(SOME SPOILERS) Stanley Kubrick's 1956 Film/Noir classic that plays with the clock in putting most of those involved in this robbery of a California racetrack in the same time-frame in a series of overlapping episodes.
Planing to rob the tracks handle, money thats bet, as well as it's concession and tickets sales mastermind Johnny Clay, Sterling Hayden, plans the robbery to take place on the tracks biggest racing day when it holds it's most expensive feature race the $100,000.00 added Landstown Stakes.
Working together with a number of track workers, a ticket seller and bartender, as well as a policemen to make the getaway with the cash without being noticed. The plan laid out by Johnny goes off almost without a hitch. Only one of the robbers Kikki Arcane ,Timothy Carey, was shot and killed by track police and all the rest got away. It's later the robbers meet up at their prearranged hideout, minus Johnny, things start to fall apart.
As their all waiting for Johnny to come over with the $2,000,000.00 in cash that was taken in the robbery Val, Vince Edwards, and friend break into their place in order to rob them of the cash that they don't have. A gunfight breaks out with everyone there shot dead but the track ticket clerk George Peatty, Elisha Cook JR. who was in the other room and surprised them Val & Co. by starting the gun fight.
George badly wounded staggers out of the room to his car to go back home and deal with his two-timing wife Sherry, Marie Windsor, who was having an affair with Val, behind George's back. It was Saherry who tipped him off about the robbery and where the money is to be split between the robbers. As George leaves the house shot and bleeding Johnny pulls up with a laundry bag loaded with the $2,000,000.00 in cash to split up with the rest of the robbers.
Seeing the police coming on the scene Johnny takes off to pick up his girlfriend Fay, Coleen Gray, and together drive down to the airport and get on a flight to Boston with the cash. George meanwhile goes home and confronts Sherry who at first though, when he opened the door,t that he was her lover Val and shoots her dead for double-crossing him and his fellow crooks.
At the airport the final chapter of this film is played out with an ironic ending for both Johnny and Fay in their attempt to get away Scot-free with the track loot after everybody involved with it ended up dead. Like the domino effect in the movie that started with the shooting at the hideout between the robbers and Val & friend the last piece to fall, after all the others fell, was just about to go down.
The time sequences in the movie added at least twenty to the films final 85 minutes but instead of padding the movie to lengthen it's running time it actually enhanced it's story.
Planing to rob the tracks handle, money thats bet, as well as it's concession and tickets sales mastermind Johnny Clay, Sterling Hayden, plans the robbery to take place on the tracks biggest racing day when it holds it's most expensive feature race the $100,000.00 added Landstown Stakes.
Working together with a number of track workers, a ticket seller and bartender, as well as a policemen to make the getaway with the cash without being noticed. The plan laid out by Johnny goes off almost without a hitch. Only one of the robbers Kikki Arcane ,Timothy Carey, was shot and killed by track police and all the rest got away. It's later the robbers meet up at their prearranged hideout, minus Johnny, things start to fall apart.
As their all waiting for Johnny to come over with the $2,000,000.00 in cash that was taken in the robbery Val, Vince Edwards, and friend break into their place in order to rob them of the cash that they don't have. A gunfight breaks out with everyone there shot dead but the track ticket clerk George Peatty, Elisha Cook JR. who was in the other room and surprised them Val & Co. by starting the gun fight.
George badly wounded staggers out of the room to his car to go back home and deal with his two-timing wife Sherry, Marie Windsor, who was having an affair with Val, behind George's back. It was Saherry who tipped him off about the robbery and where the money is to be split between the robbers. As George leaves the house shot and bleeding Johnny pulls up with a laundry bag loaded with the $2,000,000.00 in cash to split up with the rest of the robbers.
Seeing the police coming on the scene Johnny takes off to pick up his girlfriend Fay, Coleen Gray, and together drive down to the airport and get on a flight to Boston with the cash. George meanwhile goes home and confronts Sherry who at first though, when he opened the door,t that he was her lover Val and shoots her dead for double-crossing him and his fellow crooks.
At the airport the final chapter of this film is played out with an ironic ending for both Johnny and Fay in their attempt to get away Scot-free with the track loot after everybody involved with it ended up dead. Like the domino effect in the movie that started with the shooting at the hideout between the robbers and Val & friend the last piece to fall, after all the others fell, was just about to go down.
The time sequences in the movie added at least twenty to the films final 85 minutes but instead of padding the movie to lengthen it's running time it actually enhanced it's story.