Capote's "nonfiction novel" was full of deep background, especially about Perry Smith, the childhood abuse he suffered at the hands of his father and the nuns running an orphanage his father placed him in.
I hadn't seen the movie in years and I had forgotten there was so much exposition. In the first few minutes we learn that Smith hates nuns (for pretty good reason), fantasizes about being a singer, had his legs injured in a motorcycle accident and has a childish belief in his ability to find buried treasure with the help of treasure maps he got somewhere. At one point, he mentions The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a movie Blake appeared in as a child.
All Dick Hickock had was a head injury from a car accident which changed his face and his personality and I guess was partly responsible for the extent of his criminality.
One of the things that stood out to me was Dick Hickock signing a letter to Perry Smith "Love, Dick", and calling him "honey" which still seems odd to me.
There were two more recent movies, Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006), which covered much the same ground, focusing on Capote researching and writing the book and his relationship with the murderers.
I read the book when I was in high school. At the time, I had more sympathy, at least for Perry Smith. The book gave me an antipathy for nuns. My mother, I later learned, knew a guy in high school in the 1940's, who was prone to fits of rage. He had been abused by nuns in an orphanage. Among other things, the Brides of Christ would hold his head underwater.
Stars Robert Blake, Scott Wilson and John Forsythe. With Will Geer (TV's Grandpa Walton) as the prosecutor. Teddy Eccles as the child hitchhiker and '30's B western star Raymond Hatton as his grandfather.
Directed by Richard Brooks.
Filmed in the Clutter family home just eight years after they were murdered there.
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