November 1959. Two low-lives – Perry Smith (Robert Blake) and “Dick” Hickock (Scott Wilson) – concoct a plan to invade the home of the Clutter family, as they believe that Mr Clutter keeps a safe full of cash there. It’s a stupid plan, but it’s typical for Smith, who has previously spoken of scuba-diving for Spanish treasure.

Inevitably, the house invasion quickly goes wrong and the family are murdered. It does not take long for the police to find them and wring two confessions.

It's interesting to watch Richard Brooks' contemporaneously version of Truman Capote's crime chronicle, following not one, but two films exploring how Capote came to write the source book: Infamous (2006) and Capote (2005). Brooks' film does not feature the author but it does make space for a composite reporter played by Paul Stewart.

Unlike these more recent treatments, Brooks’ film retains Capote’s notion that this small-town Kansas crime was – if due attention were paid to such contextual factors as class friction and mental illness – as epic as any Greek saga. Conrad Hall’s superb monochrome cinematography, Quincy Jones’ powerful score and the use of authentic locations add to the sense that we’re watching an important document.

But it’s the film’s hard-hitting denouement that stays with the viewer. “I think maybe I’d like to apologise. But who to?” asks Robert Blake’s poignantly pathetic Smith limps toward the gallows. “Is God in this place too?” he asks the presiding preacher, who does not respond.

Blake’s wide-boy appearance harks back to James Dean, but he’s more wretched and nihilistic and damaged than any of Dean’s characters: just post-war psychosis and no luck.