Review: The Killing (1956)

Posted on September 2, 2014 by 4 Star Films

Stanley Kubrick is one of the most acclaimed directors of all time, and The Killing is his first great film. The main focus of the action takes place at a racetrack, but a great deal of the story occurs in other places before and after the job is pulled. Recently released Johnny (Sterling Hayden) is the mastermind behind an intricately planned job. It’s a whole complex jigsaw puzzle involving a few “Average Joes” and a couple professionals. When you put it together it all adds up to the perfect heist.

Marvin is a friend of Johnny’s and a fatherly figure who is backing the deal. George (Elisha Cook Jr.) is the paranoid window teller banking on the job so he can hold onto his shallow wife. Randy is the policeman who is set to pick up the plunder. Then, Mike is the bartender who is supposed to help with the distraction. Johnny lines up the brawn, Maurice, to start a fight at the race track with Mike. He gets a sharpshooter named Nikki to bump off a horse and it’s all set. All their plans revolve around the Seventh Race, and they have it planned out to the minute. The beauty of The Killing is that it all but works like clockwork. The horse is shot, the brawl does its job, the vault is cleaned out, and the money gets picked up. Only a few small problems crop up.

After the job is done is another matter, as the perfect timetable begins to break down. In a matter of seconds, things blow up thanks to George’s backstabbing wife (Marie Windsor). Soon the carnage is strewn all over the floor. Johnny holds onto the money as previously decided since things go awry, and he makes the getaway. His girl (Colleen Gray) is waiting at the airport and it looks to be smooth sailing from here on out.

Thanks to a yippy dog and a precarious perch, the money-laden suitcase takes a tumble and the contents fly off. All too soon it’s raining money, and there’s nothing Johnny can do about it. He leaves the terminal with Fay, but with no taxi to be had, he gets nabbed and there is no chance to escape. After everything lining up so perfectly for him, in a cruel turn everything that could go wrong did. He was not going to be so lucky.

The title of this film always struck me as ambiguous, whether it meant the amount of money being taken or the deaths that take place I’m not sure. However, I do know that The Killing is tautly constructed. The non-linear and sometimes overlapping narrative is held together by the narrator. He seems fit for a newsreel, but he complements the straightforward procedure of the film with timestamps included.

Because of the lead performance of Sterling Hayden and the main plot element of a heist, this film can sometimes be confused with John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950). However, I enjoy this storyline more because the heist is not the issue. It is the aftermath and all the subsequent problems occurring so rapidly.

It is a wonderful unraveling thriller and although we do not see Johnny arrested, he might as well be because there are two men with pistols drawn walking right towards him. The Killing was not a big payoff for Hayden’s character, but it certainly is for the audience.

4.5/5 Stars

Shane (1953)

Posted on March 12, 2014 by 4 Star Films

There is often something special about westerns, and Shane is no different. Directed by George Stevens and starring Alan Ladd, Van Heflin, Jean Arthur, and other great character actors, Shane is simple yet charming. It has many of the qualities of a great movie, because of what it shows of mankind. Furthermore, it simply makes you feel good.

In the film Shane (Ladd) is a wandering ex-gunslinger, who decides to live with a frontier family as a hired hand. His presence makes everyone happy because he is quiet, humble, and fundamentally so good. However, there is trouble from a man named Riker and his gang. Heflin’s character is adamant he must face the foe and defend his home. Shane will not allow it knowing this is a job for him. The two friends fight it out with Shane winning and riding into town. In the end, he wins the shootout but more importantly he is reconciled with the family’s boy Joey. The time has come for him to move on and Shane rides off into the distance, a humble hero.

The first thing that always strikes me about this film is the brilliant scenery around Jackson Hole, Wyoming with the Tetons looming majestically behind a solitary cabin. In some sense, this is not just a western, but the archetypal story of a family taming the land.

The very next thing of importance is the eponymous and unassuming drifter Shane. He always seems so kind and good, but early on there are glimpses of another, perhaps darker past. And yet from the point of view of Joey, he is an idolized, almost mythological figure. What is so striking about Shane is that he is obviously handy with a gun and an excellent fighter, but he never flaunts it. Perhaps it is because he wishes to rely on it as his last possible resort, or maybe it is because he is just a humble man.

As an audience, much like Joey, we want him to fight back, and we are happy when he finally does. During the course of the film, Grafton’s mercantile and saloon is often the place of conflict, and here multiple times Shane ultimately uses violence. It is his fallback, but he uses it effectively even against his own friends if he sees fit. Then Shane drifts on and the cycle undoubtedly continues again.

Yes, he certainly could be called a hero, with no last name to speak of, but he is a man, who will always be on the move. This may not be because he wants to, but because he really has no other option. Shane foresaw what we did not want to see, and now he cannot come back even if he wants to, so he rides on. This is the middle of George Steven’s so-called “American Trilogy” and probably the hallmark of his illustrious career.

5/5 Stars

The Maltese Falcon (1941) – Film-Noir

Posted on December 2, 2013 by 4 Star Films

This archetypal film-noir directed by John Huston, stars Humphrey Bogart as the detective Sam Spade. After an initial conversation with a mysterious woman, that same night two men end up dead. As Spade tries to understand what is going on, it puts him in contact with a paranoid little man and another man who is trailing him. All of them have something to do with a black bird and the situation gets more complicated when Spade meets the fat man. Rather surprisingly Spade ends up with the falcon but of course there has to be a twist. Soon enough the truth comes out of Brigid O’Shaughnessy and Spade coldly does his work. This film has great characters played by Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, Ward Bond, and Elisha Cook Jr. The directing is good as well as the cinematography. This is the film that finally made Bogart a star and he would never look back.

5/5 Stars

The Killing (1956) – Film-Noir

Posted on July 2, 2013 by 4 Star Films

Directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Sterling Hayden, the film follows a group of crooks and everyday race track workers who carry out an intricate robbery. In the planning stages they have everything figured out completely with one small disturbance. When the day arrives, the plan begins as expected. Each man takes his place in order to do his part. Perfectly coordinated with a disruption in the race and a planned riot. Hayden grabs all the money he can and drops it to an accomplice with hardly a snag. While waiting to split the heist there is finally a wrench in the plans that turns fatal. Hayden catches wind of it and splits as was decided beforehand. With his money and his girl he gets ready to leave the trouble behind him. In a final cruel twist of fate his plan is accidentally uncovered. The shock takes all the fight out of him. This film is wonderfully constructed with its different point of views all hinging on race #7 and the subsequent “killing.”