calvinnme First off, the atmosphere is just not there. The 1967 film had black and white photography and a truly inspired score that really put you in the mood, and in the time and place. As usual in films that try to take you back to more innocent times - in this case rural 1959 Kansas - they get the art direction and costumes down and just get the personalities of the people all wrong. In reality, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith were just inches from turning on each other like wolves many times after the crime. Here they tussle a little, but the real dark differences between them are just not shown. Hickock was in actuality the stronger and the more sociopathic of the two, here he is shown as just a carefree womanizer with a criminal bent for theft. Likewise, the actual deep remorse that Perry Smith felt over the murders is not shown, nor is the fact that he was the weaker of the pair, and a dreamer. In fact, Perry is shown as the stronger of the two.Not only are the criminals shown as not that menacing, the townspeople are shown as more modern in their speech patterns than was actually true. In a town where it really was true that EVERYBODY went to church every Sunday, where it really was true that a romance between a Catholic and a Methodist was doomed to failure, the female owner of the local diner is not going to yell across the room to a man who is a stranger to her "You bet your butt I do!" in response to how good a cup of coffee she makes.Of course at the end, the details of the crime are shown - at least from Perry Smith's viewpoint - because today people are used to seeing that kind of thing in the news and on broadcast TV - a family killed by complete strangers. In the 1967 film the details of the grisly murders would have been out of the question since the production code was technically in force for another couple of years.If you get a chance to see the 1967 version, it's a toss-up as to whether or not this one is worth your time. It is not bad, it is just not up to the standards of the original theatrical film.

soneill Not a bad remake of Richard Brooks' gritty black and white classic, albeit somehow trivialized by being in color. but whichever nincompoop cast this film should be sentenced to a trip to The Corner, for the offense of casting Kevin Tighe as Mr. Clutter. Blond, shifty-eyed and simply oozing perverted menace, he is far more terrifying than Dick or Perry at their most psychopathic. If the real Mr. Clutter had looked like that, Dick and Perry would have taken one look at him and run out of the house screaming. Now that I think of it, it would have better for all the Clutters if he had. Where was Lynn Stalmaster when we needed him?

bux Why do they insist on making re-makes of great movies like "High Noon" "From Here to Eternity" and this one?Why do they think that color is more engrossing to a viewer than stark black and white?Why did Robert's insist on wearing that dopey, broad-billed, baseball cap?...it made him look like Jim Varney.Why would anyone spend four hours suffering through this?Watch the original. Then YOU won't have to ask yourself WHY.

secretx42 I have copies of both these Movies the classic where Robert blake is a mighty fine actor where most of the 1967 movie Blake is more shown standing by a window in jail telling his childhood life where it makes since why he killed the Clutter Family doesn't show much in the classic of what really went on an doesn't tell us which one really done the killing but it's a great eye catcher really if you watch the 1996 movie In cold Blood the classic makes a lot more sence .