Cronaca di un assassinio

Blast of Silence (1961)

In some ways, the filming and the cool grey timbre of this film are so singular and evocative, you really have to watch it. In this way it reminded me of a gritty, New York version of the 1958 Elevator to the Gallows (set in Paris). They both have some of the most beautiful, evocative scenes of people just walking the streets of the city, day and night. In "Blast of Silence" you get taken to several parts of New York, unedited, shot with a simple but elegant intuition for the place. This is a movie by New Yorkers about New York.

But the plot, about a lone killer on his last dubious assignment, is a strain. Beyond the convincing despondency and isolation of the leading actor (Allen Baron, from Brooklyn, who is also the director), the cast struggles to be relevant. The one other shining performance is the gun dealing and rat lover, played by Larry Tucker with a kind of relish for the unsavory dirty aspects of his part. Great stuff.

If you accept that the story isn't much, by itself, and watch it for the scenes of the city, for the impressions of ordinary New Yorkers at the time of Kennedy's election, you will be really wowed. Right from the first shot, the low budget hand held camera on a train in a tunnel, going on and on until finally finding the light of day, to the last scenes in a a light, windy, driven snow in the Meadowlands, it's a thrilling, original ride. The filming has a gritty, everyman quality that seems to come right from art school without the affectation. It really is worth it just for the scenes, and the urban scenery.

Someone resurrect this 'lost classic' hardboiled noir! Director/Writer/Lead Actor Allen Baron (whose subsequent career took him into TV-land with the likes of CHARLIE'S ANGELS) turned out this bleak film noir in 1961, and it must surely rate as one of the all-time genre downers (and that's intended as a compliment!). Similar in tone to Irving Lerner's earlier MURDER BY CONTRACT (another must-see!), this features a protracted, yet stunningly appropriate, opening tracking shot through a railway tunnel as an early morning train spits Ohio-based contract assassin Frankie Bono (Baron) out into a wintry New York to carry out a Christmas holiday hit on a second-tier racketeer but, as in MURDER BY CONTRACT, all the meticulous planning and methodical preparation becomes unravelled as fate and his malevolent (and often unseen) criminal fraternity deal Frankie a crueller hand than the one he'd planned for his unsuspecting quarry. OK, nothing new here, but the tone, something like a cross between the cruel randomness of a Cornell Woolrich story (read this guy!) mated with an existentialist and angst-ridden take on the 'We're born in pain, We die alone' school of genre filmmaking, means that you'd need to take in a couple of Abel Ferrara movies like THE DRILLER KILLER and BAD LIEUTENANT to get your jollies after watching this one. Oh yeah, and it's topped off by a pitiless world-weary hardboiled third-person narration which ratchets up the ominous atmospherics that all the doomy foreshadowing brings to this dance of death (example - when Bono tracks his would-be victim to The Village Gate, the jazzy soundtrack switches to a beatnik vocalist/conga-drummer whose set consists solely of death-themed numbers). Atmospheric lengthy takes, often featuring a behatted and raincoated (or alternately dark-suited) Bono stalking the mean streets of the Big Apple dwarfed by the concrete jungle cityscape evoke and prefigure both Marvin in POINT BLANK and Delon in Melville's LE SAMOURAI, and his ruthlessly downbeat demeanour also recalls Henry Silva in the similarly ruthless (and elusive) JOHNNY COOL (see my IMDB review for more on this one - shameless plug!). This may be (by now) an oft-told tale, but what we have here is a true low-budget one-off for fans of the lower depths, and there's even a sweaty, weighty (excuse the pun) and telling cameo from Larry Tucker (Pagliacci in Fuller's 'SHOCK CORRIDOR') for cultists to take in amongst the no-name cast. A must-see - if you get a chance to see it.

Yeah, rememberin' da time when you was a kid and saw this movie on late night TV. Even then you was wise that it was a shabby-lookin' lowdown no-budget job and the cast was not so good lookin' -- but that's OK, you liked it that way. These was the kinda people you could see all around you, every day in da neighborhood, downtown, on the street corner, in the subway. Yeah, this looked like life in the city, but wit' a special kinda danger, a certain mystery. You ain't never forgot this movie, didja? Oh, you didn't remember what it was called or who was in it, but it stuck wit' ya and bounced around yer brain like the beatin' of a conga drum in a Greenwich Village beatnik club. Didn't think it would ever catch up with ya, didja?

