Number 124 on IMDb's Top 250
Ex-convict Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) tells his girl friend, Fay (Coleen Gray), he has plans for making money, and indeed he has. He rounds up a gang and brings them in on a seemingly fool-proof scheme to rob a race track of $200,000. The first thread unravels when Sherry Peatty (Marie Windsor), wife of gang-member George Peatty (Elisha Cook, Jr.), tells her boyfriend Val Cannon (Vince Edwards) about the plan, and he cuts himself in on that action also. The robbery is completed and the gang goes to the hideout where Johnny will join them later. Val sticks up the robbers, a shot is fired, and all hands are soon dispatched. Johnny, with the money in a suitcase, joins Fay at the airport. Hilarity ensues and the fat lady still hasn't sung.
Trivia: Initial test screenings were poor, citing the non-linear structure as the main problem. Stanley Kubrick was forced to go back and edit the film in a linear fashion, actually making the film even more confusing. In the end, it was released in its original form, and is often cited as being a huge influence on other non-linear films like Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994).
The non-linear style of this movie really makes it interesting, the time jumps back and forth so you can see what everybody is doing at any given time. It really adds to the heist because it brings in the point of everything having to happen so precisely to work. Good little film.
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