A startling experience right from the outset. Without having read Truman Capote's book it does seem like Brooks has done a brilliant job of opening it out and getting us into the head of killer Robert Blake (Electra Glide in Blue), even finding just a little touch of sympathy. The other man involved, Scott Wilson (In the Heat of the Night) has no excuse. The deferral of the crime itself to towards the end of the film makes it I think more powerful.
This is all achieved with some really interesting editing, in which Peter Zinner mixes wonderful match cuts, sometimes just slamming them, or artfully fading us into the next moment / location. And Conrad Hall's camerawork is just stunning - Roger Deakins no less thinks it's one of the best examples of black and white cinematography ever.
The lighting in the murder sequence does look like it's coming off hand held flashlights, which for the time is quite remarkable.
Quincy Jones' music also most interesting.
That ending - the hanging, into slow motion, the heartbeat fading, to title - 'In Cold Blood' - to black - is a real doozy and must have hit the audience just as hard as the ending of another 1967 film, Bonnie and Clyde. And to me, there's an anti capital punishment edge, so the film remarkably predates the similarly-themed A Short Film About Killing (1988 Krzystof Kieslowski).
Also in Cast: John Forsythe, reporter Paul Stewart (Citizen Kane, Kiss Me Deadly, The Bad and the Beautiful), who acts as a Capote-like observer.
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