Killing [VHS]
by Stanley Kubrick
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Product details
Actor: Coleen Gray, Jay C. Flippen, Sterling Hayden, Ted de Corsia, Vince EdwardsDirector: Stanley Kubrick
Cinematographer: Lucien Ballard
Writer: Stanley Kubrick
Editor: Betty Steinberg
Producer: Alexander Singer
Producer: James B. Harris
Writer: Jim Thompson
Writer: Lionel White
Edition: VHS Tape
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, HiFi Sound, NTSC
Running Time: 85 minutes
Release Date: 2000-04-04
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
VHS Movie Reviews of Killing [VHS]
Movie Review: Film Noir from Kubrick
Summary: 4 Stars
As a fan of both director Stanley Kubrick and writer Jim Thompson, I had long wanted to see The Killing. I was surprised at what I saw. The Killing is a surprisingly-conventional film, given Kubrick's involvement. Once I got over my surprise and took the film on its own merits, I greatly enjoyed it.
The Killing concerns a lowlife named Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden), who has gotten out of prison after five long years. Clay devises a heist at a horse race that will net $2 million; it's just one big score so that he can get out of the criminal life for good. Clay pulls in a band of crooks to help with the crime. The interactions between these men - and the women in their lives - create much of the tension in The Killing. The cast of the film is excellent and many of the characters are vivid.
Kubrick does add some artistic touches to this film. The narrative moves backward and forward in time, so the viewer has to pay attention. The black-and-white film is beautiful; Kubrick makes good use of shadows and light.
There were a few elements of the Killing that did not work for me. The film has a narrator and his voiceovers tend to detract from the film's tension and realism. In some of the scenes, moreover, it is obvious that Kubrick was filming on a set; those scenes also seem contrived. Finally, the female characters are not as well drawn as are the male characters.
The Killing is still a great noir film. I highly recommend it.
Movie Review: A complete Disappointment
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this DVD because it was directed by Stanley Kubrick,but it was obvious a film in his earliest stage of development.The movie is narrated like a Walter Winchell crime documentary or in the style of the old Dragnet program.The only thing good that probably came out of this film was Mr Kubrick remembered Sterling Hayden,and used him later in one of his terrific films Dr Strangelove.A very laughable old film about a racetrack robbery.I don't recommend.
Movie Review: a "B" masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
One of my favorite movies of all times, I've probably seen it over 100 times since 1973 and I never tire of it. My dad introduced me to this film, and told me that I had to pay very careful attention to it [because of the overlapping flashbacks via which the robbery sequence is told]. I was puzzled at first, but caught on quickly enough, and even at the age of 16 I knew i was watching something special which would withstand the test of time.
It is amazing that 40 years later Quentin Tarantino would be praised, as if he was the second coming of Orson Welles, for employing a similar non-linear narrative in "Pulp Fiction." The latter is bigger, more contemporary, but compared to "The Killing" it's clear how shallow and how empty PF really is, just a triumph of glitzy style over substance.
"The Kiling" has it's faults, especially the penultimate scene when the robbers are in turn [almost] robbed by Vince Edwards and Joe Turkel, and Elisha Cooke Jr., the victim of cuckolding at the hands of Edwards, touchs off a shootout which ends ina bloodbath. The final scene at the airpiort with the stupid little dog is unforgettable, but likewise unconvincing. After executing an elaborate robbery [actually, it's a fairly simple robbery, it's the non-linear narrative which makes it seem much more complex than it really is], Sterling Hayden is caught because he stuffs the cash into an ultra-shoddy second-hand valise? Why not have bought a new one? Or left the cash in the duffel bag and just shoved that duffel bag into the valise? Or bought some electricians' tape or plumbers' tape and securely sealed the valise? Yeah, we know, than the film could not have ended as the downer that it did.
A must see for all fans of B movies, crime drama, film noir [thought it's not strictly speaking of that genre] and the works of Kubrick. An excellent investment of just under 90 minutes of your time.
The DVD release is a relative disappointment. A movie which cries out forextensive Special Features, in particular feature commentary by any noted film critic or film historian [in particular guys like Alain Silver or James Ursini or Eddie Meuller who have done so many commentary tracks for the Fox film noir release] has none. That's a real shame. Perhaps it will be rectified in future versions of this DVD reelase. I for one hope so.
Movie Review: That's what I'm talking about
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the real deal, a classic noir with all the elements: a nasty-assed femme fatale who sets up the denouement with her greedy scheming; a spineless feckless husband manipulated by his weakness, and a frozen, soulless anti-hero. Filmed in and around San Francisco the movie feels gritty and tense and claustrophobic. I have seen this movie many times, but the ending still causes me to jump and to exclaim profanities. Excellent! Love that!
Our story: a recently released con hatches a plan to knock over the local race track. He chats up his henchmen, one who spills the plan to his unhappy wife, who spills the details to her boyfriend. Wifey and boy toy decide they want the money for themselves, and their involvement causes it all to go wrong after the heist has been completed. Ex-con grabs mousy hunny and they try to run off with the money, but fate intervenes.
This is a top drawer noir that has stood the test of time. Highly recommended.
Movie Review: The master plan
Summary: 4 Stars
Stanley's Kubrick's third feature film made such a big splash that it has often been mistaken for his first, and is a particularly well constructed heist film that shows the complex planning involved in a big racetrack robbery at many stages before and after the crime. Like his previous film, KILLER'S KISS, Kubrick (working here with the classic crime writer Jim Thompson), employs a very complex narrative time scheme that involves multiple flashbacks; unlike as with the previous film, however, the screenplay here is a miracle of efficiency, and has been imitated many times since. We see all the minor plays recruited for the big heist, and then have the pleasure of seeing all the parts come together for the payoff: clearly Kubrick's allegory here is for how films themselves are made, with his cool mastermind Johnny (Sterling Hayden) standing in for the director, marshaling the different smaller players together to pull off the big score. But the fun of the film is seeing the multiple loose ends left during the planning of the crime that cause everything to unravel afterwards: the great shot near the end that reveals the fate of the heist money seems also a potential metaphor for a film's costs should it prove unsuccessful.
Since the inhumanly clean scheme is undone by human messiness, much depends on the talents of the supporting cast in showing how the scheme could fall apart completely, and they pull it off quite well. The most memorable are the small-time Elisha Cook and Marie Windsor (looking like a cross between Dolores Gray and Ileana Douglas, and wearing nightgowns in almost all of her scenes) as his unloving wife, who of course prefers darkly handsome Vince Edwards to her loser of a spouse. The cinematography is superb, and there's a great traveling shot of the mammoth Kola Kwariani making his way behind spectators to the racetrack bar as part of the scheme; even so, it's not quite at the level of the unforgettable exterior shots from KILLER'S KISS, which, though undoubtedly a more flawed film than this one, may in the end be more memorable.
Summary of Killing [VHS]
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
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