Stanley Kubrick’s first great film, The Killing is a 1956 horse-track heist caper that the director co-wrote with pulp legend Jim Thompson. While it has all the earmarks of a hard-boiled tale of grifters, there is also a devious sense of humor that would be one of the common threads in the filmmaker’s amazingly rangy, genre-jumping career.
Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) has just done five long years in prison for petty theft and the only lesson he has seemingly learned is to steal larger quantities of cash. He organizes a group of track employees, cops and others, all of whom have personal motivations for a bold theft that could net them hundreds of thousands of dollars each. But the elaborate plan has to go off without a hitch or it’ll be jail all around, And the crew may also have to deal with a few gun-toting opportunists who’ve been tipped off about the job.
One of the best performances is turned in by Timothy Carey, a great character actor and one of the oddest people in Hollywood history. Carey plays Nikki Arcane, a whacked-out, menacing sharpshooter recruited by Hayden to off a horse in the middle of a race. Nikki is a talented, off-kilter professional who truly relishes the sinister side of his work–which was also an appropriate description of Kubrick. (Available from Netflix and other outlets.)
More Film Posts:
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Police Beat. (2004)
- New DVD: Videocracy.
- New DVD: Afterschool.
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Chan Is Missing. (1982)
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Targets. (1968)
- Classic DVD: Logan’s Run. (1976)
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: The Silent Partner. (1978)
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Hi, Mom! (1970)
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Confessions of a Superhero. (2007)
- Classic DVD: Head. (1968)
- New DVD: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
- Classic DVD: The Phantom of Liberty. (1974)
- New DVD: The Exploding Girl.
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: The Face of Another. (1966)
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Blast of Silence. (1961)
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Night Moves. (1975)
- New DVD: Greenberg.
- New DVD: Big Man Japan.
- Classic DVDs: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One. (1968)
- Classic DVD: The Holy Mountain. (1973)
- Classic DVD: Beat the Devil. (1953)
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: All the Vermeers in New York. (1989)
- Classic DVD: “La Jetée.” (1962)
- New DVD: The T.A.M.I. Show.
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Bad Company. (1972)
- Classic DVD: The Other. (1972)
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: The Naked Kiss. (1964)
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: “La Soufriere.” (1976)
- Classic DVD: Network. (1976)
Tags: Jim Thompson, Stanley Kubrick, Sterling Hayden, Timothy Carey