The Killing (1956)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Starring: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Elisha Cook Jr.

More info: IMDB

Tagline: These 5 Men Had a $2,000,000 Secret Until One of them told this Woman!

Plot: Johnny Clay has a plan. After spending 5 years in Alcatraz, he decides that if he's going to commit crimes, the risk had better be worth the punishment. He then proceeds to mastermind a brilliant criminal scheme to steal $2,000,000 from a local racetrack in which "no one will get hurt." The only flaw in his plan is that he does not consider one of his co-horts' greedy, shrewish wife and her ruthless boyfriend. That's when something goes wrong...

My Rating: 10/10

Will I watch it again? Hell, yeah!

I love this film so much I really don't know where to begin. The cast is brilliant. Hayden is one of the all-time badasses. He's tough as nails. You can see it in his face. You can hear it in his voice. You can feel it in his presence. He's a man chipped from granite and he'd just as soon kill you if you got in his way than walk around you. He plays Johnny, the leader of the bunch, the mastermind behind the plan.


Elisha Cook Jr., as George, one of Johnny's team, is another piece of pitch-perfect casting. He's a small man. Small in stature, small on muscle and small on backbone. Oh, he's big on ideas but he doesn't have the means to fulfill them. His dreams are one shelf too high for him to reach. He's a mouse...and he's married to a lion.


Meet Fay. She's a dame who's clawed her way through a life of tough knocks so she's hooked up with George because he loves her unconditionally - unconditionally to the point of being walked on, beaten on and cheated on. He'll take it and she knows it. She hates her lot in life and she'd rather be with a man, a real man, one that doesn't squeak like George. She needs a man that will show her his backhand and keep her in line. A man that won't take her shit and give it right back with a sting - a sting that will last for days. In other words, any man but George.


These three central characters are really all you need. Each has strengths and weaknesses the others lack. Each makes a mistake that proves detrimental to the plan...the plan to make a killing. But the biggest mistake of all is with Johnny, the most confident and capable of the lot. His mistake was trusting people, people that time hadn't offered him the luxury of gaining that trust. He gambled on a losing bet. But Johnny's very quick upstairs and on his feet. He can change direction mid-stream. He's a survivor but this will be his last heist...one way or another.


THE KILLING is a tire iron blow to the face. It doesn't flinch and it pulls out every stop to keep you from blinking. From Gerald Fried's bombastic and harsh opening theme you get a sense of what you're in for over the next 85 tension-filled minutes. The dialogue is sharp and is delivered with assassin-like precision. The execution of the taut story is ruthless. Everything about this film works and the climax will have you on the edge of your seat. Johnny's last line says so much about what he's been through with this caper and with his life.

There's not a single aspect of this film that isn't a home run. The casting couldn't have been better. I can't think of a finer moment for Cook. He's outstanding. Hayden...it just goes without saying. Timothy Carry gives an eerie performance. His scene with the black WWII vet working the parking gate at the track is unsettling. I cannot recommend this film enough. For me, it's one of the best - if not THE best - of the film noir genre.