I agree with both Martin Scorsese and Jonathan Rosenbaum in their celebration of Irving Lerner's Murder by Contract as a triumph. The film is an existentialist masterpiece that I earnestly believe fits right alongside of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment as a penetrating glimpse into the mind of a murderer who believes themselves to be either above or outside of the law. The film's protagonist is Claude, a disaffected man who one day decides to become a contract killer. After rising through the ranks of the underworld, he is assigned to kill a woman in Los Angeles. And for the first time Claude is uneasy with his orders: he hesitates killing women because he views them as less "predictable" as men. This late era film noir is dripping with effortless style and magnificently embodies the aesthetic of the "cool." The restrained camerawork, the isolated electric guitar soundtrack, Vince Edwards' insouciant performance as Claude, and the film's frequent passive passages that focus on Claude biding his time, exercising, and waiting either for his next assignment or for the right moment to strike, make Murder by Contract unlike any other American film of its era. One last thought: when Claude's mob handlers in Los Angeles mock him by calling him "Superman," are they referring to the superhero or to the Nietzschean ideal? Or maybe, just maybe, are they calling him both?
9/10
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