The formidably promising talent shown in "Killer's Kiss" helped to secure for Stanley Kubrick studio backing for his next straight thriller, "The Killing," made in 1956
This was a much more "professional" job than its forerunner Kubrick had the casting of a bunch of actors so experienced in the "character" parts that as soon as they came into camera view you recognized them from a score of Hollywood movies
"The Killing" lacks for me the dimension of humanity of its predecessor It reminded me of one of those documentaries that give you every conceivable fact with immaculate accuracy and leave you without the heart of the truth This has something to do with the style of the storytelling . Once again there is a narrator; only instead of a lonely failure with blood in his veins, this one sounds like a "March of Time" commentator: loud, confident, detached
The film opens on the horses preparing for the off at the track and, even before the titles end, the dramatic music has started building the tension
One by one we are introduced to the characters as once again, we don't know for a while what the plot is going to be; but this one uses the time to build the mystery and tension rather than to deepen the characters
Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) is a convict just out from five years in Alcatraz, master-minding the two million dollar hold-up He collects (how, we are never told) a bunch of flawed human beings to fit, like jigsaw pieces, into the intricacy of his plan There's an Irish barman, an amiable old book-keeper, a tough crooked cop; and there's little George Peatty, played by Elisha Cook Jr he of the bulging eyes and mobile mouth; here the incarnation of fear and uncertainty and in countless other Hollywood thrillers the personification of the staring-eyed boy killer...
Kubrick plays tricks with time as his characters become caught in the plot He takes each of them and plays his incident through to the next turn of the screw; then goes back to an earlier moment in time to see what somebody else was doing
Even the incidental small parts have "character" stamped right through them The marksman hired to shoot a winning racehorse to cause a diversion from the robbery is a war veteran with deformed speech The old retired wrestler, who picks a fight with the police to create another diversion
If "Killer's Kiss" had one big dramatic set-piece, "The Killing" has a score of small dramatic touches to heighten the irony and the tension
"The Killing" is one of the most skillful and entertaining suspense movies of the Fifties It mesmerized like a ticking time bomb, and every few minutes, with sure skill, Kubrick recorded a new peak of suspense And all with very little violence, again, though with the obligatory sudden death
This was a much more "professional" job than its forerunner Kubrick had the casting of a bunch of actors so experienced in the "character" parts that as soon as they came into camera view you recognized them from a score of Hollywood movies
"The Killing" lacks for me the dimension of humanity of its predecessor It reminded me of one of those documentaries that give you every conceivable fact with immaculate accuracy and leave you without the heart of the truth This has something to do with the style of the storytelling . Once again there is a narrator; only instead of a lonely failure with blood in his veins, this one sounds like a "March of Time" commentator: loud, confident, detached
The film opens on the horses preparing for the off at the track and, even before the titles end, the dramatic music has started building the tension
One by one we are introduced to the characters as once again, we don't know for a while what the plot is going to be; but this one uses the time to build the mystery and tension rather than to deepen the characters
Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) is a convict just out from five years in Alcatraz, master-minding the two million dollar hold-up He collects (how, we are never told) a bunch of flawed human beings to fit, like jigsaw pieces, into the intricacy of his plan There's an Irish barman, an amiable old book-keeper, a tough crooked cop; and there's little George Peatty, played by Elisha Cook Jr he of the bulging eyes and mobile mouth; here the incarnation of fear and uncertainty and in countless other Hollywood thrillers the personification of the staring-eyed boy killer...
Kubrick plays tricks with time as his characters become caught in the plot He takes each of them and plays his incident through to the next turn of the screw; then goes back to an earlier moment in time to see what somebody else was doing
Even the incidental small parts have "character" stamped right through them The marksman hired to shoot a winning racehorse to cause a diversion from the robbery is a war veteran with deformed speech The old retired wrestler, who picks a fight with the police to create another diversion
If "Killer's Kiss" had one big dramatic set-piece, "The Killing" has a score of small dramatic touches to heighten the irony and the tension
"The Killing" is one of the most skillful and entertaining suspense movies of the Fifties It mesmerized like a ticking time bomb, and every few minutes, with sure skill, Kubrick recorded a new peak of suspense And all with very little violence, again, though with the obligatory sudden death