Rating: 
Summary: 2 thumbs up, 2 killers down :-)
Review: "In Cold Blood" is the 1967 movie based on Truman Capote's non-fiction book about the murder of a family of four by Perry Smith (Robert Blake) and Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson). Although the killers were expecting to get about $10,000 from the safe, it turns out there was no safe and they only got $40.Filmed in black-and-white, the movie has very good cinematography, and includes several interesting cuts from scene to scene. In one shot, as Perry is in jail telling a rather sad story about his life, the shadows of the rain running down the window falls on his face and gives the impression of cascading tears. There are also several intercut flash-backs, mostly having to do with Smith's early family-life and abusive father, including the finale on the gallows. The blues/jazzed-based score was composed by Quincy Jones, and was very good. It was almost shear luck that the pair got nailed for the murders. Although they had passed bad checks and stolen some cars after the murders, the police had no evidence to connect them to the killings - except for some personal effects that Smith had mailed back to himself from Mexico and picked up just shortly before being arrested. After being found guilty in only 40 minutes of jury deliberation, the pair sat in jail a few years awaiting execution. As it turns out, although Hickock actually came up with the plan, Smith did all the killings, mostly out of anger. So, as some have asked, was the killing "In Cold Blood" really theirs, or ours? Near the end, when a couple of journalists see the hangman go up the steps, they have this bit of dialog:
"Is he the, uh...?"
"Uh-huh..."
"How much does he get to hang them?"
"Three hundred dollars a man."
"Has he got a name?"
"We the people." Well-acted by Blake and Wilson, and supporting roles for John Forsythe, Gerald S. O'Loughlin and Jeff Corey. Some of the jurors and other small parts are played by the actual people. Much of the locations are the actual locations, including the house where the killing took place. The very last scene is not one you find in many movies. DVD has nice anamorphic wide-screen movie, English or French spoken language, subtitles in 7 languages, chapter selection, and for once, a trailer worth watching. R-Rated, 134 minutes. The no-frills DVD is a bit pricey, but I'm giving the movie five stars on its own.
Rating:
Summary: "FREE BOBBY BLAKE!"
Review: A very haunting, disturbing masterpiece which happens to be a personal favorite. Blake is alot like the late Perry Smith. This film is as close to actually commiting murder without really performing the act! Not for the faint of heart.
Rating:
Summary: brillant
Review: absolutely terrific depiction of novel/true crime. casting was work of art. crime is that it didn't make the 100 best. blake is so convincing.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Haunting
Review: After reading the reviews of this film.., I convinced myself that this movie couldn't possibly be as chilling as many of the reviewers have noted. Midway through In Cold Blood, I thought this movie isn't scary at all. Well, I was wrong. This movie hit me like no other. Robert Blake and Scott Wilson are brilliant as the two killers and their performances will blow you away.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic of the Crime Genre
Review: Based on Truman Capote's book, "In Cold Blood" is a rare example of a film which does justice to its original source. Based on an actual mass murder which occured in Kansas in late 50's, this stark black-and-white film directed by Richard Brooks (who also wrote the screenplay) is not for the squeamish. The two murderers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, are excellently portrayed by Scott Wilson and Robert Blake. Two down-and-out losers, they plan what they believe will be a "major score" in the robbery of a supposedly wealthy Kansas farmer. But their partnership, and the psychopathic personality of Perry Smith, creates a third entity which results in the slaughter of the entire Klutter family. The last 30 minutes of this film are truly horrific, in flashback mode, and the brilliance of Richard Brooks' direction is that the murders are merely inferred by quick camera cuts that never show the killings on screen. The killers' executions at the end of the film are almost anti-climactic. See the film, then go read Capote's book; both are excellent accounts of this sad and savage story. This is a film that cries out to be released on DVD, with possible extra features being a documentary or two on the real-life killers and their actual capture. A much under-appreciated classic of film noir.
Rating:
Summary: Sympathy for a Murderer?
Review: Based on Truman Capote's spine-tingling novel "In Cold Blood" this dvd relives the lives of the Clutter family for all to witness. Truman Capote's form of writing not only left all the viewers sympathetic for the murderers but also puts you right in the minds of Dick and Perry. The filming that was shot at the actual Clutter home in the town of Holcomb just adds another chill down your spine. With actors like Robert Blake and Scott Wilson portraying the murderers exact doubles(huge resemblance)the dvd takes you through the mind of a murderer in a way that has never been done before. This dvd is great for any collection and is highly recommended. (THUMBS UP)
Love,
Uncle Sam
Rating:
Summary: A must see Classic
Review: Blake is remarkable as Perry Smith, the shiftless and thoughtful dichotomy of murder. The less famous Scott Wilson puts in an Oscar worthy performance as the protagonist Hickock, who's interrogation scene is as amazing as it is gut-wrenching. The soundtrack is creepy and retro 60's. I read the book before seeing the movie, and for once, I was not disappointed.
