In Cold Blood

A welcome rediscovery at this year's Regus London Film Festival, In Cold Blood is an adaptation of Truman Capote's fact-based novel about two criminals in 1950s America. The film features some stunning black and white cinematography from Conrad Hall (American Beauty) and hypnotic performances from Robert Blake and Scott Wilson in the lead roles.

After a bungled robbery, Perry and Dick (who have resolved to stay friends to the end) leave behind a house full of dead bodies and attempt to escape from the police across a desolate American landscape. As the chase ensues, events from the criminals' past are subtly interwoven into the present, offering possible explanations for their violent crime. The men's complex relationship forms the core of the film, and both the script and the lovers-on-the-lam scenario suggest some homoerotic ambiguities.

Made in 1967, Richard Brooks' film has a haunting, nostalgic tone as it depicts events from the previous decade using many of the real life locations in Kansas. Even though the film is now over thirty years old, the camerawork and narrative structure still feel impressively fresh. Brooks (who also wrote the screenplay) deftly handles the film's pace and maintains a high level of tension throughout, from the original crime to the men's journey to the prison gallows. He uses a series of striking visual rhymes to connect the present with the past and these also help to move the action on swiftly, so that the unflinchingly detailed depiction of the men's execution jars powerfully with the earlier, more fast-paced part of the film. Brooks makes intelligent and often horrifying use of sound and there is a wonderful jazzy score from Quincy Jones. The real star of the piece though is Hall, whose shots of both the landscape and the men themselves are instantly iconic.