As stated by other commentators the black and white cinematography is excellent and had an effective unsettling quality to it. I also thought the investigative detective team had a bit of the Dragnet style stiffness to it but John Forsythe was very good in his role as an intelligent non emotional, non judgmental investigator. What sets this film apart for me is the time spent after the conviction. The time spent on death row by Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. Here we get to witness what their lives became and how they individually dealt with what they had done and where it had lead them as they waited five years to be executed. Many crime films end shortly after the point of conviction or with a captioned epilogue scrolled across the screen about the final fate of the murders. Here we witness the quiet agony that they endured in the stark, cold barren surroundings of their prison which is probably the greater of punishment for their deeds than the actual execution. These images of their desolate existence on death row along with the actual murder scenes are the strongest of the film and the ones that stick with me the most . The contrast of the two murderer's personalities was striking and especially so in the way they expressed themselves in the final moments before their deaths. It's always difficult for a movie to match up to a good book but this film succeeds quite well in capturing the feel of Capote's work.
Review of In Cold Blood
