Product Details

• Actors: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Ted de Corsia
• Directors: Stanley Kubrick
• Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Jim Thompson, Lionel White
• Producers: Alexander Singer, James B. Harris
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: April 4, 2000
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0792841484
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,536 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

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Stanley Kubrick's third feature, and first screen classic, is one of the great crime films of the 1950s. The Killing was written in collaboration with Jim Thompson, who penned pulp novels like The Grifters, The Killer Inside Me, and Pop. 1280, all of which were made into classic films. This time writing directly for the screen, Thompson joined with Kubrick to concoct a story about a desperate gang of lowlifes led by a grim, determined Sterling Hayden. Together they devise and execute a complex racetrack robbery, but inner tensions and the iron fist of fate work against them. The cast is uniformly superb, with Hayden, Jay C. Flippen, Timothy Carey, Marie Windsor, and Elisha Cook Jr. fleshing out characters torn between grandiose ambition and petty desire. Cinematographer Lucian Ballard fashions distorted, starkly lit interiors that reflect the psychological tensions of the characters. He and Kubrick also create one of the most memorably ironic final sequences in film history.

The Killing is a perfect introduction to the art and joys of film noir, and its bizarre narrative structure has been copied many times since. For a terrific double feature, see it with John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, another noir masterpiece featuring Hayden; or Paths of Glory, Kubrick's next picture, again cowritten with Thompson; or even Jackie Brown, in which Quentin Tarantino pays homage to the ways this film leaps around in time. More commercial than some of Kubrick's later work, The Killing remains a tour de force by one of the world's finest filmmakers. --Raphael Shargel

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kubrick Does Noir, October 27, 2000

By	Reviewer - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

An ex-con engineers a race track heist in "The Killing," a taut and suspenseful film noir from director Stanley Kubrick. Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) is fresh out of Alcatraz after five years, and immediately goes to work on a job he figures to be worth upwards of two million dollars. He puts together a gang who are not real criminals, just "Some guys with problems and a little larceny in them." Marvin (Jay C. Flippen) is good for some front money Johnny needs; George (Elisha Cook Jr.) is a cashier at the track, and Mike (Joe Sawyer) is a bartender there; Randy (Ted de Corsia) is a cop with loan shark payment problems. Clay's got it all figured out, a precision plan that can't go wrong as long as everyone does his part and keeps quiet about it, before and after. But George has a wife, Sherry (Marie Windsor), who wants nice things, and he can't resist the temptation to let her know it's all going to get better real soon. Trouble is, Sherry has a boyfriend, Val (Vince Edwards), who has more than a little larceny in him, as well. As it is with all "perfect" plans, there are, after all, imperfections. The presentation of this film is not one of them, however; Kubrick keeps the tension high throughout, working with a tight narrative and an out of sequence chronology through which he dispenses bits of information, building the suspense, until it all fits together in the end like pieces of a giant puzzle (Much the same as Tarantino would do with "Pulp Fiction" many years later). The stoic delivery, coupled with the stark black and white photography of the film, creates an almost surreal, fatalistic ambience that works so well with this material; especially at the end, for it underscores the climax and heightens the drama of the final moment, all of which makes for a truly unforgettable scene. The supporting cast includes Coleen Gray (Fay), Kola Awariani (Maurice), Joe Turkel (Tiny), and Timothy Carey, who makes his detached and indifferent hit man, Nikki Arane, one of the most memorable characters in the film. It must be noted, however, that Elisha Cook Jr. gives what may have been his best performance ever, here. His scene, after it all goes bad for him and he stumbles into his apartment, bullet holes in his face and wide-eyed with acceptance, to confront Sherry, is so cool and underplayed that it becomes one of the lasting impressions of the movie. Kubrick wrote the screenplay (with some help from Jim Thompson with the dialogue), adapted from the novel "Clean Break" by Lionel White. "The Killing" is one of Kubrick's earliest and best films; and it's not just for Kubrick fans or for those who love the "noir" genre. This is an excellent piece of work that will definitely be appreciated by anyone who likes good movies.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Did THE KILLING make a CLEAN BREAK from the Brinks'job?, November 13, 2002

By	Brian A. Glennon "BAG" (South Boston, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Killing (DVD)

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gritty noir classic, A lost Kubrick Gem!, November 18, 1998

By A Customer

Listen up Noir fans - get this film! The Killing is nothing short of brilliant. This little-known gem is also the U.S. directing debut of - hold onto your fedora - Stanley Kubrick! True fans of Noir crime fiction will also appreciate this: guess who wrote the screenplay? The master himself, Jim Thompson (also wrote the novels The Grifters, Aftter Dark..., The Killer Inside Me, Heed The Thunder). This film is a classic "caper" flick with Sterling Hayden giving us his terse, gruff best as the leader of a gang who wants to pull a payroll heist. Trouble, big, violent, ugly trouble ensues. I won't spoil it for you, but I promise this flick delivers in a big way and it is surprising how much they got away with given the year this baby was shot. Unlike many movies of the era, this thing pulls no punches and is about as subtle as a brass-knuckle sandwich. Footnote: real fans of the noir genre may also appreciate this. James Ellroy, author of L.A. Confidential (to name just one of his many outstanding novels), cited The Killing as his favorite film of all time and the inspiration behind many of his stories and characters.

ENJOY!