Ya seen it again tonight, huh? The actin' still ain't so great and the people still ain't so good-lookin'. But that's OK, 'cause it's still the coolest damn thing ya ever seen. Ahh, Hollywood is for saps. You want somethin' gritty and dark, don't ya? 'Cause that's the way you like it.

Rememberin'.

Blast of Silence is a late noir and a pretty good flick and maybe somewhat of a sleeper since it was a blind Criterion buy. It is the story of a hit man. The circumstances which comprise the plight of the average noir hero (or anti-hero) are probably many and varied. A guy might be living an ordinary life and suddenly be hurled into the mire by fate. Or another maybe a guy who has a dangerous life style but finally makes the mistake that begins the nightmare. In this case, however, the hero has apparently and seemingly been so afflicted since the womb. This is wonderfully depicted in an opening sequence that should go down as a classic, in my view. I shall not reveal it but it is immensely satisfying and an excellent way to begin the show.

This movie made me appreciate the professionalism of what it might be like to be hit man. Not that it would appeal to me, personally, but this guy knows what he's doing. We follow the planning leading up to thing itself but the movie is less about the situation and much more the man, his mental state. To that degree that he is good at what he does, to that same degree perhaps, he is not so good at feeling good and being happy. This is dramatized by a rare second-person narration, which (as a reminder) goes something like this: You open your eyes and it's a new day and the same feeling comes over you just like yesterday, that clammy feeling, and that feeling of hatred, for your old man, for yesterday, for today, for tomorrow, for Christmas, for just about everything, and you wonder will this ever end ...

This voice-over that work quites well and is mercifully not overdone or too overbearing. It works because it tells the viewer what's going through the guy's head and how he is experiencing it, an economical way time-wise of letting us know this guy.

I had never heard of any of the players, and I found that refreshing, no hearkening back to any prior roles. The lead is not a veteran actor and his performance perhaps shows as he comes off rather stiff, even a little dull. The good news is that it works for the character, who is a loner and socially inept with women as well as with prior male buddy acquaintances he comes across, all serving to accentuate his obvious isolation. Some of his lines seem awkward, but as I say, it works. That's just the way Frankie Bono is.

There is a greasy gun dealer that is played by a soft-spoken fat man, a small but juicy role. There is also a sweet girl who is sympathetic to Frankie but to only to a point, she is way too far on the right side of the tracks. I really liked her, both the character and the actress. There are no femmes fatales. Frankie is messed up enough, he doesn't need one of those to do him in.

There is a neo-realistic element. The camera takes to the street of NYC, mostly Manhattan; Rockefeller Center at Christmas time (where everyone seems happy except Frankie), Staten Island (the Ferry) and elsewhere.

I won't say much about the story except that given Frankie Bono's character, the norm for him would probably entail going the job site (if you will, whatever city) and carry out his dastardly task in the time allotted, spending most of his time in a hotel alone. But here, a chance encounter with a old friend from the orphanage leads to involvement with still others including the previously mentioned girl and this drives the story. New conflicts arise in the already troubled mind of Frankie Bono and he considers the possibility of change. Can he do it? This one probably doesn't rise to highest level of the noir genre (or maybe I'm not giving enough credit) but it's certainly a good watch, and again, the opening sequence is superb.

A hard-boiled, uncompromising study of a professional hit-man, "Baby Boy" Frankie Bono. The beginning of the film is menacing; a pitch-black screen and pounding percussion driving a cynically vicious narrative, "remembering, out of the black silence you were born in pain . . . born with hate and anger built in . . . a slap on the backside to blast out a scream!" A small light becomes visible amidst the black like a moving bulls eye on a target and all of a sudden amidst a crescendo of noise you realize you've been on a train in a tunnel and are now being "blasted" out into the world. But it's like being born into a sewer because this world is seen through the eyes of our killer. Frankie Bono is played by Allen Baron (the director himself) who's appearance and acting style are vintage Robert DeNiro. Frankie has the misfortune to run into a girl for whom he once had affection, and for the first time in his career, he's having 2nd thoughts about his profession, but a killer who doesn't kill gets killed. Frankie's on a one way street that cannot go on forever. Unforgettable film.