Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Jim Thompson, Lionel White
Stars: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards

This review is part of the feature:

The 33 Gangster Films You Can’t Refuse

One of Kubrick’s first efforts is a heist movie. It’s very fast and very smooth.

At a lively pace, we follow a group of gangsters and their accomplices as they prepare for a high-stakes racetrack robbery. An unseen narrator guides us through a plan that feels doomed from the start. A cashier involved in the scheme confides in his femme fatale wife about the heist, and together with her lover, the two-timing dame decides to go after the loot themselves. From there, everything begins to unravel.

This is Kubrick showing off his considerable talent and pushing the boundaries of cinema. The thriller was ahead of its time in terms of storytelling. The screenplay – written by Kubrick himself – is innovative, presenting events from multiple angles through the perspectives of different characters. This structure builds suspense and creates a constant urge to discover what happens next.

Early screenings were poor, with many citing the non-linear structure as the main issue. Kubrick was briefly forced to re-edit the film into a linear format, which only made it more confusing. Fortunately, it was ultimately released in its original form and is now often cited as a major influence on later non-linear crime films such as Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994).

With an excellent cast, stylish cinematography, and a narrative daring well ahead of its era, Kubrick delivered a heist film that not only holds up today but helped redefine how crime stories could be told. Its precision, tension, and structural ambition mark the arrival of a filmmaker already in command of his craft and hint at the legendary career that would follow.