After a botched robbery results in the brutal murder of a rural family, two drifters elude police, in the end coming to terms with their own mortality and the repercussions of their vile atrocity.
Two young men are ineffectual individually, but when together become violent criminals. They break into a wealthy farmer's home only to find that there is nearly no money at the home and murder the entire family to avoid identification. The first part of the film details the search for them, the second, their trial and execution. Taken from the actual events chronicled by Truman Capote in his book.
Written by John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
In two scenes Robert Blake's character makes a reference to
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Blake played the paperboy who sold the winning lottery ticket to Humphrey Bogart in that classic movie. However, despite the fact that many people believe it was written into the script because of Blake it wasn't. According to Truman Capote it was Perry Smith's favorite movie.
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Goofs
Revealing mistakes:
At the beginning of the movie, after Dick has picked Perry up from the Kansas City bus depot and both are crossing the river into Kansas, the process is running in reverse, giving the impression the car is suddenly moving in reverse despite the two immediate shots bookending this one clearly shows the car moving forward.
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