The Letter (1940) DVDRip (SiRiUs sHaRe)

Johnny Clay has a plan. After spending 5 years in Alcatraz, he decides that if he's going to commit crimes, the risk had better be worth the punishment. He then proceeds to mastermind a brilliant criminal scheme to steal $2,000,000 from a local racetrack in which "no one will get hurt." The only flaw in his plan is that he does not consider one of his co-horts' greedy, shrewish wife and her ruthless boyfriend. That's when something goes wrong...
Sterling Hayden ... Johnny Clay
Coleen Gray ... Fay
Vince Edwards ... Val Cannon
Jay C. Flippen ... Marvin Unger
Elisha Cook Jr. ... George Peatty (as Elisha Cook)
Marie Windsor ... Sherry Peatty
Ted de Corsia ... Policeman Randy Kennan (as Ted DeCorsia)
Joe Sawyer ... Mike O'Reilly
James Edwards ... Track Parking Attendant
Timothy Carey ... Nikki Arcane
Joe Turkel ... Tiny (as Joseph Turkel)
Jay Adler ... Leo the Loanshark
Kola Kwariani ... Maurice Oboukhoff
Tito Vuolo ... Joe Piano - motel manager
Dorothy Adams ... Mrs. Ruthie O'Reilly
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Runtime: 85 mins
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049406/
Codecs:
Video : 1001 MB, 1660 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 576*432 (4:3), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4,
Audio : 115 MB, 192 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, 0x2000 = AC-3 ACM Codec, CBR,
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Director Stanley Kubrick is best known for "2001: A Space Odyssey." "A Clockwork Orrange" or "The Shining" but I always found this to be my favorite of his films. This is film noir at some of its best: a tight no-nonsense story with tragic consequences, some of the best film noir actors in the business and great cinematography, which looks even better on DVD.
Sterling Hayden is the gang leader in this heist film and the big man was up to the task as he usually was in these kind of crime films. He wasn't as rough a character as he was in "Asphalt Jungle," but his role reminded me of that film.
What made this movie so appealing to me were four very interesting character actors: Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor, Kola Kwariani and Ted de Corsia. Few people had those loser-type film noir characters down pat as well as the tough-talking Windsor and the meek and wimpy Cook. They played a husband-and-wife team here: that's film noir heaven!
Kwariani plays a burley chess-playing wrestler who fights six cops at one time and de Corsia is a long-distance racist rifleman who talks through clenched-teeth and shoots a racehorse! As I said, some very interesting characters here.
And, oh yeah.....for you over-55 readers, there's Vince Edwards, alias Dr. Ben Casey of TV fame, as a Windsor's young adulterer boyfriend trying to horn in on the money from the robbery.
This film is full of surprises and always fun to watch.
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At the age of 27, Stanley Kubrick's third film, The Killing, took Lionel White's hard-boiled, non-linear story of one man (Johnny Clay, with quick-talking, straightforward ease by Sterling Hayden) and his crew planning and tasking a race-track robbery. It's almost fifty years old, but by this time Kubrick intently defined his style, and somehow the film seems to have themes and characters that are identifiable (and recognizable) with any period. The supporting characters are as sharply drawn (and psychologically involving) if not more so than Johnny Clay. Driving us into this world of schemers shouldn't be dense, and as Kubrick passes by any pretense - and keeps the compositions and material entertaining and absorbing - and it allows a viewer a lot of promise on repeat viewings.
While the story elements are similar to the sort of Kubrick-movie psychology (mostly dealing with men who are head deep in a rather existential crisis of what's against society), what's unique is how the craft is intuitive. On a low budget, and even with a cast that's very good if not excellent, everything is always assured in the style and turns grinding in the plot. I could watch this movie another two times (after three in the past two years or so) and still see shots so detailed yet with the tone that of the most inspired film-noirs. It's questionable as to where Kubrick got influence for some of the compositions, with usage of shadows and the dark (and light shades too), but whether or not it was some famous expressionist or from the 40's film-noirs, the mark of Kubrick uncurling as an artist is evident.
One remark by some is that the narration is sometimes irritating, that the kind of B-movie police drama expository tone, and the information is too much. The voice is not my favorite part of the film, but the narration itself, the information, is an interesting mold in the film's structure. It adds on a layer to that existentialist subtext, as every description makes it sounds like the narrator's a reporter looking back on the past events with a (detached) objectivity. For me, this did make it a little much to concentrate on in the first viewing, however this is a film that demands un-thwarted attention for it's 83 minutes. If you turn away for too long, a piece of the puzzle will be out of sight. It's a great film, and it's gone on to inspire a flock of homagers and imitators in the last half century. A+
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While people die violently in The Killing, the title comes from the thought of a financial killing. This film is a choreographed chess match - Kubrick had a lifelong passion for chess - with human pieces, where the gambit is a racetrack heist of two million dollars.
The heist is brilliantly conceived. Johnny Clay, recently paroled, must have thought of nothing else in prison except this heist. The precision with which this scheme comes together is exquisite and absolutely flawless. There is one minor loose end during the heist itself when Marvin Unger shows up at the track drunk, contrary to instructions, but this is a red herring.
The heist is brilliantly executed. It goes literally like clockwork, and that is the best, maybe the only, metaphor to describe it. It reminded me of a road rally where drivers had to be in certain positions at certain times. Clay recruits accomplices on the inside, track employees, who must play small, but critical parts, for the heist to work. Everyone does his job beautifully, the heist comes off with hardly a hitch. One accomplice is killed by police, but no one else - conspirator or bystander - gets hurt, and Clay gets away clean. No military operation was ever planned so minutely or executed so precisely.
