Movies
Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing” Is A Must-See Genre Definer
Let’s take a trip back to 1956 and reflect back on Kubrick’s heist thriller, “The Killing.”
“Crook Johnny Clay assembles a five-man team to plan and execute a daring racetrack robbery.”
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Jim Thompson, Lionel White
Stars: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Marie Windsoe, Elisha Cook Jr., Ed de Corsia, Joe Sawyer, Kola Kwariani, Timothy Care
Release: June 6, 1956
IMDB
Have you heard the name Stanley Kubrick?
You know, the man behind the critically applauded masterpieces Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), and Full Metal Jacket (1987)?
The (only) one-time Oscar winner and 13-time nominee?
You know. That Stanley Kubrick.
Turns out that one of the best filmmakers to ever grace the world was really good at making movies right from the get-go.
Let’s take a trip back to 1956 and reflect back on Kubrick’s heist thriller, The Killing.
Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) is a veteran criminal with an eye on a big prize. A group of five men led by Clay has a foolproof plan to carry out a two million dollar heist of a local raceway in broad daylight. The core of this group are not your everyday criminals, instead they are normal men who are in need of money for various personal and selfish reasons. Beyond the trusted cohort, Clay also uses his nefarious connections to recruit a few unsavory fellows for ancillary tasks, but they are kept an arm’s length from his overall agenda.
In total there are seven individuals who must work seamlessly together to accomplish the mission of making a killing. Everyone must play their part to a tee in order to lock down the life-changing score. As road bumps in the heist are trudged over with wit and luck, there is an unknown variable that the majority of the crew could not have anticipated.
One of the core members of Clay’s clan is George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.). By day, George works at the race track as a ticket clerk, and by night he is trying to please his cheating and unloving wife, Sherry Peatty (Marie Windsor).
Geroge tells Sherry about parts of the robbery plan as a way to keep her interested in him. Sherry plays the part and acts the doting wife for a time, but it’s obvious to anyone watching (but her husband) that it’s all about the money. What Clay, George and the others couldn’t have anticipated was Sherry going and talking to her boyfriend Val Cannon (Vince Edwards) and filling him in on all the details. Together she and Val hatch a plan to rob the money from the robbers and ride off into the sunset.
The Killing is a heist movie that plays with multiple timelines and keeps the audience on its tippy-toes by playing everyone’s motives off one another. Despite not spending much time with any single character, each character in The Killing is immediately identifiable after introduction. Kubrick directs a quick-paced, smart, and wonderfully acted crime caper with a style and vibe that becomes a staple of the genre and an inspiration for many filmmakers to follow.
It’s impossible to watch The Killing in the year 2024 and not think about the films it has inspired. The idea of a rag-tag team coming together in a unique way with a charismatic but complicated leader as the fulcrum is now a go-to genre watch for many movie fanatics. Think about some of Steven Soderbergh’s best: Ocean’s Eleven (2001), Out Of Sight (1998) or Logan Lucky (2017). A rag-tag crew of criminals thriving in their own unique speech and twisting the audience to root for the “bad guys.”
The immediate light bulb relation to a modern times director is Quentin Tarantino. The man himself highlights The Killing as a huge inspiration for his own first feature film, Reservoir Dogs (1992). Tarantino also loves to play with timelines and mess with the order of things, as evidenced in Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction (1994). Then there is the sudden outburst of violence at the end of The Killing, and no director in Hollywood is better at punching the audience with a barrage of bullets than Tarantino. Inglorious Basterds (2009), The H8teful Eight (2015), and Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood (2019) all have scenes where someone is bloodied faster than one can eat a handful of popcorn.
The Killing movies at a blistering pace and it’s intoxicating hearing the old-time chatter rhythmically act as a metronome for the plot. Kubrick created the outline for the story and then passed it onto Jim Thompson who fleshed out the dialogue. Sterling Hayden as Johnny Clay has the most speaking time and his line readings and quick responses make it easy to root for the thieving mastermind. Clay’s conversation with Nikki Arcane (Timothy Carey) regarding his role in the plot is a great one-bit moment. The conversation keeps the marksmen at bay from the whole picture, but Clay comes in with rational logic to lock up his final team member.
Like any good heist, the ends justify the means. Did you accomplish your mission? Did you secure the bag? Kubrick’s job as the filmmaker is to have an ending that both makes sense and entertains the audience. The Killing has its robbery, but that is not the film’s conclusion. The final 10-15 minutes of this movie brings with it the most memorable and best shot sequences. There is a shot in the final moments that is just *chef’s kiss*. The choice by Kubrick to have the camera linger on it a few more seconds than you’d expect proves well worth it.
And then there is the final line of the movie uttered by Clay.
“Eh, what’s the difference?”
This final line is perfect for the events that unfold.
It’s a great emotional followup to a speech given by Mauriece (Kola Kwariani) earlier.
“You have my sympathies, then. You have not yet learned that in this life you have to be like everyone else – the perfect mediocrity; no better, no worse. Individuality a monster and it must be strangled in its cradle to make our friends feel confident. 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 a present underlying wish to see them destroyed at the peak of their glory.”
If you’ve seen The Killing, the full-circle moment of a nobody trying to be somebody is thematically anchored to the entire movie’s structure with Clay’s final words. You could accomplish the impossible, but in the end, does it even matter.
The Killing is a freaking great movie. Everyone with Amazon Prime should go press play at this very moment. It’s 88-minutes that’ll feel like half-an-hour. Watch a movie that paved the way for so many that followed in its footsteps.
STANKO RATING: A
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