Most recently watched by tylermager, sensoria
Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.
Rated NR | Length 85 minutes
Joe Turkel | Ted de Corsia | Sol Gorss | Timothy Carey | Sterling Hayden | Rodney Dangerfield | Coleen Gray | Vince Edwards | Jay C. Flippen | Elisha Cook Jr. | Marie Windsor | Joe Sawyer | James Edwards | Jay Adler | Kola Kwariani | Tito Vuolo | Dorothy Adams | James Griffith | Art Gilmore | Harvey Parry | Richard Reeves | Charles Cane | John George | Robert Williams | Mary Carroll | Cecil Elliott | Frank Richards | Herbert Ellis | Harry Hines | Steve Mitchell | Franklyn Farnum | Kenner G. Kemp | Arthur Tovey | William 'Billy' Benedict | Hal J. Moore | Carl M. Leviness | Tom Coleman | Finn Zirzow
Having watched Cruel Gun Story earlier in the day made me fire up Kubrick’s The Killing, which I hadn’t revisited in a few years. CGS was obviously influenced by The Killing, but I was having troubles picturing the particulars, so it seemed like a good idea to rewatch.
I’m a big fan of Jim Thompson’s pulp novels, and the dialogue he wrote for The Killing is just a joy to listen to. It’s pulpy goodness in the best way possible. My only real issue with the movie is some of the voiceover stuff. I still feel like The Killing could be a better movie if it’d moved that exposition on to the characters themselvs. Still, it serves it’s purpose and doesn’t intrude on the movie too much.
The real standout actor in this is, of course, Sterling Hayden, in the main role. He’s just good looking enough to be likable despite being a pretty hardcore criminal underneath. He really sells the whole plot and his performance is great.
Other standout performances include Elisha Cook as the whipped racetrack teller, who perhaps has the best scenes in the entire movie; and Kola Kwariani, a real Russian chess playing wrestler who pretty much plays himself here in his only film appearance.
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