The Killing: Kubrick’s Clockwork
By August 15, 2011
Celebrated as Stanley Kubrick’s first mature film and made when he was only twenty-eight years old, The Killing (1956) is remarkable for boldly announcing so many of the stylistic and Read more »
- United States
- 1956
- 84 minutes
- Black and White
- 1.66:1
- English
- Spine #575
SYNOPSIS: Stanley Kubrick’s account of an ambitious racetrack robbery is one of Hollywood’s tautest, twistiest noirs. Aided by a radically time-shuffling narrative, razor-sharp dialogue from pulp novelist Jim Thompson, and a phenomenal cast of character actors, including Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Timothy Carey, Elisha Cook Jr., and Marie Windsor, The Killing is both a jaunty thriller and a cold-blooded punch to the gut. And with its precise tracking shots and gratifying sense of irony, it’s Kubrick to the core.
Cast & CreditsOpen
Cast
| Johnny Clay | Sterling Hayden |
| Fay | Coleen Gray |
| Val Cannon | Vince Edwards |
| Marvin Unger | Jay C. Flippen |
| Policeman Randy Kennan | Ted DeCorsia |
| Sherry Peatty | Marie Windsor |
| George Peatty | Elisha Cook |
| Mike O'Reilly | Joe Sawyer |
| Track parking attendant | James Edwards |
| Nikki Arcane | Timothy Carey |
| Maurice Oboukhoff | Kola Kwariani |
| Leo, the loan shark | Jay Adler |
| Joe Piano | Tito Vuolo |
| Mrs. Ruthie O'Reilly | Dorothy Adams |
| Second American Airlines clerk | Herbert Ellis |
| Mr. Grimes, airline supervisor | James Griffith |
| Lady with small dog | Cecil Elliott |
| Tiny | Joseph Turkel |
| Brown | Steve Mitchell |
| American Airlines clerk | William Benedict |
Credits
| Director | Stanley Kubrick |
| Producer | James B. Harris |
| Screenplay | Stanley Kubrick |
| Dialogue | Jim Thompson |
| Based on the novel Clean Break by | Lionel White |
| Director of photography | Lucien Ballard |
| Art director | Roth Sobotka |
| Editing | Betty Steinberg |
| Music composed and conducted by | Gerald Fried |
| Assistant director | Milton Carter |
| Associate producer | Alexander Singer |
| Camera operator | Dick Tower |
| Gaffer | Bobby Jones |
| Head grip | Carl Gibson |
| Script supervisor | Mary Gibsone |
| Sound | Earl Snyder |
| Makeup | Robert Littlefield |
| Wardrobe | Jack Masters |
| Special effects | Dave Koehler |
| Set decorator | Harry Reif |
| Photographic effects | Jack Rabin and Louis DeWitt |
Disc Features
- New digital restoration (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- New video interview with producer James B. Harris
- Excerpted interviews with actor Sterling Hayden from the French television series Cinéma cinémas
- New video interview with poet and author Robert Polito about writer Jim Thompson
- Restored high-definition digital transfer of Stanley Kubrick’s 1955 noir feature Killer’s Kiss
- New video appreciation of Killer’s Kiss featuring film critic Geoffrey O’Brien
- Trailers
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film historian Haden Guest and a reprinted interview with actress Marie Windsor
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The Killers Inside Me
By August 18, 2011
Stanley Kubrick’s labyrinthine 1956 heist flick The Killing—an exploded rethink of John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle and eventual template for the narrative convolutions of Reservoir Dog—became an Read more »
Press Notes
Press Notes: The Killing
August 24, 2011
“Long before film noir became chic, Stanley Kubrick took its trenchant attitude to the limit in The Killing (1956)—and it became a cult classic and his breakthrough film,” explains Michael Sragow Read more »
