Obscure, Gritty 1961 Crime Flick Gets the Criterion Treatment
a cult film connoisseur, forty something, a music lover, a man, a writer
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JUN
13
2008
Blast of Silence tells the story of Frankie Bono, a hired killer who arrives at New York's Penn Station on a train from Cleveland, to fulfill a contract hit on a mid-level mobster. He is accompanied by an omniscient narrator, an uncredited Lionel Stander, a great character actor who had been blacklisted during the Red Scare. The narration was written under pseudonym by Waldo Salt, another artist who found himself on the blacklist.
The film opens in darkness, with Stander's gravelly voice telling Frankie's story from the beginning:
""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. And then you knew you were alive."
Frankie is played by writer-director Baron, apparently for budgetary reasons, and he does a pretty good job of portraying this unlikeable but somehow endearing thug, at times resembling the young Robert DeNiro. As for his economical direction, he gets some good performances out of the cast, while his shot compositions are excellent. At the time, he was hyped as an another Orson Welles, although most of his career was spent directing for televison on such series as Surfside Six, Charlie's Angels, and The Dukes of Hazzard.
There are also fine performances by rotund character actor Larry Tucker (Shock Corridor) as sleazy gangster Big Ralphie, and by Molly McCarthy as Frankie's love interest (more accurately, attempted rape), whom you may recall as Steve McQueen's ill-fated girlfriend in 1959's The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery, another bleak, realistic crime film of the era.
While there's no mistaking the low-budget nature of the film, there is much to recommend here. The gritty naturalism, the complete lack of sentimentality, and the paranoid brutality of Frankie's world are all well-rendered. There are few films in the film noir canon as unrelentingly bleak as this one.
As is per usual for the Criterion Collection, the DVD extras are excellent, with a documentary, "Requiem for a Killer," wherein Baron revisits the original NYC locations 30 years later, accompanied by a German film crew, the original trailer, Polaroids from the set, plus a booklet with an appreciattion by Terrence Rafferty and an abbreviated, graphic novelization of the movie by Sean Phillips.
Unlike most Criterion releases, which can run into three figures, Blast of Silence has a relatively modest list price of $24.95.
Last edited on Jun 21, 2008
Blast of Silence is recommended by jmdobies
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