In Cold Blood (1967)

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Director: Richard Brooks

Writers: Richard Brooks, based on the book by Truman Capote

Stars: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe, Paul Stewart, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Jeff Corey, John Gallaudet, James Flavin



This film depicts the murder of a Kansas farm family by a couple of ex-cons (Robert Blake and Scott Wilson) and its aftermath.

 


Writer/director Richard Brooks, adapting Truman Capote's novel, adopts a stark black-and-white style that gives a sense of heightened realism. 



Blake and Wilson deliver great performances as a couple losers whose lives of reckless waste result in the ultimate tragedy for four people they had never even met.

 


Brooks and crew do an exceptional job at presenting the kind of half-baked scheming that goes on in impulsive criminal minds, leading to random and senseless crimes that defy understanding by more rational people.

 


As the film goes on, its anti-death-penalty stance becomes clear (most obviously in the juxtaposition of the film's title with its final image), but the ruthlessness of the crime and the skill with which it has been presented undercut this intention.


Spoiler alert!!! End of the movie!!


















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