While playing chess in Washington Square, Kubrick met producer James B. Harris, who considered Kubrick "the most intelligent, most creative person I have ever come in contact with." The two formed the Harris-Kubrick Pictures Corporation in 1955. Harris purchased the rights to Lionel White's novel "Clean Break" for $10,000 and Kubrick wrote the script, but at Kubrick's suggestion, they hired film noir novelist Jim Thompson to write the dialog for the film—which became "The Killing" (1956)—about a meticulously planned racetrack robbery gone wrong. The film starred Sterling Hayden, with whom Kubrick had been impressed in "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950).