The Killing (1956) dir. Stanley Kubrick
“You know, I’ve often thought that the gangster and the artist are the same in the eyes of the masses. They are admired and hero-worshipped, but there is always present underlying wish to see them destroyed at the peak of their glory.”
The heist movie is one of those fixtures of cinema that will never die. They can vary wildly from suspense-filled dramas such as Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon; to action-packed epics like Michael Mann’s Heat or the Mission Impossible series; or sleek, endlessly rewatchable works, for this Soderbergh’s ‘Ocean’s Trilogy’ comes to mind. There is nothing quite like the sensation of a heist expertly planned and flawlessly executed where the robbers walk out of the bank, casino, or CIA headquarters, and drive off into the night with their prize. The sequence of the robbery itself is always the most exciting of any heist movie. And it might be even more exciting to see it go wrong.
Today, Stanley Kubrick has a bit of a reputation as a ‘genre elevator.’ Sure, he’ll make a sci-fi movie but he’s going to write it with one of the greatest sci-fi authors of all time and ‘elevate it’ above the genre. He’ll make a horror movie but the focus won’t be on the scares, Kubrick would never go for something so cheap. There’s nothing wrong with this interpretation of the man and his work, although I think it does a disservice to his skill, and to the skill of artists whose work in those genres inspired him. It’s important to remember in 1956, Kubrick was a working director with two little-seen flops, not a legend of the craft. The Killing is the film where that changed.
The Killing sits firmly in its genre. This is a heist film through and through. It features all of the hits; the crew coming together, the personal stakes, ‘one last score then I’m retiring’, crooked cops, precise timing, backstabbing, double-crossing, mistrust, and intricate hidden agendas among the crew. It may sound as though The Killing is a cliché parade, I assure you nothing can be further from the truth. Each of these aspects of the film are integral to the very DNA of the genre, it’s what a storyteller does with them that matters and Kubrick does nothing short of a magic trick.
The magic trick cannot be attributed to Kubrick alone, however. He wrote the screenplay based on Lionel White’s novel, Clean Break, a fantastic piece of crime fiction I cannot recommend enough if you love the film. Aiding in the screenwriting department was another crime novelist, Jim Thompson, who was brought on to polish and sharpen the dialogue – his work is the genesis of many of the film’s most recognisable lines. The final integral aspect to the success of the magic trick is the film’s editing by Betty Steinberg. Steinberg does such incredible work bringing all of the disparate branches of the story together, making it so everything coheres perfectly by the final fade to black. It’s difficult to put to words and it is such a loss to cinema she was unable to edit more works.
Simply, The Killing is about a man tiring of the direction his life has taken who wants to start fresh somewhere else. Stone-faced Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden who reunited with Kubrick on Dr. Strangelove) devises an intricate plan to rob a racecourse the day of a big race. The take will be two million dollars. He assembles a six-man crew, puppy-loving sharpshooter Nikki Arcane (Timothy Carey); racecourse bartender Mike O’Reilly (Joe Sawyer); chess hall owner and former wrestler Maurice Oboukhoff (Kola Kwariani); the money behind the operation Marvin Unger (Jay C. Flippen); corrupt cop Randy Kennan (Ted de Corsia); and racecourse teller George Peatty (legendary character actor Elisha Cook Jr.) whose desperation for affection from his wife Sherry sends the refined plan spiralling out of Johnny’s control.
“What is the magic trick?” you may well be thinking at this point. It’s not my place to tell. What I can tell is the movie isn’t trying to deceive the audience. At times it may take a moment to get your bearings but once you understand what is going on the ride will be immaculate all the way to the climax. If you’ve convinced yourself black and white movies or old movies in general are boring or ‘not for you’, I’ll mention some contemporary comparisons. Quentin Tarantino claims Reservoir Dogs is his version of this movie and the core of how Christopher Nolan’s films function revolve around a style The Killing pioneered. That isn’t even mentioning the influence on every heist movie made after 1956.
The last time Kubrick shows the money is a shot to forever linger in my mind. Watch this movie, watch it as soon as you can and give it your full, undivided attention (it’s only 85 minutes long but feels far shorter.) Johnny Clay says, ‘Anytime you take a chance, you better be sure the rewards are worth the risk.’ Take a chance on this one, even if you say you don’t like old movies, the risk is near naught and the rewards are golden.
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