A classic noir heist film by Stanley Kubrick in the days when he could make a crisp 80-minute thriller, just the right length for having everything go wrong. Nowadays an audience just won't accept having a carefully-planned caper collapse like a house of cards. Sterling Hayden is the brains behind the racetrack robbery but he could not predict the chance factors that would undermine him; the fatalism with which he accepts this at the end is stunning.
Filmed in high contrast black and white (you will discover that I am a big fan of the days when cinematography mattered), the film also boasts a lovely cast including everyone's favourite loser, Elisha Cook Jr., and the untrustworthy Marie Windsor in her best femme fatale mode as his treacherous wife.
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