You’ll think you’ve died and gone to hardboiled heaven. Or is it hell? Kubrick was only twenty-eight when he unleashed this twisty and twisted masterpiece, studded with diamond-hard dialogue courtesy of pulp master Jim Thompson. Sterling Hayden arranges a clockwork racetrack robbery only to learn the hard way what happens to best-laid plans. Kubrick showed his noir bona fides by casting genre stalwarts Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor, Coleen Gray, Ted de Corsia, Jay C. Flippen—and unforgettable wild man, Timothy Carey. The film’s backtracking narrative so befuddled United Artists that the studio dumped The Killing on the bottom half of a double bill, oblivious to the talent that would make Stanley Kubrick the most visionary director of his era.