Yes, The Killing is an absolutely wonderful film. I love Fried's pulse-pounding opening main title. A true film noir classic.
Although Sterling Hayden showed limited emotions as an actor, he seem right for these types of films. Another classic is the John Huston directed "The Asphalt Jungle", again with Sterling Hayden. The score by Miklos Rozsa, though sparse, is emotion-packed. The closing portions of the film, where Hayden's character, critically wounded and basically a walking dead man, is attempting to get back to his horse farm he lost during the depression. The one place that will apparently give him some peace and solace in his dying moments.
Rozsa's music picks up where Hayden's lack of strong emotional acting can't. The music carries the scene, and the film's ending, where Hayden makes it to the farm pasture where horses are grazing only to fall down and die, is an emotion-packed tour de force. Rozsa's closing music as the horses look on at Hayden's body is powerful. No one could score film noir like Rozsa.
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