fan of the genre or of Kubrick. The Killing is a raw take on both Kubrick and film noir that does things that other films from the director and in the genre wouldn’t necessarily be expected to do, but it works refreshingly well and earns a spot among the greats as well. Not everyone will necessarily be in love with this film, but those who are looking for a unique twist on heists and crime films with a darkly cynical undertone will be sure to enjoy it. Currently, this film can be watched with ads on Tubi or with a subscription to MGM+ if you’d like to check it out.
