What was the title of Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 film about a racetrack robbery?

Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 film about a racetrack robbery is titled The Killing.

The film follows Johnny Clay, a professional criminal who organizes an elaborate robbery at a racetrack. Its plan depends on precise timing and several participants, but personal greed, divided loyalties, and unpredictable events gradually undermine the scheme. Sterling Hayden played Johnny Clay, with Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, and Marie Windsor among the supporting cast.

The Killing was adapted from Lionel White’s 1955 novel Clean Break. Kubrick co-wrote the screenplay with pulp novelist Jim Thompson, whose terse style helped shape the film’s hard-edged dialogue and fatalistic atmosphere. The narrative also uses a fragmented chronology, showing related events from different perspectives before bringing them together.

The film was Kubrick’s third feature and an important step toward the crime films and tightly controlled narratives that later defined his career. It is sometimes confused with Killer’s Kiss, Kubrick’s 1955 second feature, but that earlier film centers on a boxer and a nightclub dancer rather than a racetrack heist.