Trailer
Plot summary
Out of prison and intending to go straight afterward, Johnny Clay puts together a crew to take two million dollars from a racetrack. His associate Marvin Unger supplies the financial backing and his apartment as a hideout, and corrupt policeman Randy Kennan signs on. Two men at the track join the plan: George Peatty, a cashier, and Mike O'Reilly, who tends the bar. At the hideout the men work out the details; a sharpshooter is to kill the favored horse, and a wrestler is to start a fight at the bar so that security leaves the money room. George is trapped in a loveless marriage with the materialistic Sherry, and he tells her about the scheme.
Cast
- Kola Kwarianias Maurice Oboukhoff
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Killing (1956)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Kubrick wanted to shoot The Killing himself, but the Hollywood cinematographers' union barred him from being both director and cinematographer, so veteran Lucien Ballard was hired. The two clashed repeatedly over camera placement and technical details.
- The Killing was the last feature film Kubrick shot entirely in the United States. His later Spartacus had interiors filmed on Universal's Hollywood sound stages, but its battle exteriors were shot in Spain.
- Kubrick and producer James B. Harris moved from New York to Los Angeles to shoot the film, and Kubrick went unpaid for the whole shoot, surviving on loans from Harris.
- Producer James B. Harris bought the rights to Lionel White's novel Clean Break for $10,000, outbidding United Artists, which had wanted to make the film as a vehicle for Frank Sinatra.
- Quentin Tarantino said The Killing was an influence on Reservoir Dogs, calling his own film "my Killing, my take on that kind of heist movie."
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Dore Schary was impressed by The Killing and offered Kubrick and Harris $75,000 to write, direct and produce another film, which became Paths of Glory.
