Tough-as-nails ex-con Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) has been released from Alcatraz and wastes no time plotting a “fullproof” robbery. His target is the Bay Meadows Racetrack in San Mateo. His meticulous plan calls for the odds-on horse in the Landsdowne Stakes to be shot on the track, allowing Johnny to rob $2 million in cash and escape in the confusion.

As the narrative jumps backward and forward in time, we watch as he leaves no detail to chance. Johnny contracts the best men for the job, revealing as little as possible to them, in the event any are captured. The characters he assembles include sniper Nikki Arcane (Timothy Carey), a chess playing wrestler (Kola Kwariani), and mousy cashier George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.).

Peatty, however, is at the beck and call of his floozy wife Sherry, played by Marie Windsor. She works her husband over for information on the score. Johnny catches her eavesdropping in on their plans and prepares to kill her, but she convinces the gang that she was just suspicious her husband was cheating on her. Instead, she plots to rob the take with her boyfriend.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, who adapted the screenplay with Jim Thompson, The Killing was Kubrick’s first film with a professional cast and crew. Having formed a partnership with producer James B. Harris, he optioned Lionel White’s novel Clean Break. Sterling Hayden agreed to star and United Artists put up $200,000 of the film’s $320,000 budget, a low sum even by the standards of the day.

United Artists released the film on the bottom half of the bill with Richard Fleischer’s Bandido. Predictably, it was not a hit at the box office, but the finished product impressed MGM enough to offer Harris-Kubrick a development deal, and the 28-year-old director’s career was made.

It’s easy to see why. The Killing is an efficient, neat, frequently cool cops ‘n robbers B-picture, and makes no apologies for it. It’s probably launched a thousand college term papers about its influence on Quentin Tarantino, whose movies also view robberies or rip-offs from multiple perspectives, and are as enamored with non-linear structure as this one.

Compared to Reservoir Dogs or Jackie Brown, The Killing is less enthusiastic about slicing up a timeline and really having fun with it. That could be because the studio demanded that Kubrick insert voice-over narration to clear up the story. That has the effect of taking a teenager’s hot rod and putting a driver’s ed instructor in the front seat.

But it’s also a less confident picture. Marie Windsor, who nails the role of a scheming cougar, is never turned loose to be anything more than a supporting irritant in the film. If remade today, her character would be a major force in the suspense. Jim Thompson – given only a “dialogue by” credit – does punch the characters and language above standard issue, B-movie fare.

The Killing is solid all the way, and the last half hour – when the heist goes off without a hitch, but fate intervenes in the getaway of each man – is wicked and imaginative. Lucien Ballard provided the film’s outstanding black and white look, apparently a point of contention with Kubrick, when he found out union rules dictated that he wouldn’t be allowed to operate his own camera.