This taut crime picture was one of the earliest films in the career of Stanley Kubrick, but something of the director’s voice and characteristic preoccupations are already evident here. A brisk film noir that unravels a tightly planned but doomed racetrack heist, it combines a clear-eyed, cool-headed approach with dialogue that crackles and a smart, non-linear structure.
It’s also superbly shot in brooding black and white — a pivotal scene at an airport, near the close of the film, is devastating in its melancholy beauty: the hopes and dreams of the characters eddy and swirl on the runway, tantalisingly out of reach.
Sterling Hayden stars as Johnny Clay, recently released from jail and hoping to score big on a job he has been plotting for a long time. He plans to rob the counting-office of a racetrack, using the shooting of a horse as cover. He has assembled a team to help him pull it off.
Yet one team member, a sad-sack window teller (Elisha Cook Jr), can’t help but spill the beans to his disgruntled wife, Sherry (Marie Windsor, wonderful in the treacherous femme fatale role). The rumour of riches corrupts as it trickles down to Sherry’s pretty-boy beau and the layers of deception lead to a mounting body count and a whole lot of mess.
- Wendy Ide (The Times)
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- This Thursday, 27th November, 07:30 pm, SALTBURN (Emerald Fennell, 2023, 131', English) in Malmö
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