Killing [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray]

Director: Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick

Overview

The Killing was director Stanley Kubrick's first major film effort -- though, like Kubrick's earlier films, it was economically produced with an inexpensive cast. In a variation of his Asphalt Jungle role, Sterling Hayden plays veteran criminal Johnny Clay, planning one last big heist before settling down to a respectable marriage with Fay (Colleen Gray). Teaming with several cohorts, Johnny masterminds a racetrack robbery. The basic flaw is that all the crooks involved are losers and small-timers who find themselves in way over their heads despite their supposed cleverness. None of the participants is more pathetic than George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.), who is goaded into the robbery by his covetous and far-from-faithful wife (Marie Windsor). As in a Greek tragedy, Johnny's best-laid schemes go awry. Prominently featured in the cast of The Killing are offbeat character actors Tim Carey and Joe Turkel, who'd show up with equally showy roles in future Kubrick productions. The Killing is based on the novel Clean Break by Lionel White.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/26/2022
UPC:	0738329259495
Original Release:	1956
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Language:	English
Time:	1:24:00
Format:	Blu-ray
Sales rank:	9,572

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Sterling Hayden	Johnny Clay
Coleen Gray	Fay
Vince Edwards	Val Cannon,Black Man
Jay C. Flippen	Marvin Unger
Marie Windsor	Sherry Peatty
Ted de Corsia	Randy Kennan
Elisha Cook Jr.	George Peatty
Joe Sawyer	Mike O'Reilly
Timothy Carey	Nikki Arane
Jay Adler	Leo
Joseph Turkel	Tiny,Tiny
Maurice Oboukhoff	Kola Kwarian
Billy Benedict	Airline Clerk
Rodney Dangerfield	Actor
Tito Vuolo	Actor
Dorothy Adams	Actor
Herbert Ellis	Actor
Mary Carroll	Actor
James Griffith	Actor
Kola Kwarian	Maurice Oboukhoff
Steve Mitchell	Actor
Robert Williams	Actor
Gerald Fried	Composer

Technical Credits

Stanley Kubrick

Jim Thompson

Stanley Kubrick	Director,Screenwriter
James B. Harris	Producer
Jim Thompson	Screenwriter
David Koehler	Special Effects
Earl Snyder	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Stanley Kubrick's third feature showed that he was no ordinary director, as he dispensed with traditional time structure to detail the planning and execution of a racetrack heist gone wrong. Combining a non-linear story with a unifying, matter-of-fact voice-over narration, Kubrick constructed an intricate yet lucid cinematic puzzle that shifted back and forth both in time and among the central characters, revealing the personal stakes for each participant by following their individual actions leading up to the fateful seventh race. Johnny the leader thinks he has it all under control, but, in true Kubrick fashion, his plan is not immune to human failure. While the fractured time frame and use of long takes and tracking shots signaled Kubrick's stylistic break from classical form, the sharp black-and-white photography, Marie Windsor's insidious femme fatale, and Sterling Hayden's doomed Johnny place The Killing in the mode of 1940s/1950s film noir. His first film made on a reasonable budget and with an established cast of pros, The Killing caught critics' attention and established Kubrick as a director to watch, especially for such future cinematic time-tricksters as Quentin Tarantino.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola