Mjeteconer Just perfect...

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

g-bodyl In Cold Blood is a slow-burn crime drama that some people will adore, and others maybe not so much. I was stuck in the middle, mainly because the pace is excruciating slow. But other than the slow pace, I did find many things to like about the film. I liked the tone of the film and the eerie nature it gives off. Being filmed in black-and-white gives authenticity to the film, which after all is based off the real crime. The location of the movie ties into that eeriness because the film was shot on the site of the actual murder, so we get to see how everything actually happened, or close to it at least. I loved the quiet, semi-jazzy score from Quincy Jones. Also I felt maybe the final half-hour of the film was the best part of the movie.Richard Brook's film is about two men named Perry and Dick who are about to commit a robbery on a Kansas farm based off suspect information. When they realize they were not about to make the big score they had anticipated, they make sure not to keep their victims alive. Now the two men escape and flee to Mexico. But with law enforcement after them, their freedom may be running out.The film is full of nice performances. At the time of release in 1967 and even by today's standard, there are really no big stars. But I felt the cast did a good job. Robert Blake does a solid job as Perry, the man with a conscience and a violent edge. Scott Wilson, more famous for playing Herschel in the Walking Dead television series, does an excellent job as the carefree Dick.Overall, In Cold Blood is a solid crime drama. I felt it could have been much better given its slow, meandering pace, but the film is full of solid performances and it has a killer ending. I also felt intrigued as I learned about the actual crime, based off the research of Truman Capote. It was a very grisly crime, and I'm glad the movie did not skip the details of the crime. I actually thought, based off the first half of the film, that it would not show the crime. If that happened, I would have been thoroughly disappointed. I really like movies based off true stories, which is why I checked this film out. Not an entirely great film, but certainly chilling and enjoyable.My Grade: B-

gavin6942 After a botched robbery results in the brutal murder of a rural family, two drifters elude police, in the end coming to terms with their own mortality and the repercussions of their vile atrocity.Let us single out Scott Wilson. This great actor seems to have gone most of his life without recognition, being best known now for "The Walking Dead" rather than anything else he has done. Robert Blake got huge, but despite this movie and appearing on the cover of Life magazine, Wilson seems to have stayed obscure. That is a travesty.I love that the film is in black and white. By the late 1960s, this was (I believe) less common than it had been only a few years before. But it makes it edgier, and also timeless. Color has a year attached, as color technology changes. But black and white can be any time, while still maintaining a very 1950s feel.

calvinnme ... at least for me, because by the end of the movie, I really, really wanted Dick and Perry to die. It wasn't a feeling of revenge. I didn't care if they suffered, in fact it is too bad lethal injection wasn't around before it was, because I'm sure a botched hanging could be an awful way to go. I just had a feeling that the earth was a safer place without these two guys in it. The movie did a great job of humanizing two cold blooded killers in a way that few films had done before. It showed their backgrounds, it showed that Dick was the leader and definitely the more dangerous of the two. He didn't really care that he killed four total strangers, and he was even somewhat apathetic about his own death. Perry probably would have had none of this killing business and just gone on to re-offend and be re-incarcerated for less violent offenses the rest of his life, AS LONG AS he didn't meet up with a stronger more forceful personality such as Dick Hickock, who called Perry on his fantastic tales of untrue crime. Before DNA and the many advances in forensics since 1959, Alvin Dewey has a huge task on his hands. Who would kill four likable people like the Clutters with seemingly no motive? Today the answer is - almost anybody. In 1959 this killing made national news because of its random senseless nature and its rural locale where crime was very low. John Forsythe was mainly an actor on television his entire career, but he was outstanding as the lead investigator in this crime. He keeps the police procedural part of this film quite interesting with his methodical sensible approach.The last part of the film shows Dick and Perry on death row for five years. If you didn't see the first part of this film you'd think these guys were artists, poets, philosophers. That's just because they are being told when to get up, when to go to bed, when to eat, etc. Even the most hardened of criminals will seem OK if you take all of their decisions away from them, and that's how parole boards get fooled, which is something society has learned the hard way over the last 50 years. Or have we? I watch this film and I can't help but think about the Carr brothers. Next to them Dick and Perry look like Rotarians. There are so many similarities. Both killed in Kansas, both picked houses occupied with complete strangers where they thought there was lots of cash, both killed the household dog - the Carrs as a parting shot after executing four people after hours of ritualistic sexual torture and robbery - Dick and Perry killed the Clutter's German Shepherd because they weren't going to be able to get near the Clutters without doing so. Yet the Carr brothers remain alive 15 years after the crime with their death sentence being overturned by the gutless Kansas Supreme Court. Google "Wichita Massacre" to see what I'm talking about.Finally this film teaches how not to react to a home invasion, a term that would not exist for another 35 years after the Clutters were killed. If somebody breaks into your house BECAUSE you are there, you can assume they are after much more than your stuff. Your first duty is ESCAPE because then the criminals realize the clock is ticking, especially in the age of cell phones and 911. Resist with lethal force if you can, escape when you can. If the Clutters had all scattered in four different directions rather than allowing themselves to be tied up to protect the other family members it is likely that at least Perry would have panicked and that would have been the end of it.Most chilling scene to me - Nancy Clutter winding her alarm clock before she goes to bed as a train whistles - the same whistle is heard by Dick and Perry as they slowly drive up to the Clutter home. Her killers and her own death were that close and she didn't have a clue. Highly recommended.

John T. Ryan HAVING BEEN MADE so long, long ago, IN COLD BLOOD (1967) lacks the extremely graphic violence that became a hallmark of the crime drama in the 1970s. In the period before the likes of BONNIE & CLYDE, THE GODFATHER and the actioners of guys like Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson, imagination and good acting were still being applied in liberal amounts.SOME HAVE COMPLAINED about this film (and all others) not having been filmed in color. Those who hold this opinion generally equate Technicolor with quality film making. To those folks, Black & White is strictly old hat; being a relic of the old days.AS FAR AS this particular production's use of the Black & White, it was the correct choice. For a story that deals with such unbelievable occurrences and characters of such incredible, inhuman behavior needs to be done up in a particularly appropriate darkness. In every sense of the word, the film is dark, truly an example of "Noir"; even though it is based on a real incident.ALTHOUGH THE HORRORS of the perpetration of the mass murder of a rural family is the central element which drives the narrative, special attention to revealing the psychotic personalities possessed by the two killers. THe story is crafted in such a manner as to build a solid background (foundation) to the incidents that transformed what would have been a robbery for monetary gain in to an atrocity of totally insane commission and lacking any motive, other than inflicting pain and sorrow on others for no reason.THE CAST CONSISTING of Robert Blake & Scott Wilson as the killers, along with Paul Stewart, John Forsythe, Charles McGraw, Ruth Storey, Brenda Curin, Jeff Corey and many others, did a fine job in presenting an essentially downer of a film. There is no other way to spin such a tale.AT ITS CONCLUSION the story is a sort of morality play. Through Paul Stewart's character, questions asked about the whole case, from beginning to end. The questions are said from one character to another, yet they are meant for all of us. How do we prevent such unspeakable atrocities? How do we deal with the dispensing of "Justice?" WE DO RECALL SEEING author of the book IN COLD BLOOD, Truman Capote as a guest on The Johnny Carson TONIGHT Show. This was while the film was in full release nationwide. When asked what conclusions that he had drawn from all of his research of the incident, his reply was blunt and straight forward. Mr. Capote said that it would be far better for all of the nation if an occasional innocent were to be executed, rather than having so many homicidal maniacs roaming about with impunity.WELL SURPRISING, BUT, Way to go "Tru!"