His first three films (if you include his student short "Day of the Fight") were warm ups to this one, which is based on a book producer James Harris gave Kubrick, Clean Break. This is a riveting movie about the meticulously planned robbery of a racetrack that is told from different points of view.
Sterling Hayden is Johnny, who recently was sprung from jail but decides to carry out the ambitious robbery, enlisting both employees of the track (including another weasel-like character played by Elisha Cook Jr.), a member of the police force, and two other friends, to carry out the robbery.
Kubrick moves from the neon nights of New York City found in his previous film, Killer's Kiss, to the sun-washed days of Los Angeles for The Killing. All of the action takes place during the day, and as was the case for his previous film, even the smallest detail in the story serves a purpose.
The different viewpoints of the action has been mimicked famously by other directors, particularly Quentin Tarantino, but this is not a show-offy approach. With so many players in the caper, Kubrick shows not only how their role is critical for the robbery, but also the back stories of some of the gang members. Cook's character has a gold-digging wife who's cheating on him with Columbia Pictures' character actor (and soon to be Dr. Ben Casey) Vince Edwards. The wife shares the robbery plan with Edwards and that plants the seed for the caper's eventual outcome.
John Cassavetes and Kubrick both employed the bizarre character actor Timothy Carey, who has a significant part in this movie as one of the robbery gang members. His interaction with a by-the-book Black parking lot attendant, and Carey's fate, is one of the highlights of the movie. Carey would play a more sympathetic, but equally weird, character in Kubrick's next movie, Paths of Glory.
Sterling Hayden is, well, Sterling Hayden, another actor in the small club of actors who worked with Kubrick more than once. His character is a second cousin to the one he played 6 years earlier in John Huston's Asphalt Jungle - Hayden could excel at a level of realistic grittiness that more famous actors like Humphrey Bogart could not always pull off. Hayden's character in this film is tough, quiet, aloof, and all about business, and must've been studied by up and coming actors at the time such as Steve McQueen.
Perhaps the one negative of the film is the voiceover narration that sounds like something out of Dragnet. Kubrick would later criticize the use of the voiceover but seeing how popular Dragnet was at the time, both on TV and on the radio, it made sense as to why the studio insisted on its inclusion. Overall, a real powerhouse of a movie and a must-watch for the fan's directors.
Sterling Hayden is Johnny, who recently was sprung from jail but decides to carry out the ambitious robbery, enlisting both employees of the track (including another weasel-like character played by Elisha Cook Jr.), a member of the police force, and two other friends, to carry out the robbery.
Kubrick moves from the neon nights of New York City found in his previous film, Killer's Kiss, to the sun-washed days of Los Angeles for The Killing. All of the action takes place during the day, and as was the case for his previous film, even the smallest detail in the story serves a purpose.
The different viewpoints of the action has been mimicked famously by other directors, particularly Quentin Tarantino, but this is not a show-offy approach. With so many players in the caper, Kubrick shows not only how their role is critical for the robbery, but also the back stories of some of the gang members. Cook's character has a gold-digging wife who's cheating on him with Columbia Pictures' character actor (and soon to be Dr. Ben Casey) Vince Edwards. The wife shares the robbery plan with Edwards and that plants the seed for the caper's eventual outcome.
John Cassavetes and Kubrick both employed the bizarre character actor Timothy Carey, who has a significant part in this movie as one of the robbery gang members. His interaction with a by-the-book Black parking lot attendant, and Carey's fate, is one of the highlights of the movie. Carey would play a more sympathetic, but equally weird, character in Kubrick's next movie, Paths of Glory.
Sterling Hayden is, well, Sterling Hayden, another actor in the small club of actors who worked with Kubrick more than once. His character is a second cousin to the one he played 6 years earlier in John Huston's Asphalt Jungle - Hayden could excel at a level of realistic grittiness that more famous actors like Humphrey Bogart could not always pull off. Hayden's character in this film is tough, quiet, aloof, and all about business, and must've been studied by up and coming actors at the time such as Steve McQueen.
Perhaps the one negative of the film is the voiceover narration that sounds like something out of Dragnet. Kubrick would later criticize the use of the voiceover but seeing how popular Dragnet was at the time, both on TV and on the radio, it made sense as to why the studio insisted on its inclusion. Overall, a real powerhouse of a movie and a must-watch for the fan's directors.