Murder by Contract (1958) on Netflix
Claude becomes a contract killer to buy a house. His next target is a woman due to testify in a major trial, and he considers women harder to kill than men.
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- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.2/105,278 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Disaffected and short of cash, Claude wants $28,000 for a house, and he takes up killing for hire for a Mr. Brink. Jobs arranged by a Mr. Moon prove he can do the work, and he never carries a gun, treating murder as a business. His next assignment is a witness in a trial due to open in two weeks in Los Angeles. For the first days he goes sightseeing, watching for anyone trailing George and Marc, the two men who handle him, and the job does not trouble him. Then he learns the witness is a woman, Billie Williams, and he grows agitated: he finds women unpredictable and harder to kill than men. Billie keeps to a closely guarded house, and Claude hunts for a way to get to her.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Murder by Contract (1958)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Martin Scorsese cites Murder by Contract as the film that influenced his approach to filmmaking most, praising its "economy of style" and comparing its cinematic "shorthand" to the work of Jean-Luc Godard and Robert Bresson.
- Scorsese put Murder by Contract in his 1978 Film Comment list of Guilty Pleasures and singled out the scene of Claude getting in shape, which influenced a similar sequence with Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver.
