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In Cold Blood

Filmed in black and white, director Richard Brook’s 1967 interpretation of Truman Capote’s classic book is also a classic. Based on the famous 1959 Clutter murder case in Holcomb Kansas, the movie is both heartbreaking and infuriating. The ordinariness of the victims makes the crime seem even more horrendous. Mr. Clutter is a well to do farmer who never uses cash to conduct business. Everyone but the murderers know this. Mrs. Clutter is a cranky semi-invalid tended tenderly by her husband and children. Kent is a boy on the verge of manhood. Nancy has a boyfriend and a future. They are oblivious to the approaching danger and so very innocent. If this could happen to the Clutters, are any of us safe?

Powerful performances by Scott Wilson as Dick Hickock and Robert Blake as Perry Smith allow Brooks to explore the joint psychopathy that led to murder. Dick is a charming ex-con who meets an employee of Herb Clutter while in prison, presumes the farmer keeps a significant amount of cash in his home and cooks up a scheme to rob him. Addicted to aspirin and damaged by a terrible childhood, Perry is barely hanging on to his sanity when Dick invites him to participate in the crime. Brooks frames the metaphoric question early on -- did the coming together of these two fractured personalities create a monster that would normally have lain dormant? Would either of these men have committed this crime without the other?

This film showcases Robert Blake’s brooding talent and Quincy Jones’ jazzy background composition. However, this is a movie where the story is the story, is the story. The documentary style creates a theatrical experience that is unremittingly grim -- even so, it’s the progenitor of the true crime genre and worth a watch on that level alone. It’s even spookier to watch Blake and wonder -- did he or didn’t he in his own life?

The DVD is sparse in terms of extras. An extra documentary or two would have been nice, given the social commentary of the film and the public’s fading memory of the Clutter murder.

Written by: Joyce Faulkner

Reviewers Rating: 9.5
Reader's Rating: 9.67
Reader's Votes: 3

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