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In Cold Blood
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In Cold Blood (1967) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
8.1/10   9,222 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 4% in popularity this week. See rank & trends on IMDbPro.
Director:
Richard Brooks
Writers:
Truman Capote (novel)
Richard Brooks (screenplay)
Contact:
View company contact information for In Cold Blood on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
14 December 1967 (USA) more
Genre:
Crime | Drama | History more
Plot:
After the brutal murder of a rural family, due to a botched robbery, two drifters elude police, in the end coming to terms with their own mortality and the repercussions of their vile atrocity. full summary | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
more
Awards:
Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 3 wins & 4 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(7 articles)
Sam Mendes--The Hollywood Interview
 (From The Hollywood Interview. 14 June 2009, 9:44 PM, PDT)

Getting in the Act: 11 Novelists Who Found Their Way Into the Script
 (From IFC. 26 February 2009, 3:30 AM, PST)

User Comments:
Meticulous Celluloid Version Of Truman Capote's Book more

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (USA) (complete title)
more
Runtime:
134 min | Poland:129 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (release prints) | 3 Channel Stereo (original mix)
Certification:
Iceland:16 | France:-16 | West Germany:16 (re-rating) | West Germany:18 (original rating) | UK:15 | UK:X (original rating) | South Korea:15 (2006) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Singapore:PG | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (Suggested for Mature Audiences) (original rating) | USA:R (re-rating) (1970)
Filming Locations:
Colorado, USA more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
To get the authenticity he wanted, Richard Brooks filmed in all the actual locations including the Clutter house (where the murders took place) and the actual courtroom (6 of the actual jurors were used). Even Nancy Clutter's horse Babe was used in a few scenes. The actual gallows at the Kansas State Penitentiary were used for filming the executions, however in a 2002 interview, Charles McAtee (who was State Corrections Director for Kansas in the 1960's), clarified the hangman in the film was an actor, not the real deal. more
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: At the beginning of the movie, after Dick has picked Perry up from the Kansas City bus depot and both are crossing the river into Kansas, the process is running in reverse, giving the impression the car is suddenly moving in reverse despite the two immediate shots bookending this one clearly shows the car moving forward. more
Quotes:
[first lines]
Little girl on bus: 'Scuse me.
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in Capote (2005) more

FAQ

If the murderers left no witnesses, how did the police eventually find them?
How does the movie end?
If all four of the Clutters were killed, what did the police mean when they said Dick and Perry had left a "living witness."
more
18 out of 27 people found the following comment useful:-
Meticulous Celluloid Version Of Truman Capote's Book, 4 January 1999
Author: Michael Coy (michael.coy@virgin.net) from London, England

Many films are derived from novels and, in the normal way, it is unhelpful to compare the movie with the book, for the obvious reason that they are distinct art-forms, constrained by different technical limitations. However, this one really does have to be understood in the context of the book which engendered it.

Capote's book is a factual account of a multiple murder in a small Kansas town. Two young drifters plan a robbery which misfires and ends in violence. The book traces the course of the patient investigation which eventually brings the killers to justice. Because the book is a species of journalism, uncompromisingly anchored in fact, the film cannot help but follow suit, with the added burden that it must faithfully represent on the screen real persons, places and events.

The mean lives of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith are documented in stark monochrome. Panavision is used to powerful effect to show the wide, flat spaces of Kansas. Quincy Jones's atmospheric jazz score adds salt to the bleak images. The austerity of blue collar life in the Mid West of the 1950's is splendidly evoked as our two delinquents move through a rolling montage of Travelodges and diners, launderettes and interstates.

This is a film of straight lines. The flat, relentless landscape of Kansas generates horizons that are ruler-straight. Roads stretch into the distance without the hint of a curve. Slat blinds cast harsh bars of light across room interiors. The penitentiary scene is a symphony of geometric lines. Hickock and Smith have had their characters forged by incarceration, and we see that their 'outside' lives are, in a real sense, another form of imprisonment. The lines which enclose them denote the hopelessness of their existence.

The starkness is reinforced by neat, economical editing. The throwing of a light switch in the Hickock farmhouse carries us to the Clutter home, where a light is being turned on, and the words 'any crowded street' whisk us into just such a street. A cigarette butt is discarded, and its ugly cylinder becomes an electromagnet searching for the murder weapon. The Clutters' cleaner realises that a radio has been stolen, and we see the radio playing at Dick's bedside.

Once under arrest, Dick makes a powerful speech about tattoos. The detectives are trying to provoke him by sneering at his 'body art' and he points out that we all carry tattoos of some kind. Our dress, speech and attitudes mark us indelibly and fix us in our time and place.

Herb Clutter and his family lead a spartan home life. The farmhouse is spare and unadorned, but its order and solidity make a sharp contrast with the chaos and squalor of the rented rooms where Dick and Perry hole up. Dick 'hangs paper' (passes dud cheques) in respectable Kansas stores, amassing clothes and electrical goods on a spree which exploits the trust between vendor and consumer and uses it as a weapon - Dick and Perry's revenge upon 'decent' America.

Once the arrests have been made and a trial scheduled, the film switches to a voice-over narration. No doubt this was done in order to shorten the custody passage (this is extensive in the book, but does not lend itself readily to film treatment), but it jars. Up to this point, Hickock and Smith have told their story through action. Narration is second-best.

However, the film is a highly-reliable rendition of the book, and contains some impressive touches. Mail bags come somersaulting from the hurtling express-train like so much tumbleweed. The rapid crossfire of the detectives' press conference conveys a lot of important information to the viewer in an economical way. A detective talks us through a psychological profile of the as yet unknown killers, and it is very persuasive. While our two heroes are lying low in Mexico, a beautiful mariachi song accompanies a bedroom scene, the music evoking a sense of loss and regret, and leading naturally to Perry's flashback memories of his mother's degradation.

To ask if the film is as good as the book is meaningless, but it is certainly a highly-commendable reworking of the book in visual terms. The interplay between the two delinquents is first-class, the easy charm of Dick giving way at critical moments to naked fear of the inscrutable dreamer Perry.

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