Murder by Contract (1958)

My Queue (468 movies items)

"https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W6J9fvLAcB4 01:59 1958 "

“While watching Columbia Noir on the Criterion Channel, I found that Murder by Contract snuck up on me with the biggest punch. Lean, mean, and enthrall”

Film Diary 2021 (210 movies items)

"18.7 "

Meus DVDs (3001 movies items)

"Murder by Contract (Irving Lerner, 1958) "

Murder by Contract

“While watching Columbia Noir on the Criterion Channel, I found that Murder by Contract snuck up on me with the biggest punch. Lean, mean, and enthralling, Murder by Contract is a nasty little B-movie that attacks you with more artistry and firepower than some of its more stuffy, canonized siblings. There’s an air of cool here that wouldn’t be replicated again until Le Samourai, Jean-Pierre Melville’s neo-noir.   There’s also a clear line between this and something like Taxi Driver as the main character isolates himself, commits to a vigorous training regime, and develops an ideology of the world needing purifying in some manner. The difference is that Taxi Driver’s character operated from a perverse viewpoint that placed him as the hero of his narrative. The heir apparent to t” read more

Slant’s 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time (100 movies items)

"Limpid, compact low-budget ingenuity. Emotionless hepcat Claude (Vince Edwards) insinuates himself as a contract killer for an unseen Mr. Big and, after proving his efficiency with a couple of clean rubouts, gets handed a major assignment—offing a mob witness holed up behind a wall of feds. Closer to Paul Schrader’s narcissistic loners than to Jean-Pierre Melville’s spiritual sangfroid, Edward’s chilly sheen is stuffed with pocketbook fatalism, but Murder by Contract’s cunning oddness "