Johnny Clay is a crook fresh out of Alcertraz and he's a man with a plan, a plan to steal $2million from a race track. He puts together a team of men, some of whom have never met, and the heist goes off without a hitch but when the greedy wife of one of the men gets wind of it and tells her young lover everything is bound to come to a bloody conclusion.
Full of style, brilliant performances and with the snappy dialogue of writer Jim Thompson this is a film where every single gangster movie cliché is crammed in and they all work. There are even guns in violin cases. Sterling Hayden is great as Clay but it's Timothy Carey the horse shooter and Elisha Cook Jr. who really steal the show. Cook's performance in particular as the put-upon and lied-to husband is really outstanding. The whole troop is something special though and also includes Jay C. Flippen and Ted de Corsia, a man I seem to always think of as being called Rocco, whether he's playing a machine-gun wielding gangster or a Mongol lord.
This is a Kubrick film so I don't need to tell you that the production is quality and the direction is good, it should be, but if all you know of the director is 2001 or Full Metal Jacket then take a look at something he made before he started spending massive amounts of money and using multiple soundtracks; you won't be disappointed.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049406/?ref_=nv_sr_4
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