Hacker Cinema
The Killing
1956 · Film · 85 min
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.
3 positive2 neutralfrom 5 commenters
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5 comments on Hacker News
"Barry Lyndon" always felt like a film that Kubrick just did in his spare time and took no creative- / deadline- / budget- / non-Barry-Lyndon-as-Kubrick-wants-it-to-be -related input from anyone. A pure Kubrick piece.
I do enjoy "Killing", however, so much that I am tempted to call it my Kubrick's favorite.
Noir film, the same deal.
“I know you like a book, ya little tramp. You’d sell your own mother for a piece of fudge. But you’re smart with it. Smart enough to know when to sell and when to sit tight. You’ve got a great big dollar sign there where most women have a heart.” –The Killing (1956; Dir: Stanley Kubrick)
I'm double-replying, which might be bad form, but I think you might be interested to hear that the initial reception to the film had a lot of the same problems. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968
> I attended the Los Angeles premiere of the film, in 1968, at the Pantages Theater. It is impossible to describe the anticipation in the audience adequately. Kubrick had been working on the film in secrecy for some years, in collaboration, the audience knew, with author Arthur C. Clarke, special-effects expert Douglas Trumbull and consultants who advised him on the specific details of his imaginary future -- everything from space station design to corporate logos. Fearing to fly and facing a deadline, Kubrick had sailed from England on the Queen Elizabeth, doing the editing while on board, and had continued to edit the film during a cross-country train journey. Now it finally was ready to be seen.
> To describe that first screening as a disaster would be wrong, for many of those who remained until the end knew they had seen one of the greatest films ever made. But not everyone remained. Rock Hudson stalked down the aisle, complaining, “Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?'' There were many other walkouts, and some restlessness at the film's slow pace (Kubrick immediately cut about 17 minutes, including a pod sequence that essentially repeated another one).
> The film did not provide the clear narrative and easy entertainment cues the audience expected. The closing sequences, with the astronaut inexplicably finding himself in a bedroom somewhere beyond Jupiter, were baffling. The overnight Hollywood judgment was that Kubrick had become derailed, that in his obsession with effects and set pieces, he had failed to make a movie.
To be fair, it is certainly a long way from a movie like The Killing.
It's disappointing to find out that The Killing didn't turn a profit. It's a great film.
Count me in as somebody with taste that knows something about film and finds this movie a waste of talent. The real Kubrick underrated masterworks are paths of glory and the killing.