L'Ultime Razzia

The non-linear storytelling, overused nowadays even when it does not make any sense, is key to this taught thriller, narrated almost as a documentary.

Besides, despite the non-linear structure, the plot is very easy to follow, thanks to the narrator who tells the audience everything from the time of the day to the details about the gang involved in the audacious heist at the races.

It does't hurt that main character Johnny Clay is played by one of my favourite actors, Sterling Hayden, in a role that reminds me of his doomed character in The Asphalt Jungle. Clay is a coincise, world-wary character who planned the heist to the last detail, unfortunately missing the "human factor".

As it's customary in stories about failed heists, there's always one detail that is either unknown or unpredictable, but important enough to wreak havoc even in the most perfect plan.

Perhaps my favourite Kubrick's movie, with a tight script, excellent cast and no-nonsense approach.

Stanley Kunbrick was still in his twenties when he made this film, yet his confidence and self-assurance are all over it. It is a well-written story, co-written by Kubrick (based on a novel called "A Clean Break"), about a meticulously planned horetrack heist told from the point of view of the several people who were in on the plot. Most of these guys weren't professional criminals, but otherwise honest men who were down on their luck and needed a break. They turned to this audacious plan in desperation, thinking they could do some real good in their lives with their share of the money. I won't give away the ending of course, but keep in mind this is a Kubrick film. That's all I say about that.

Standouts include Sterling Hayden as the ringleader, Marie Windsor as a snide, manipulative woman, Elisha Cook as her milquetoasty husband, Timothy Carey, as creepy as ever, and Kola Kwariani, the thinking man's Tor Johnson, as a chess expert/hired thug.

Speaking of chess, this is the first movie I've ever seen with a scene taking place in a chess parlor. Being from a provincial New England town, and not being a chess afficionado, I never knew such places existed.

Director Stanley Kubrick is best known for "2001: A Space Odyssey." "A Clockwork Orrange" or "The Shining" but I always found this to be my favorite of his films. This is film noir at some of its best: a tight no-nonsense story with tragic consequences, some of the best film noir actors in the business and great cinematography, which looks even better on DVD.

Sterling Hayden is the gang leader in this heist film and the big man was up to the task as he usually was in these kind of crime films. He wasn't as rough a character as he was in "Asphalt Jungle," but his role reminded me of that film.

What made this movie so appealing to me were four very interesting character actors: Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor, Kola Kwariani and Ted de Corsia. Few people had those loser-type film noir characters down pat as well as the tough-talking Windsor and the meek and wimpy Cook. They played a husband-and-wife team here: that's film noir heaven!

Kwariani plays a burley chess-playing wrestler who fights six cops at one time and Carey is a long-distance racist rifleman who talks through clenched-teeth and shoots a racehorse! As I said, some very interesting characters here.

And, oh yeah.....for you over-55 readers, there's Vince Edwards, alias Dr. Ben Casey of TV fame, as a Windsor's young adulterer boyfriend trying to horn in on the money from the robbery.

This film is full of surprises and always fun to watch.

Film noir in all its splendor, with a very dynamic rhythm, far from '2001, a space odyssey': an audacious burglary seems perfectly orchestrated and prepared with a surgical precision, until a minor glitch transforms a 'Symphonie fantastique' in a 'Descente d'Orphée aux enfers'.

There is a plan that just can't fail no matter what, take the racetrack's banked cash roll, take all it's got, everybody knows their place, where to be for the big race, then where to gather, to take their share, of the big pot.

A piece of cinema magic that to this day leaves you astounded at the brilliance of the writer/director, amazed at the sensational performances by some truly great actors, and as engaged as you could ever hope to be with a story that nestles nicely in the age and the era from which it was born, an accomplishment that so many films of that time fail to achieve when revisited.