The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

No need to recap the plot. By now I've got Gazzara's profile stamped on my brain like it or not. That might be okay if his character had more than two expressions, a sneaky smile and a stony deadpan. I guess those are meant to indicate Cosmo's tough resolve that eventually emerges. Okay, the movie reflects director-writer Cassavetes' experiment at using close-ups rather than dialog to drive narrative. Sometimes it works impressively, Faces (1968), for example. Here, however, the many extended shots sap story line, and not even the many bare breast drop-ins compensate. Okay, maybe I'm stuck in 40's tight crime flicks, but I'd love to see what RKO and Anthony Mann would do with the same premise. For sure, the results would be less self-indulgent. No doubt, both Cassavetes and buddy Gazzara are extremely talented moviemakers. But that doesn't mean every shot hits its mark. And here, I'm afraid we've got a meandering misfire.

It's been said by many that "Chinese Bookie" is the toughest of any Cassavetes films to digest. There are many slow passages (here I'm referring to the 1976 original version), many moments of embarrassing awkwardness, as you are forced to watch extended sequences filled with players who aren't any more talented or skilled than those at your local summer stock production or junior high school play.

Yet, it's very difficult not to be compelled by the story, especially as embodied in the character of Cosmo Vitelli, who Ben Gazzara seems to channel effortlessly, as if he were a second, transparent skin.

Cosmo is a fascinating character. He owns a rather ratty strip club/cabaret joint on the Sunset Strip that fronts production values and performers of the qualities mentioned earlier, does middling business, and spends nearly every dime he makes "living the high life" or the "the image" of what someone in his profession should espouse. He swills $100 bottles of Champagne, cruises around town in his plush chauffeured Caddy, an entourage of bimbettes in tow, usually to a dive mob-run poker joint that inevitably lands him in massive debt.

He would be an easy character to scorn or mock in another film, but not as Gazzara and Cassavetes portray him. Cosmo is proud of his little world and his accomplishments, and further more, could not give a damn if anyone doesn't approve of them. "You have no style," he sneers at gangster Al Ruban early in the film after the thug condescends to him.

As weird as it sounds, you have to respect someone like that, even when he finds himself increasingly trapped by circumstances and succumbing to self-doubt. At the end of the picture he says how important it is to "feel comfortable" with oneself and while we don't believe for a second that Cosmo really feels this way, we know he *wants* to. It's a refreshingly human response in a movie that only contains more of the same.

It's not a conventional audience pleaser by any means, but if you've watched other Cassavetes pictures and like his candid stream-of-consciousness style, give the 1978 edited version of "Bookie" a watch before you see the original. Cass not only cut half an hour of footage, he did it with (what else?) incredible style and creativity, really tightening the structure of the film as a whole, considerably juicing its already engaging premise.

Quite possibly the most overlooked gem from one of the '60s and '70s most commercially under-appreciated directors.

THE KILLING OF A Chinese BOOKIE is John Cassavetes fascinating look into the world of Cosmo Vitelli, owner of the Crazy Horse West, a California strip club. Cosmo, played by Ben Gazzara, owes a fortune in gambling debts, and agrees to commit a murder to payoff the loan. It's a set-up from the get go because the mob never believed he could pull it off, and was hoping that he would be killed, and then they would inherit his club. Cassavetes creates an homage to The French New Wave by employing surreal settings and improvisational dialog to create a Dadaist framework for the tale. Many scenes begin in near blackness, and abruptly, LA sunlight streams into the murky darkness while actors lines ricochet and overlap. The entertainment at the club is not the standard "Bump and Grind", but a strange 'Theater of The Absurd' where Cosmo orchestrates the action, or "he'll throw you out on your ass". Where Martin Scorsese used high energy rock'n'roll to highlight this same gangster demimonde, Cassavetes employs a more idiosyncratic soundtrack to heighten the psychological dimensions of the piece. Ben Gazzara provides an unforgettable portrait of a man grappling with a life that is beyond his ability to control. Also, Seymour Cassel puts in a wonderful performance as a mobbed up club owner. All of Cassavetes's films are noteworthy, and THE KILLING OF A Chinese BOOKIE is one of his finest.

'The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie' is one of the most interesting and original movies I've ever seen. I would include it with movies such as 'Blow Up', 'Performance' and 'Eraserhead', which may not have much to do with each other on the surface, but are what I would call puzzlers. On first viewing you go "well, it was different... I'm not sure if I LIKED it, but it sure was original..." Then later you find yourself haunted by it. You go back and watch it again and again, and each time you discover some nuance or emotion or idea, or a certain scene or line that resonates. These movies are ones that STAY with you.

The plot of 'Bookie' is pretty straightforward. A strip club owner gets into debt with the Mob and is pressured into murdering a bookie. Other directors such as Scorsese or Frankenheimer or Friedkin or Mann could have made an tight, exciting thriller out of such a plot. But John Cassavetes goes for a completely different approach, and doesn't play by "the rules". He ignores the obvious way of proceeding, slows things down, focuses on characters and relationships and moments, and ends up with a cinematic poem.

That may sound pretentious to some, so be it, but that's what it is. The beauty of the photography combined with the improvised dialogue by some of the best character actors of American post-War movies (Gazzara, Cassel, Carey), makes this movie unique. There's nothing quite like this movie, and it's one that if you sit back and just let it do its thing, will remain absolutely unforgettable.

One of the 1970s greatest achievements.

Like other (usually US) films The Murder... is disturbing and mesmerizing. The dirty quality of images (in some moments bewilderingly amateurish, ins others incredibly sophisticated), the acting, the disjointed plot, the weirdness of some scenes (like the one in the car parking), Gazzara's sublime acting, the wonderful choice of places and times... it all gives you an impression of the States like they really are, not the sanitized image you find in so many Holy-Wood flicks (not all of them, I admit, but about 85%...). Such a movie is like The Searchers or Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, unfathomable and greater than life, but in some way disturbingly like life. And the character of Cosmo Vitelli is one of those enigmatic figures that leaves you wondering whether you have been shown the story of an idiot or the story of a saint. Unforgettable.