In America it seems you never really get that house you hope for. If you keep at your job, it’ll take you at least 23 years to pay off that 28,000 and you might as well die; If you become a contract killer…well, no contract killer survives to the end of a 1958 film. This is an influential one. In an introduction to the Powerhouse Indicator blu-ray, Martin Scorsese talks of how he wanted to include an excerpt in MEAN STREETS; how the Robert De Niro exercise bits in TAXI DRIVER were inspired by this film; how years later he hired Irving Lerner, its director, to oversee the editing of NEW YORK, NEW YORK; and how later than that, for THE DEPARTED, they looked at this film in relation to perhaps using a single instrument score like the zither in THE THIRD MAN or the guitar score by Perry Botkin in MURDER BY CONTRACT.

A film that seems effortlessly cool: the pace, the stillness and warmth of Vince Edwards’ face and the soft low tone of his voice in contrast to his deeds. MURDER BY CONTRACT is noteworthy for its narrative inventiveness with the passage of time; the elliptical way it communicates without showing; the sparseness of the images, often in close-up, often framed so characters’ faces are off-screen. There’s an existential dimension to the film as well, pre-dating THE GODFATHER; murder’s not personal, it’s just business to Claude. He doesn’t believe in the supernatural; he gets no kicks out of crime; he contains his emotions; he’s methodical, systematic, thinks and takes his time; he feels hot or cold, hungry or not, but no guilt and no remorse; he likes to take responsibility for his actions and likes his work well done. He just does the deed and adds up the figures that will buy him his home. Oh yes, he likes to be warned if the contract’s for a woman: he charges double for that.

A B film, shot in only seven days, but a marvellous one, beautifully photographed by Lucien Ballard

José Arroyo