Thanks,
Mark
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing To This Very Day
Review: Even after endless films about serial or mass murders, culminating in 1994 with Oliver Stone's ultra-controversial NATURAL BORN KILLERS, writer/director Richard Brooks' 1967 movie IN COLD BLOOD has lost none of its power to disturb. No FRIDAY THE 13TH-type splatter film full of blood and gore is nearly as chilling as this true-life crime story. Based on Truman Capote's 1965 book, the film relates how two ex-cons named Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, in the early morning hours of November 15, 1959, brutally murdered Herb Clutter, his wife, and two kids in their house in Holcomb, Kansas during the commission of a robbery. They were led to believe, by a fellow convict in prison, how Clutter had kept a wall safe stuffed with $10,000 in cash. But there was no such safe in that house. All the killers got away with was a radio, a pair of binoculars, and $40. IN COLD BLOOD remains a powerful and disturbing film for a lot of reasons. Robert Blake and Scott Wilson portray the two condemned men superbly and with such casual demeanor that it's hard to imagine bigger-name stars in those roles (though reportedly Columbia Pictures was encouraging Brooks to go with Steve McQueen and Paul Newman). The semidocumentary feel of this film is enhanced by cinematographer Conrad Hall's superlative black-and-white photography and Quincy Jones' jazzy but chilling music score. John Forsythe, still light years away from "Dynasty", also does a good turn as Alvin Dewey, the Kansas state investigator who headed up the team that eventually brought Smith and Hickock to a date with the gallows in April 1965. Many things make IN COLD BLOOD a chilling masterpiece. Early on in the film, Blake and Smith approach the Clutter house at midnight as the last light goes out; the scene then shifts to the following morning and the horrible (offscreen) discovery of the bodies. Only as Blake and Wilson are being transported back to Kansas from Las Vegas does Blake relate the horrific crime in flashback; even here, only enough is shown to make the audience imagine a whole lot more. The film also relates how possible psychological traumas in the two men's respective pasts might have turned them into cold-blooded killers who then took their rage out on four innocent people they never knew. Except for the fictional reporter Jenson (Paul Stewart), who is clearly based on Capote himself, Brooks sticks with the actual facts and essence of the case, right up to those final chilling moments on the gallows. For all those reasons, IN COLD BLOOD is a most frightening film to watch. It is definitely NOT for kids, however.
Rating:
Summary: Alienation, Midwestern Style
Review: Few movies are more horrific or unsettling than this one. Writer-producer-director Richard Brooks may have set out to denounce the death penalty, but what he got instead was a penetrating trip into the proverbial heart of darkness, made all the more affecting because based on fact. Watch those cold barren landsapes pass by as the death car approaches its destination, the lonely burger stand, the austere hardware store, the empty sidewalks and featureless sky, bounded only by a gray horizon ebbing out to nowhere. Early winter on the high prairie. These are the contours of alienation, midwestern style, the kind of inner and outer terrain that periodically produces a Charlie Starkweather, a John Dillinger, or a Perry Smith. This revealing early part of the movie is too often overlooked for the facile Freudianizing that comes later on. Then too, it's Ozzie and Harriet, David and Ricky, who are slaughtered. By all accounts, the Klutters were a prototypical 50's family -- well-adjusted, friendly folks, so confident of the outside world as to not even lock the front door. One can only imagine the actual horror of that routine Saturday night in a remote Kansas town, or of Nancy Klutter alone in bed, awaiting the final footsteps of the shotgun blast. There was another kind of America out there, one they could hardly imagine, but one just as real as their own well-ordered lives. And it blew in off the frozen prairie, psychopathic drifters on that endless road to nowhere. Despite the differences in style, there are passages in this film every bit as scary as Hitchcock's celebrated Psycho. Fortunately, producer Books wins out over writer Brooks. Writer Brooks is too eager to subvert the expressionist horror with political preachments, but producer Brooks had the good sense to go on location and hire actors Blake and Wilson who bring to their roles an unexpected pathos, subtle enough argument against the death penalty. Brooks' real triumph, however, was to bring on board Conrad Hall as cameraman. It's Hall's superbly gripping style -- as another reviewer ably illustrates-- that glues the elements together into a single atmospheric whole. Without that sustaining mood the film would collapse into disparate, opposing halves, allowing writer Brooks' flawed script to dominate. Anyone thinking that black and white photography is artistically passe should view this film, an enduring masterpiece of the genre. The actual events of November,1959, reached across the midwest to New York City where they caught the eye of litterateur Truman Capote, who used them to change the face of crime writing in America. In retrospect, the killings, coming at the very end of that mythic decade, amount to a symbolic shattering of a tranquil suburbia, of a complascent middle-class, and to a telling portent of the turbulent decade to come. Forty-five years later, I only hope that somewhere, somehow, the book and the movie have done some good. Something to help compensate for the brief, promising life of Nancy Klutter. For it's through her last agonizing moments, alone and facing into the night, that we all experience those final echoing footsteps that is the true heart of darkness.
Rating:
Summary: Robert Blake is a STAR
Review: Hollywood has never given Robert Blake the respect as an actor which he so rightly deserves. In Cold Blood marks Blake's breakout as a star. This film has been often imitated, but never duplicated. Blake, just out of prison, teams up with a friend. Together they imagine a scheme to get rich by robbing a wealthy family. Everything goes wrong. Told in a rambling style, with flashbacks and dreary scenery, this film is based on a true story. Perhaps my favorite plot point is Robert Blake's murder of a man in Las Vegas. Watch for it.
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