THE KILLING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 932, 21 June 1957, Page 16

THE KILLING

(Kuybrick-Harris-United Artists) A Cert. Not since The Asphalt Jungle have we seen an American thriller in the same class as The Killing. Here again are both the sustained suspense and the extra dimension in character which make such a film memorable. And here again, as it happens, is Sterling Hayden, trying to buy security and happiness with his last big robbery-only this time there’s no sentimental journey at the end. The race track is the setting for the "killing," and with its tension underlined by rhythms that play on the nerves and a finely imaginative use of

natural sound, the him has you hypnotised in no time. You meet the superbly played characters, fairly ordinary people who, for urgent reasons, want to get rich quickly: a reformed alcoholic (Jay C. Flippen), a jumpy tote cashier (Elisha Cook), who'll do anything to buy back the affection of his wife (Marie Windsor); a barman with no money for the doctors his sick wife needs; a cop in debt; and Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) and his devoted girl friend-he’s not long out of jail, never (he hopes) to go back again.

No one need be hurt, except a horse which a hired gunman (Tim Carey) will shoot to cause confusion, and a few cops, slugged by a strong man (Kola Kwarian) hired to start a riot. Filmed in a series of short sequences which overlap and recapitulate as they tell the story from the viewpoint of one character and then another, and cut to a nerve stretching rhythm, The Killing reminds us, in the colour-and-wide-screen era, how good conventional black and white cinema can be. Without being arty, the stark photography is never less than striking, and in its economical exploration of character in visual terms (watch the scenes between the cashier and his unfaithful wife) it uses the close shot and close-up more often, more boldly and more effectively than any film I have seen for a long time. (I gather, by the way, it has been cut somewhat-and too much, surely, at the point where infidelity begins to pay off.) The Killing is the work of a young director, Stanley Kubrick, whose Killer's Kiss reviewed a few months ago. This new film isn’t as compassionate as the earlier one, but with a clearer aim it fpirinb falters and its action never declines into melodrama. Though Mr Kub- : rick wrote, directed, shot and cut Killer’s Kiss, other hands have used camera and scissors in The Killing; the seére is again by Gerald Fried. Nevertheless, Mr -Kubrick’s talents are so individual and his signature so clear that I’m sure his genius) much more than any other fathered this remarkable movie. May he give us manv more.