The Killing/Killer's Kiss

[MichaelB]

Release Date: 9th February 2015
Format: Blu-ray
Starring: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards
Director: Stanley Kubrick

Synopsis: An ex-con, a corrupt cop, a reformed alcoholic, a wrestler, a sharpshooter and a pair of inside men: these seven men intent on executing the perfect robbery and taking a racetrack for two million dollars. But this is the world of film noir, a tough, sour place where nothing quite goes as planned…

For his third feature Stanley Kubrick adapted Lionel White’s Clean Break with a little help from hard-boiled specialist Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me), and in doing so created a heist movie classic, one to rank alongside John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. The robbery itself is one of cinema’s great set-pieces, as taut a piece of filmmaking as you’ll ever find, expertly controlled by Kubrick, who called The Killing his “first mature work”.

Starring Sterling Hayden (Johnny Guitar, The Godfather), perennial fall guy Elisha Cook Jr (The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep) and Marie Windsor (The Narrow Margin) as his duplicitous wife, The Killing is quintessential film noir, still as brutal, thrilling and audacious as it was almost six decades ago.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of the feature
- Original uncompressed mono PCM Audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Stanley Kurbrick’s second feature, Killer’s Kiss (1955), presented in High Definition (1080p)
- An appreciation by filmmaker Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseers)
- An extract from the French television series Journal de la cinéma featuring an interview with Sterling Hayden
- A look at Kubrick's 1950s output with critic Michel Ciment
- Original theatrical trailers for both films
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Reinhard Kleist
- Collector’s booklet containing new writing by Peter Kramer (author of volumes on Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange), Barry Forshaw and filmmaker Ron Peck, illustrated with original archive stills

Region: B
Rating: 12
Cat No: FCD1046
Duration: 84 mins
Language: English
Subtitles: English SDH
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audio: 1.0 Mono
B&W

As a footnote, I'm absolutely delighted that the Sterling Hayden interview has made it onto an Arrow release, because it's a real jaw-dropper. It's not the one featured on Criterion's The Killing - instead, it dates from 1970 and features Hayden in full-on Ben Gunn mode, stripped to the waist and piloting his barge down the Seine while answering questions from French journalists in a mixture of English and pidgin French. I originally tracked it down when researching extras for The Long Goodbye and had to drop it with extreme reluctance (it was either that or the big Robert Altman doc, and the date is a dead giveaway as to how on-topic it was!), but I strongly recommended it to the rest of the Arrow team, and am thrilled that they've found a home for it.

[PfR73]

Will Killer's Kiss have lossless audio, unlike the Criterion release?

[David M.]

"Your wish is my command!"

[PfR73]

Thank you, lovely to hear!

[Orlac]

The Criterion doesn't get the best reviews - edge enhancement and all that jazz.

[Dr Amicus]

I don't know who has the UK rights these days to Pierre-William Glenn's 23H58, but that would have made a cracking addition to the package. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I recall a UK home release at all of the film - and I think its theatrical release was minimal (I caught it at the LFF).

[antnield]

Packaging pics.

[TMDaines]

That yellow cover is gorgeous. I'll be swapping that one round.

[antnield]

Blu-ray.com

[Orlac]

Be good if Chris at this forum can compare it to the Criterion release.