In Cold Blood (1967)
89%RT Audience Score: 88%
Awards & Nominations: Nominated for 4 Oscars
4 wins & 11 nominations total
In Cold Blood is a classic docudrama with a fictional thriller’s grip — and a pair of terrific lead performances from Robert Blake and Scott Wilson
In Cold Blood is a movie that will make you question your faith in humanity. The performances by Blake and Wilson are so natural that you’ll forget they’re playing murderers. The film doesn’t judge them, but it doesn’t excuse them either. It’s a slow dissection of a crime that shocked a nation, and it will leave you feeling uneasy long after the credits roll. But hey, at least it’s not a cliché!
Production Company(ies)
Fox Searchlight Pictures, Voletta Wallace Films, Bystorm Films,
Distributor
Columbia Home Video, Columbia Pictures, Columbia TriStar Home Video
Release Type
Theatrical
Filming Location(s)
River Valley Farm – River Road, Holcomb, Kansas, USA
MPAA / Certificate
R
Year of Release
1967
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Color:Color
Black and White -
Sound mix:Dolby
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Aspect ratio:2.35 : 1
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Runtime:2h 14m
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Language(s):English, French, Spanish
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Country of origin:United States
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Dec 14, 1967 Original
Release Date (Streaming): Sep 23, 2003
Genre(s)
Drama
Keyword(s)
starring Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe, Paul Stewart, Gerald S O’Loughlin, Jeff Corey, directed by Richard Brooks, written by Richard Brooks, Truman Capote, drama, box office performance, budget, reviewed by Geoffrey Macnab, Sophie Monks Kaufman, Kate Muir, Peter Bradshaw, Kenneth Turan, Rob Aldam, Jennie Kermode, Robert Hatch, Mike Massie, Kenneth R Morefield, produced by Richard Brooks, R MPAA rating, true crime, docudrama, Kansas, Clutter family, robbery, murder, on the run, Perry Smith, Dick Hickock, Alvin Dewey, Harold Nye, Mr Hickock, Columbia Home Video, Columbia Pictures, Columbia TriStar Home Video
Worldwide gross: NA
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): NA
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): NA
US/Canada gross: NA
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend:
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): NA
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA
Scott Wilson – Dick Hickock
John Forsythe – Alvin Dewey
Paul Stewart – Jenson
Gerald S. O’Loughlin – Harold Nye
Jeff Corey – Mr. Hickock
Director(s)
Richard Brooks
Writer(s)
Richard Brooks, Truman Capote
Producer(s)
Richard Brooks
Film Festivals
Tribeca
Awards & Nominations
Nominated for 4 Oscars
4 wins & 11 nominations total
Academy Awards
All Critics (41) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (34) | Rotten (7)
It’s both a “true crime” movie and a poetic account of two young men who, by committing an act of unspeakable brutality, unleash the furies against themselves.
September 11, 2015 | Rating: 5/5
Geoffrey Macnab
Independent (UK)
TOP CRITIC
Blake and Wilson give wonderfully natural performances: eerie in their casual attitude to murder but endearing in their open natures. In Cold Blood doesn’t judge them but doesn’t excuse them.
September 11, 2015 | Rating: 4/5
Sophie Monks Kaufman
Little White Lies
TOP CRITIC
Truman Capote’s non-fiction masterwork gets the film noir treatment from director Richard Brooks, with a slow dissection of “a crime that shocked a nation.”
September 10, 2015 | Rating: 4/5
Kate Muir
Times (UK)
TOP CRITIC
Capote’s non-fiction novel brooded on the sheer pointless nightmare, and so does the film, to some extent; the killers’ casual excitement at the prospect of murderous violence is still chilling.
September 10, 2015 | Rating: 4/5
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian
TOP CRITIC
A probing, sensitive, tasteful, balanced and suspenseful documentary-drama.
April 8, 2008
Variety Staff
Variety
TOP CRITIC
Hall’s bleak vision, his gift for working with darkness and rain, rivals classic film noir of the 1940s and ’50s in its visual mastery.
March 2, 2006 | Rating: 4.5/5
Kenneth Turan
Los Angeles Times
TOP CRITIC
This odd sense of detachment marks Richard Brooks film out from the pack. That and Blakes wide-eyed and anxious performance, which really takes the viewer through a gamut of emotions.
March 31, 2022
Rob Aldam
Backseat Mafia
A film that grips right from the beginning with its noirish visuals and unmistakable sense of menace.
March 13, 2021 | Rating: 4/5
Jennie Kermode
Eye for Film
In the end, one is left, not with a work of art, not with a document but with a cliché. It is an inadequate monument, even to a pair of stupid criminals.
February 10, 2021
Robert Hatch
The Nation
There’s a pitiable desperation in their meandering spree of destruction, as if they’re perpetually lost in an escalating hell of their own making.
August 24, 2020 | Rating: 7/10
Mike Massie
Gone With The Twins
In Cold Blood is a somber, slablike, all-of-a-piece inclemency that bears little resemblance to the open, cheap-knit style of Capote’s writing.
June 19, 2019
Manny Farber
Artforum
Like another great crime story rooted in truth, Dead Man Walking, it refuses to depersonalize the victims or elide their suffering
February 14, 2019 | Rating: 3.5/5
Kenneth R. Morefield
1More Film Blog…
Plot
In meeting in Kansas, ex-cons Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are breaking several conditions of their respective paroles. The meeting, initiated by Dick, is to plan and eventually carry out a robbery based on information he had received from a fellow inmate about $10,000 cash being locked in a hidden safe in the home of the farming Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas. After the robbery, they plan on going to Mexico permanently to elude capture by the police. Each brings a necessary personality to the partnership to carry out the plan, Dick who is the brash manipulator, Perry the outwardly more sensitive but unrealistic dreamer with a violent streak under the surface. Perry literally carries all his dreams in a large box he takes with him wherever he goes. The robbery does not go according to plan in any respect, the pair who ultimately hogtie and execute all four members of the Clutter family, only coming away from the home with $43 in cash. As Perry and Dick go on the run, a murder investigation ensues, led by Topeka based Detective Alvin Dewey. If Dewey and his team are able eventually to identify the pair as the murderers and capture them, they, if they understand the two, may get their much needed confessions in dividing and conquering. Perry and Dick’s fates may also be regardless of who literally pulled the trigger.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
Fresh Kernels praises the “terrific lead performances” from Robert Blake and Scott Wilson in In Cold Blood.
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