Tag film noir

The image depicts a man with a bulbous clown-like nose, wearing a hat and carrying a club. He is portrayed against a dark background.

The Killing by Stanley Kubrick

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The image depicts a man with a bulbous clown-like nose, wearing a hat and carrying a club. He is portrayed against a dark background.

by Alex P.

I’ve always been drawn to crime films, from Fritz Lang’s “M” to classic film noir to Martin Scorsese’s extensive gangster film output, with their allure of hidden underworlds of organized crime and the handsome rewards it brings at the risk of it all falling apart at any moment. Whether you identify with the criminal masterminds or with the police detectives hot on their trails, it’s a strain of cinema that’s had appeal since the inception of film itself and 1903’s The Great Train Robbery.  

One sub-genre of crime that’s stuck with me is the heist film. There’s something exquisitely thrilling about watching a heist carried out from the planning stage to the execution where it all goes so right or so wrong; think Baby Driver and The Bad Guys for popular recent examples. 

Director Stanley Kubrick’s shadow still looms large over the art of film, but some people may not know one of his earlier films, The Killing, a 1956 heist noir that gave Kubrick his first critical success. Many know the 1968 ensemble comedy Dr. Strangelove, his last black and white film before the monolithic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Fewer know of Lolita (yes, that Lolita), Spartacus, or Paths of Glory, but I suspect the most obscure are his first three films. Fear and Desire and Killer’s Kiss are independent, exploratory films where Kubrick was finding his footing; these were followed by The Killing, starring the elusive Sterling Hayden, which was a real home run.  

The Asphalt Jungle was a foundational heist films, and it seems clear that Kubrick wanted to emulate it a few years later with The Killing. Kubrick plucks Sterling Hayden from The Asphalt Jungle’s all-star cast to play Johnny Clay, the mastermind behind a heist at a horse-racing track. Clay remains a mysterious and dominating figure, and much of the story is dedicated to the setup of the heist and the ensemble of his hired co-conspirators. More of the tension comes from a psycho-sexual rift between George, the racetrack cashier, and his wife Sherry, who overhears the plot and schemes to take George’s money and run. This sub-plot strikes me as The Killing’s weakest aspect, as it is far too maudlin and the sets are cheap, complete with a fake parrot. The rest of the cast, though, comprise a thrilling ensemble of characters, each of whom plays a perfectly compartmentalized part.  

Johnny Clay, as played by Hayden, is a complete enigma. Just out of prison, he immediately starts moving on the heist. He conducts himself with an affect so cool and calculating that it strikes the viewer as sociopathic. My favorite participant in his heist is Maurice, played by Georgian wrestler Kola Kwariani. He’s a highly intelligent, thoughtful, soft-spoken man who works in a chess club, and it is tragic to watch Clay pay him to get drunk and start a fight, reducing a smart and sensitive man to hired muscle. Every participant is meticulously positioned to play a separate part in his scheme while remaining unable to implicate him if they fail. It’s so well-planned, and the execution is mesmerizing and unforgettable, but so are the inevitable snags along the way.  

When comparing The Killing to The Asphalt Jungle, I’ve found that the inherent moral ambiguity makes Kubrick’s heist film memorable, as the start of a theme that continued throughout his career. In The Asphalt Jungle, the charming and likeable criminals are served their just desserts, complete with a speech by the police to an eager press pool that feels straight out of a public service announcement. While in The Killing, the brief but poetic comeuppance that comes to the Clay at the film’s end comes instead from a cruel and simple twist of fate. Instead of seeking answers from the morals and standards and the laws of his era, Kubrick looked to bad luck and the randomness of the universe. 

Like many overlooked greats, The Killing can be found on Kanopy using your library card. Though I mostly use it for hidden gems that can’t seem to find their home in more commercial environments (take, for example, The Hudsucker Proxy), it still has recent blockbuster hits, as well as classic documentaries and more. 

Alex Pyryt is a DIY Instructor & Research Specialist at Howard County Library System Elkridge Branch. 

A bright yellow cover features a red cutout image of a revolver.

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

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A bright yellow cover features a red cutout image of a revolver.

by Jean B.

I took an uncharacteristic turn this summer by watching a movie before reading the book. Heresy! When my book club decided to read the Raymond Chandler classic, The Big Sleep, I felt unenthusiastic and decided to first check out the famous film adaptation, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. 

I discovered an atmospheric masterpiece that is like a train wreck: you can’t look away, even as the bodies are piling up and the unanswered questions are mounting faster. Seamy and steamy, the film’s careless violence and social dysfunction surprised me in a 1940s-era production. Of course, that’s why they call it film noir, right?  Bogart, as the hard boiled private detective Philip Marlowe, dives into the sordid world of the spoiled, rich Sternwood sisters (Bacall and Martha Vickers) to catch a blackmailer and through a meandering investigation, ignites all kinds of sparks – romantic and otherwise.   

I appreciated the film for its classic style and mesmerizing performances, but I also felt perplexed by the story. It turns out, I’m not alone: as one critic wrote, “The Big Sleep is the best scripted, best directed, best acted, and least comprehensible film noir ever made.” Interestingly, the screenplay was written by William Faulkner, known for his own complex literature. I wondered, did Faulkner make the plot incomprehensible or was that Chandler’s work? 

Clearly, it was time to read the book and find out for myself. Told in first person by Marlowe, the story unfolds through sharp dialogue and terse descriptions of people and urban landscapes. Having seen the movie first, I heard Humphrey Bogart’s voice as I read, a definite bonus! While I usually prefer to form my own image of a character from the author’s writing, Bogart and Bacall seemed perfectly suited to Chandler’s style and words, so I didn’t mind having them in my head. 

The book provided a wealth of detail and allowed me to add more depth to my understanding of the characters and their predicaments. Still, this is not the kind of mystery you try to solve on your own. As a detective, Marlowe makes no effort to be especially clever or careful; he doesn’t store up observations and deductions a la Sherlock Holmes. 

Instead, he confronts a suspicious character, spills whatever information he has, then stands back to see what happens. Although the plot feels more comprehensible in the book than the movie, it’s still like a many-layered onion: each time Marlowe deciphers one crime and its culprit, another one emerges and more motives, corruption, romantic relationships, and villainy appear. Still, Chandler’s language and pungent metaphors make the effort to untangle these webs worthwhile. When a writer can make even a dreary office evocative (“His office had the musty smell of years of routine”), you can’t help but turn the page to keep reading.  

So which was better:  the book or the movie? I’m glad to have experienced both. The Big Sleep is all about atmosphere – when you soak it up both through the author’s words and the performances of great actors on the screen, you get the full picture, even if you’re still a little fuzzy on whodunnit! 

Borrow either or both at HCLS: in print and on DVD.

Jean is a Children’s Instructor and Research Specialist at HCLS Central Branch. She loves talking about books with people of all ages, but especially enjoys leading the Heavy Medals book club for fourth and fifth graders, exploring award-winning books of all genres.