Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more

 

Murder by Contract (1958)

Director: Irving Lerner

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A terrific, no-nonsense B movie which comes on like something by Jean-Pierre Melville: cool, calm and dispassionate. Edwards is Claude, a technician who goes into crime as a career move, to 'improve himself'. A series of hits later, he looks every inch the professional assassin, confident enough to take his time, competent enough not to fear detection. It isn't entirely his fault if something goes wrong on the big contract... Lerner and his superb cameraman, Lucien Ballard, make the most of a shoestring budget to produce a taut, spare, amoral film; it doesn't look restricted, it looks restrained. Well ahead of its time, too.

Author: TCh

Time Out Film Guide


What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields




Most popular on this site


Features

Do overs!

Do overs!

After Race to Witch Mountain, what should Disney remake next?

Gray's anatomy

James Gray wants to push buttons—again.

The next big thing?

Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.

Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema

So you think you can dance, comrade?

Puppet master

Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.

Socratic method

Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.

Wander woman

Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.

Oscars

Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.