STANLEY KUBRICK'S NOIR 'THE KILLING' WITH STERLING HAYDEN

Title: THE KILLING Year: 1956 Rating: ****1/2

Following what's more an art-house crime melodrama in KILLER'S KISS, young photographer turned director Stanley Kubrick created a more polished, genuine film noir that — using a then-rare, non-linear structure — is also far more complicated... so much that the studio forced one of those docudrama-style narrations throughout...

Working best to map-out the ensemble of criminals who are otherwise everyday workers at the targeted racetrack along with a crooked cop, a wrestler and last but not least, a bonafide hoodlum to shoot a running horse...

Timothy Carey and Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING

Where Timothy Carey plays another teeth-gritting, offbeat character, and his expository with master criminal (and this group's leader) Sterling Hayden perfectly suits pulp-novelist Jim Thompson's hardboiled dialogue... 

Yet not everyone's aboard this main heist — while Hayden's good girl Coleen Gray's second-billed, it's scene-stealer femme fatale Marie Windsor who's technically the most important... 

Elisha Cook Jr and Marie Windsor in THE KILLING

As the wife of wimpy track-teller Elisha Cook Jr., she's part of a double-cross with handsome lover Vince Edwards, who has a slowburn sidekick in Kubrick three-timer Joe Turkel, soon to join Carey as one of three doomed soldiers in the anti-war classic PATHS OF GLORY, which is deeper and more befitting what would become Kubrick's signature style: including long-takes, mesmerizing wide-shots and slow-pan camerawork,... 

Yet THE KILLING is where the iconic auteur perfected characterization, herein captured within phantom-walled interiors and genuine location exteriors beneath grim, shadowy darkness to brightly exposed sunlight — visually combining stylish nuance with a severe and gritty, uncompromising edge.

Joe Sawyer with Ted de Corcia and Elisha Cook Jr in THE KILLING

Jay C. Flippen in THE KILLING

Vince Edwards and Joe Turkel in THE KILLING

Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING

Ted de Corsia in THE KILLING

Elisha Cook Jr and Marie Windsor in THE KILLING

Vince Edwards and Marie Windsor in THE KILLING

Sterling Hayden and Elisha Cook Jr. in THE KILLING

Timothy Carey in THE KILLING

Joe Sawyer and Dorothy Adams in THE KILLING

Timothy Carey in THE KILLING with James Edwards

Coleen Gray in THE KILLING

Joe Turkel and Vince Edwards in THE KILLING

Signed DVD by Coleen Gray and Joe Turkel

Sterling Hayden and Coleen Gray in THE KILLING

Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING

Ted de Corsia and Joe Turkel in THE KILLING

Vince Edwards and Marie Windsor in THE KILLING

Vince Edwards and Marie Windsor in THE KILLING

Vince Edwards and Marie Windsor in THE KILLING

Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING

Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING with Joe Sawyer and Elisha Cook Jr

Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING

Kola Kwariani and Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING

Kola Kwariani and Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING

Timothy Carey and Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING

Tito Vuolo and Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING

Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING

Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING with Coleen Gray

Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING

Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING

Vince Edwards in THE KILLING

Joseph Turkel in THE KILLING

Marie Windsor in THE KILLING

Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING with Coleen Gray

Sterling Hayden in THE KILLING with Coleen Gray

Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING

Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING