Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9426 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-07-15
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Black & White, Dubbed, Full Screen, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, German, Italian, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 80 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Among Stanley Kubrick's early film output The Killing stands out as the most lastingly influential: Quentin Tarantino credits the film as a huge inspiration for Reservoir Dogs and just about any movie or TV show that plays around with its own internal chronology owes the same debt. This sort of convoluted crime caper had really kicked off with John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle in 1950. From then on, nouveau noir scripts kept trying to find new ways of telling very similar stories. Here the novel Clean Break is adapted for the screen in a jigsaw-puzzle structure that caught Kubrick's eye. With a dry narration we're introduced to the key players in a racetrack heist as it's being planned, but the story bounces back and forth between what happens to each of them during and before the big event. All of this keeps the audience guessing as to exactly how it will go wrong, while the downbeat telling, the unsympathetic characters and the excessively dramatic score clearly foretell that it will go wrong from the start. The denouement is comically daft no matter how many times you see it.

On the DVD: The Killing is a no-frills DVD transfer, in 4:3 ratio and with its original mono soundtrack. Criminally, just one trailer is all that's been dug up as an extra. --Paul Tonks

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
Sterling Hayden stars in Stanley Kubrick's crime noir classic, THE KILLING, based on crime Lionel White's novel CLEAN BREAK. Hayden plays Johnny Clay, an ex-con with a plan to steal $2 million from a San Francisco racetrack. He assembles an odd collection of tough guys and moles to participate in the heist. But just as there is no such thing as the perfect murder, there is no such thing as the perfect crime....
The film features terrific performances from Hayden, Elisha Cook, Marie Windsor, and the rest of the talented cast. Kubrick, who brought in pulp writer Jim Thompson to create the perfect dialogue, tells the story with a nonlinear, fractured-time narrative, following each of the main characters separately as they prepare for the big day. Featuring Kubrick's flawless direction and wonderfully atmospheric photography, anchored by a jazz-tinged score by Gerald Fried, THE KILLING is one of the most intense noir heist films ever made.

Customer Reviews

Kubrick's wonderful early noir classic
During a span of 46 years, Stanley Kubrick made only 13 feature films, from "Fear and Desire (1953)" to "Eyes Wide Shut (1999)". Although each has its own charm and unique taste and style, none looks much like the other in terms of genre and theme. "The Killing" represents Kubrick's entrance into the dark shadowy world of film noir. He was the master of exploring the dusky side of human nature in his pictures, focusing on crime, deceit, betrayal and morality. So, film noir & Kubrick: what a perfect fit.

The term "killing" refers to an elaborate heist of a race track. The robbery is masterminded by ex-Alcatraz inmate Johnny Clay, who rounds up a motley assortment of crooks, most of whom are small-timers as well as insiders in the race track lounge. Clay and his trusted accomplices have different stories and motives. We know a lot about them because the movie has an unusually convulted narrative structure, which was ahead of its time albeit outdated today. Flipping back and forth in time, he introduces a character, takes him a certain way where each gets a chance to tell his version of the story. Such kind of flashbacks and flashforwards are used in heist sequence, reflecting the various aspects of the robbery in different space and time.

That non-linear storytelling works well with Kubrick's deft directorial touch, but when the film was first released in 1956, United Artists dumped it on the grounds that it was too weird for average viewer and nobody would sit through that. Then Kubrick decided to re-edit the film. After watching new version he absolutely hated it, and put it back the way first edited it. It was his very first triumph to gain absolute control over his work.

Overall, "The Killing" is a perfect classic film noir, depicting man's foibles of greed and betrayal devastatingly real. Its importance not only comes from its influence on modern day noirs, such as Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" and "Jackie Brown", but also it manifests what Kubrick was capable of doing with a shoestring budget of $320,000, even at an age of 27.

A crime masterpiece
An early piece of cinema from acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick (2001, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket etc.) The story tells of a group of men who come together to rob a race-track in the middle of their biggest race. Each character has his own part to play in the crime and the robbery can't go ahead unless they all perfom their own part.

When it comes to the actual robbery, we get to see the crime form each man's point of view, which means the time of day repeatly shifts to keep up. It's a style not unlike 'Pulp Fiction' (Quentin Tarentino has said on many occasions that this is one of the films that inspired him to write that film as well as Resevoir Dogs)

You could say that the acting is wooden, or 2-dimensional, but it seems to fit the film noir setting of the piece. There is a 'True Romance' style shooting and a final twist at the end thrown in for good measure.

If you haven't seen this film before, you are missing out on a cracking bit of drama. It comes with Tarentino's seal of approval, and it's a Kubrick, what more do you want !!

Kubrick's Unsung Masterpiece
Reading the list of Stanley Kubrick's directorial efforts is more like reading "what's what" of movie masterpieces; however "The Killing" is one of his movies that is often overlooked. This doesn't mean this is a bad movie, with so many fantastic movies to his name it's inevitable that a couple would be overshadowed and forgotten about, this just happens to be one of them. It also happens to be one of Kubrick's first times in the directors chair.

The movie begins at a racetrack; our no-nonsense narrator begins describing the art of betting on horses, just before introducing his intentions to the audience; robbing the racetrack during the most important race of the year. One by one those involved are introduced, while running parallel with discovering exactly how the heist will be carried out. Then sticking with each character individually we witness each one carrying out their side of the heist, the scripts jumps between characters, and back in forth in time to show what happens to each of them during the preparations for the heist, before we witness the heist itself from all possible points of view. This being Kubrick we know he will do something different with this crime caper - The Killing marks the birth of possibly the first true non-linear storyline. It's this unique (at that time) storytelling style that makes this movie so memorable but just another movie on the list of Kubrick's classics.

Surprisingly the two dimensional characters do not let the script down in the way you'd think it would, in time two dimensional characters have become synonymous with the Noir tradition, keeping us distant from the dark, criminal characters. As previously said, Kubrick is possibly the most versatile director of all time, and almost certainly has had many more hits than misses; this movie certainly deserves to be up there with his greatest. Quentin Tarantino has cited this as one of his greatest influence to write his own masterpiece Reservoir Dogs, so this movie must have something going for it.

One negative point is the transfer, keeping the no-frills 4.3 ratio it was filmed in, while also just having the original mono soundtrack. I should also point out that this movie is black and white; but since when did that matter? The special features are also a let down; one measly trailer is all we get, but then again, as long as you get the movie that's all that matters!

All being said, this is still one the genres greatest examples with a blend of dark humour, dark characters and almost unbearable tension as we become totally immersed in the heist itself, wondering if they are going to succeed. Kubrick fans will love it, crime fans will love it, noir fans will love, fans of thrillers of love what; what's there not to like?

Sam