Baby Boy Frankie

This B& W film, set in New York uses its locations and actors with great skill. The sound editing is very effective and adds moments of tension to the atypically dark contrasty lighting. One shot of an exterior street is enormously powerful without any action beside the cityscape. The director has a great eye - not as good at acting as directing though. If you like film noir - this low budget film is worthy of your viewing.

The strongest impression left by director/star Allen Baron's 1961 Blast of Silence is that the fabulous postwar years are gone, fini, kaput. The gritty 60s have arrived, and Manhattan is grimy, garish and awash in human as well as inanimate litter -- the 60s in which transvestite hookers started knifing U.N. diplomats in Times Square. Into this nascent cesspool travels tired hitman Frankie Bono; he comes by train, through a dark and endless tunnel which seems to symbolize either the birth canal or the human condition -- or both. He's a full-time loner (like Vince Edwards in the somewhat similar Murder by Contract) out to do a job, collect and move on. But he happens upon some old acquaintances from his childhood in an orphanage and succumbs, clumsily, to some human contact. This proves his undoing. The ending takes place in a desolate shore not unlike the Staten Island locations of Sorry, Wrong Number. Blast of Silence is amateurish and "personal," in the style of the John Cassavettes films that would soon follow -- products of that edgy, verbal New York culture of jazz boites and improvisational theater. It's no masterpiece, but it's worth seeing for anyone tracking the turns the noir cycle took in its last, dying years.

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.

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.

... I got the urge recently to see it again, but I am not sure why. Subliminally, the narrator of this dark flick (Lionel Stander) played a bit role (as an Innkeeper) in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, which I also re-watched last week, but I didn't realize that until AFTER I looked it up here at IMDB. (maybe an inner voice was whispering to me?)

Anyway, opportunities to see this little gem are fading away. I finally managed to get a link to work (instead of pop-up ads for porn or junk), and the only DVD copy for sale on eBay was from a guy in Germany (pricey).

My dad was a classic film lover, and this one won at Cannes back in the day. So, I recalled the gritty NY street scenes, a nasty fat guy who tells the gunman 'You're nothing without a gun in your paw', and an assassin who has lost his way. Yes, my recollection was correct on all counts. What's amazing is that the film is still as gripping as it was 60 years ago when I was 10. If you can score a viewing, and you love film noir, this is a must for you. 8/10. Only 70 minutes- no fat.