But, once Clay has the money, things come a-cropper. We know, of course, that the plan cannot succeed. Nefarious plans *never* succeed in film noir. It's a rule.
How this particular scheme came undone and was foiled seemed contrived and forced to me. Here is this exquisitely planned operation, flawlessly executed with military precision. And yet this scrupulously planned, perfectly timed attention to detail is tossed aside once Clay has the money. It's almost like he expected to fail, or never counted on succeeding, like he thought, "Okay, I've got two mil in small bills. Now, what do I do?"
But, that would be telling. How the perfect crime is foiled is the film's climax, and its only weak moment.
Sterling Hayden is brilliant as Johnny Clay. His precise, clipped, monotone delivery, almost like a newsman, is perfect here. The liner notes for my DVD said that the studio wanted Jack Palance or Victor Mature for the role, but Kubrick held firm. Either would have been good, but Hayden was brilliant. Marie Windsor is not one we would think of as a femme fatale, but she is also very good as the selfish, vain, scheming and very attractive wife of one of the co-conspirators played by Elisha Cooke, Jr. He married out of his league, and in film noir, that's a guarantee for disaster.
One of Kubrick's best, and one of the best film noir's ever done. A solid 8 out of 10
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* Rodney Dangerfield reportedly appears as an extra in the racetrack fight scene.
* One of the horses in the race in which all of the characters are called to a meeting is Stanley K, named for the director.
* Jack Palance and Victor Mature were both considered for the part played by Sterling Hayden.
* Sterling Hayden was paid $40,000 for his lead role (Jack Palance and Victor Mature were both considered for the part). Stanley Kubrick took no fee as director of the film.
* Art director Ruth Sobotka was Stanley Kubrick's wife at the time.
* The film was shot in 24 days.
* "Day of Violence" and "Bed of Fear" were both working titles for the film.
* Stanley Kubrick delayed filming in order to wait until Marie Windsor was finished with another film, Swamp Women (1955), Roger Corman's directorial debut.
* The film was effectively dumped by United Artists, premiering as the second half of a double feature; Richard Fleischer's Bandido (1956) was the main film. However, it made Stanley Kubrick's reputation, and Kirk Douglas and Marlon Brando soon hired him.
* Marie Windsor landed the part of Sherry Peatty after Kubrick saw her performance in The Narrow Margin (1952).
* Kirk Douglas was so impressed with this film that he sought out the director for his next project, Paths of Glory (1957).
* The horse targeted for assassination was named Red Lightning, running in the seventh race, the $100,000 Added Landsdowne Stakes.
* The location where Sterling Hayden proposes the deal to Kola Kwariani is a mock-up of the 42nd Street Chess and Checker Parlor in New York City. Director Stanley Kubrick was a regular chess player there as was Kola.
* Frank Sinatra expressed interest in this project, but production rights were granted to Stanley Kubrick first.
* Initial test screenings were poor, citing the non-linear structure as the main problem. Stanley Kubrick was forced to go back and edit the film in a linear fashion, actually making the film even more confusing. In the end, it was released in its original form, and is often cited as being a huge influence on other non-linear films like Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994).
* Director Stanley Kubrick formed a production company with James B. Harris, Harris-Kubrick Pictures, before making this film. Kubrick and Harris bought the rights to the Lionel White pulp novel "The Snatch" for $10,000, but found out that the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) Code would not allow movies to be made about the kidnapping of children, the premise of White's potboiler. White subsequently swapped the rights to his novel "Clean Break" for "The Snatch" to get them out of the predicament. United Artists had considered buying "Clean Break" as a vehicle for Frank Sinatra. "The Snatch" later was made into The Night of the Following Day (1968) in the more permissive 1960s, when the MPPDA Code had been superseded by the ratings system.
* As Johnny leaves the store after buying a suitcase, advertised on the wall just beyond his car is a burlesque show featuring Lenny Bruce.
* Director Trademark: [Stanley Kubrick] [three-way] Johnny Clay vs. George Peatty vs. Sherry Peatty.
* Director Trademark: [Stanley Kubrick] [bathroom] A gun is hidden in the locker room of the racetrack.
* Director Trademark: [Stanley Kubrick] [faces] George Peatty, when he finds out about his wife's dalliance.
* Stanley Kubrick and producer James B. Harris first attempted to produce the movie around New York, where they lived, but after failing to find an East Coast racetrack that would allow the crime to be filmed there, they moved it to Bay Meadows, near San Francisco.
* The total budget for the film was $320,000--$200,000 was put up by United Artists, with the rest raised by producer James B. Harris. This was a paltry budget for a feature even by 1950s Hollywood standards.
* The narration was added at the studio's insistence. Stanley Kubrick hated the idea and thus makes much of the information that the narrator provides false or mistaken.
* Stanley Kubrick initially wrote a script outline. He then asked Jim Thompson to flesh it out with dialog.
* This was the first film on which Stanley Kubrick worked with a cinematographer. Lucien Ballard was hired because Kubrick was officially working on a film union production for the first time which prevented him from using himself as the cinematographer, as he had done in the past. The two often did not agree on camera and lighting matters.
* Once they had convinced Sterling Hayden to come on board, Stanley Kubrick and his producer James B. Harris were able to approach United Artists about securing the extra financing for the film.