"Next, he searched for the largest suitcase he could find."A few nights ago, I sat down to watch Stanley Kubrick's 1956 feature The Killing. It has been a while since I last saw this early film of the director's, and I needed a fix. It is as good as always. Kubrick was still finding his way. Just think, he could have made more films like this before he really found his voice; the one that immortalized him. The Killing shows him to be a more than competent filmmaker early in his career. A launch pad for a future of artistic success.
While I do agree with those who feel the voice over is unnecessary, and personally find that the overlap scenes during the racetrack robbery sequence are experimental more than necessary, The Killing is a superior film. Sterling Hayden is good, as always in this sort of role, Tim Carey is perfect, Marie Windsor fits the bill, and Elisha Cook, Jr. shows he was always unbeatable as a spineless or snivelling "little man".
Gerald Fried's score is brassy, rhythmic, and driving... he has always been good at this sort of thing. These were the days before Kubrick jettisoned composers as such, although he would work with Leonard Rosenman on Barry Lyndon, and Wendy Carlos on The Shining (after he had gone the classical music route with 2001: A Space Odyssey).
What has not changed, too, is the ending's punch. To me, it is one of the finest and funniest climaxes in cinema history. I laughed again.
Text book stuff.
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