Rent Murder by Contract (1958)
3.7 of 5 from 61 ratings
1h 21min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Claude (Vince Edwards) is a young man with a regular job, no history of trouble with the law and no chance of making any real money. He also has the brains and emotional detachment to make the big bucks as a hit man, and that becomes his new job title. A string of successful hits gets him sent to Los Angeles for his latest job. There he is accompanied by two goons: one who is perpetually nervous and the other who quickly worships the young man as a hero. The cold, ruthless hit man finally becomes unglued when he finds out that his latest target is a woman. She's a witness, set to testify against his boss, and guarded day and night by the police. It's her femininity that worries Claude: women are unpredictable, they don't do what you expect. Claude eventually proves that he is the unpredictable one and his own worst enemy. - Actors:
- Vince Edwards, Phillip Pine, Herschel Bernardi, Caprice Toriel, Michael Granger, Kathie Browne, Joseph Mell, Frances Osborne, Steven Ritch, Janet Brandt, Davis Roberts, Don Garrett, Gloria Victor, Cisco Houston, William H. O'Brien
- Directors:
- Irving Lerner
- Producers:
- Leon Chooluck
- Writers:
- Ben Simcoe, Ben Maddow
- Studio:
- L'Atellier 13
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Thrillers
- Collections:
- Introducing the Thesping Olympians, A Brief History of Film...
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 15/02/2021
- Run Time:
- 81 minutes
- Languages:
- English LPCM Mono
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.85:1
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Audio commentary with Farran Smith Nehme on 'Murder by Contract'
- Introduction to 'Murder by Contract' by Martin Scorsese
- The Guardian Interview with Ernest Borgnine (2001): archival audio recording
- Ernest Borgnine in Conversation (2009): archival video recording
- The End of the Affair: archival interview with Peter Ford, son of Glenn Ford
- Swedes in America (1943): Irving Lerner's Oscar-nominated short film, presented by Ingrid Bergman
- Diary of a Sergeant (1945): Joseph M. Newman's documentary portrait of Harold Russell
- The Steps of Age (1950): dramatised documentary, written and directed by Ben | Maddow Caribbean (1951): documentary account of life and culture in the West Indies, British Guiana, and British Honduras
- The Senate Crime Investigations (1951): extracts from the US senate committee's hearings into organised crime that would influence many noirs
- Original theatrical trailers
- Image galleries: promotional and publicity materials
- Six short films starring the Three Stooges, lampooning the tropes and themes of the features included in this set
- World and UK premieres on Blu-ray
