Although it isn’t in the same league with Jean-Pierre Melville's classic 1967 French crime thriller "Le Samurai," director Allen Baron's procedural murder melodrama "Blast of Silence" amounts to a meditation on the fate of a Cleveland, Ohio-based, contract torpedo, Frankie Bono (Allen Baron), who arrives in New York City on Christmas Eve to ice a rival, low-level crime boss. Tis the season to be murderous! Bono prefers a .38 caliber revolver equipped with a silencer as his weapon of choice. Seems like a lot of cinematic gunsels packed revolvers with silencers, even though an automatic pistol would have been far more appropriate for the occasion, particularly when silence is considered golden. Of course, most cinematic assassins usually show up with their own hardware, thus eliminating the need to bring anybody else into the equation who could prove to be a loose thread that unravels everything.
Written, produced, and directed by Baron, this lean, mean, 77-minute, film noir unfolds from our paranoid assassin's perspective. You'd think he’d tote his own firearm, so he wouldn't wind up in a hopeless predicament like he faces eventually at fade-out. Not long after he shows up in the Big Apple and receives his marching orders, Frankie tangles with a dire crisis of conscience about his predatory lifestyle. Accidentally, he runs with an old school classmate in a restaurant, and this well-meaning fellow invites Frankie to come to a party. During this social occasion, Frankie rekindles a brief relationship with an old flame, Lori (Molly McCarthy of "Over The Edge"), whom he knew before he embarked on his shady, criminal shenanigans. Second thoughts about his job as a mob hitman plague him, and he toys with the idea of making this killing the last one of his career. Our embittered protagonist displays his considerable skills as a homicidal killer, and as we eavesdroppers watch him skillfully shadow his intended victim, Troiano (Peter Clune of "Juke Box Racket”), who is often accompanied by two bodyguards. Frankie knows how to tail a target in traffic without attracting attention. He never rents the same automobile, and he knows when to stop stalking his prey because the latter might spot him. Now, we’re never given any details about either Troiano or why he has become the object of a hit. Produced on a minuscule budget of $20 thousand, this movie is nevertheless interesting because it is so atmospheric.
Basically, "Blast of Silence" is a slow burning fuse of a film that chronicles Frankie's standard operating procedure for killing a man. First, he obtains an untraceable firearm from an unsavory, low-life criminal, Big Ralph (Larry Tucker of “Shock Corridor”) who lives alone in a ground floor city apartment. This gun runner has cages of pet hamsters stacked up around his apartment! Imagine the odor!? Ralph lives up to his “Big” nickname because he is obscenely fat and slimy. Later, Ralph gets under Frankie’s skin, and our pugnacious protagonist takes him apart during a violent, knockdown, drag-out fight that leaves Big Ralph dead in his apartment and Frankie shaken up. The criminal underworld of “Blast of Silence” is riddled with treachery and untrustworthy accomplices, especially in the film’s ominous finale.
Baron penned Frankie's loquacious
voice over narration with scenarist Waldo Salt. Later, Salt would win an Oscar
for his "Midnight Cowboy" screenplay, and this evocative narration
provides considerable insight into the psychology of our tightlipped assassin
as he contends with all the obstacles that complicate this job. Moreover, the
distinguished blacklisted actor Lionel Stander of “The Gang That Couldn't Shoot
Straight” delivers Frankie’s voice-over narration in his trademark gravel voice
that blends in orally with Barron’s physical depiction of Frankie. Too bad that
Stander couldn’t have dubbed all of Baron’s dialogue for the sake of similarity
between the narration and Frankie’s spoken dialogue.
"Violent Women" lenser Merrill S. Brody's black & white
cinematography captures the era of storefront shopping, and the austere New
York City locations lend the film an abundance of authenticity, seasoned with
its historic significance. The filmmakers photographed the daily flow of ‘Big
Apple’ traffic on foot and in vehicles. Low-key film that it is, "Blast of
Silence" delivers snapshots in time of New York City back in the early
1960s. You can feel the gritty sidewalk crunch under your shoes. Shot in an
improvised documentary style, "Blast of Silence" familiarizes
audiences with the obstacles our protagonist must transcend before he can
perform the execution for which he has been paid.
Despite his emotional outburst after he renews his acquaintance with an old grade school girl, Frankie is a very thorough-going assassin. He describes his method of operation when he is dispatched to kill somebody. Ultimately, Frankie tosses the incriminating weapon he wielded into the bay. This turns out to be a fatal decision, and it costs Frankie his life. When he appears at a rendezvous with the mobster who hired him, Frankie is shocked to discover his days above ground are limited. We witness the age-old duplicity of organized crime when the gangsters who hired Frankie have no intention of paying him off for a job well done. Instead, these vicious hoods pursue him and riddle him with lead! Our protagonist dies face down in a muddy pond in the boondocks. Predictably, Hollywood maintained its familiar credo of ‘crime does not pay.’ Comparably, “Blast of Silence” came before the incomparable hit thrillers like Jean-Pierre Melville’s "Le Samourai" (1967) Alain Delon and Michael Winner’s “The Mechanic” (1972) with Charles Bronson. Some spectators may grumble about this slow-moving saga as well as its anonymous cast. Interestingly, Peter Falk turned down the lead role in “Blast of Silence” for his stunning turn as a killer in “Murder, Inc.” (1961) helmed by Burt Balaban and “Cool Hand Luke’s” Stuart Rosenberg. Crime Genre specialists should make the effort to watch this low-budget indie release!
