150 Word Review: 'The Killing' (1956)
Johnny, you've got to run!
Twenty-eight-year-old Stanley Kubrick’s third feature film, The Killing, is a non-linear film noir that’s white as bone and black as the inside of a coffin. Sterling Hayden’s Johnny Clay is as cool as an ice-cream-scoop career criminal. His big plan to knock over a racetrack is foolproof, so he gathers a crew of fools and losers, each desperate in their own special way. Elisha Cook Jr. is one of Clay’s cronies, a sweaty cuckold married to Marie Windsor’s heartless dame. Timothy Carey stands out in a small role as a weasly sharpshooter eager to pull the trigger.
Co-written by Kubrick and hardboiled pulp writer Jim Thompson, The Killing is a disciplined autopsy of a heist gone wrong. The narrator is matter-of-fact. This movie is a clockwork; every greasy part fits and clicks, and it’s influenced everything from Reservoir Dogs to Ocean’s 11, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and The Dark Knight.
This sounds badass
"The Killing" was on this morning so I once again took a look and noticed something: when Johnny, after the robbery, comes out of the pawn shop with the suitcase, there is a restaurant next door and next to that is a burlesque theater and the headliner is - Lenny Bruce.