DVD Release Date: September 23, 2003

Cast: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe, Paul Stewart

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By Sean Chavel

Once upon a time in middle America, homeowners would leave their doors unlocked all night. There was little existence for fear of the intruder, and most murders in this country were accompanied with strong motive. Truman Capote published In Cold Blood in 1966 and a year later it was made into a quasi-documentary film by Richard Brooks accounting the senseless killing of four members of the Clutter family at the ranch home just outside of Kansas.

This stark black and white journalistic drama takes an unflinching look at two killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, who end up shooting the Clutter family while they were tied up like helpless animals for a pay-off of $43 and a transportable radio. “I thought Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the time I cut his throat,” says Smith. The killers were looking for something else, they had believed that there was a $10,000 hidden in a safe. Instead, a slow build-up of fury and mania lead to the bloodshed as the killers lose control of their own cool in the situation.

Brooks fade-outs on the initial murders and moves forward with the killers spree from the law, their frivolous visit to Mexico and their capture in Las Vegas in a fluke pull-over by the cops. Up until then, we see a patient police procedural organized of baffled cops who can’t find the clues in a murder without an apparent motive. We also learn about the killers, played by Scott Wilson and Robert Blake, and why they narrowed their lives down to nihilistic desperation. As fugitives, they resort to robbing and mugging strangers and when they adhere to the law they make a puny exertion in one sequence to collect empty soda bottles with a boy and a grandfather for the $.03 redemption fee.

One of their performances is especially a revelation. Blake, in real life, was arrested in 2002 for the alleged murder of his wife. There are chilling undercurrents in Blake’s performance, amplified by the knowledge of what we know about him now. His character Smith is perpetually damaged by what he feels was a miserable, unwanted childhood. Smith, as a boy, was confounded by his mother’s descent from rodeo champion before alcoholism turns her into a prostitute. The father is an abusive nut who turned a shotgun on the boy, pulling the trigger with an empty barrel, before kicking him out to be permanently on his own. In the key moment of Herbert Clutter’s murder, the film cuts between images of Smith shooting his victim and of images of his father indicating a suppressed revenge fantasy to shoot back at his father. Blake’s unhappy childhood has similar connotations of Smith’s character.

Not all the elements of the film have aged well. The music by Quincy Jones is pandering to the worse sense of the word and it imbues a liberal attack on the arbitration of capital punishment in the final scenes that are arguably heavy-handed if intriguing. So much more of the film has survived in its impact because of the strong points it makes in its crime expose. In Cold Blood reveals how a simple crime escalates into a senseless murder and demonstrates how partners can push each other and influence each to commit the absolute worst. The film suggests that Hickock and Smith could never have gone so far if it weren’t for the combination of their personalities. Conrad Hall’s evocative cinematography is essential to the film’s superb realization, especially in the classic final scenes of when Smith, in the final minutes in his cell block before departing forever, explains the pains and wounds of his childhood while the light shining through the rainy window suggests tears running down his face – tears of remorse and regret that he cannot manage to cry on his own.

Capote recorded many graphic details while researching his original book, but the studio distributor hasn’t invested much on their part of the deal. Disappointingly, the DVD is absent of extras except for a couple of theatrical trailers including In Cold Blood, In a Lonely Place and Identity. Although it is still worth a rental, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment has neglected some prime opportunities in order to make this a good seller. It would have been interesting for instance if they had selected critics reviews from the archives to reflect on how America viewed violence and capital punishment in 1967 as compared to today. Instead, there are seven select subtitles to choose from including Thai and Portuguese. My suggestion: replay chapter fifteen of the film repeatedly and listen to and absorb the interesting dialogue between police investigator John Forsythe and a news journalist about the origins of psychotics and with how the news media handles murder stories in this country. The scene sustains some enduring truths.

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