Blast of Silence - Criterion Collection

Blast of Silence - Criterion Collection
by Allen Baron

Blast of Silence - Criterion Collection
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Allen Baron, Danny Meehan, Larry Tucker, Molly McCarthy, Peter H. Clune
Director: Allen Baron
Brand: Image Entertainment
Composer: Meyer Kupferman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 77 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-15
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion Collection

Movie Reviews of Blast of Silence - Criterion Collection

Movie Review: Interesting and fun but well worn late 50's TV quality
Summary: 3 Stars

I liked the film but mostly as a camp B movie and low budget first film. The Criterion DVD quality is excellent. The extras are very good.

I love the NYC tracking scenes. The City and the photography is the real star of the film. Like Kubrick's Killer Kiss, you see the director's photography background.

The narration is terrible and never needed to be included. Without all that nonsense it would have had some mystery to it and could have been mistaken for French or Italian noir. The written narration itself wasn't really bad but the spoken delivery was just bad and total cornball and all in all was not needed at all. It took away all the mystery.

The Conga player should have irritated Bono enough to get taken out back and shot---that would have been "cool man." The film's problems can be excused as bordering on parody of 50's noir films and TV. Reminded me of various less supernatural Twilight Zone episodes and I almost expected Rod Serling at the end...."Frank Bono....blah blah...is now in the "Twilight Zone." Also reminded me of the 1948 film and TV series, "The Naked City" at times.

I like most of the music (except the horrid Conga player singing his obnoxious "avante garde" poetry.) I can only excuse it as a parody of 50's Greewich Village.

I noticed that the film's composer lifted or imitated a riff from Bernard Hermann's North by Northwest---the scenes where Franky is trailing the Fatman and also when Franky is escaping the scene of the hit. You also hear it twice in the excellent Documentary. I wonder if Baron even realizes it? He probably does. At that point, the soundtrack shifts from the jazz sound and goes orchestral, with a very close imitation of the famous, high-tension, Hermann riff. Not exact, but I noticed it immediatly.

Afterall, Hermann was the greatest composer for thrillers, so looking to him for some high-tension music, would not be unusual--No way Meyer Kupferman (the composer) did that riff that close to the "North by Northwest," theme by accident. The same riff has other Hermann variations in Vertigo, Psycho and later, Marnie.

Recommend viewing despite it's obvious problems, just for the NYC walking scenes, the Rat scenes and that bizarre club scene. I also like the Club bathroom scene with Flies, buzzing around and landing on the fatman and Bono. Very over the top noir house flies.

I think it misses the mark to seriously start comparing it to the better film noir classics. It's really pretty camp.



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Summary of Blast of Silence - Criterion Collection

Swift, brutal, and black-hearted, Allen Baron s New York City noir Blast of Silence is a sensational surprise. This low-budget, carefully crafted portrait of a hit man on assignment in Manhattan during Christmastime follows its stripped-down narrative with mechanical precision, yet also with an eye and ear for the oddball idiosyncrasies of urban living and the imposing beauty of the city s locations. At once visually ragged and artfully composed, and featuring rough, poetic narration by Lionel Stander, Blast of Silence is a stylish triumph.



DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:


New, restored digital transfer


Requiem for a Killer: The Making of Blast of Silence (2007)


Rare on-set Polaroids


Locations revisited in 2008


Trailer


PLUS: An essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty and a four-page graphic-novel adaptation of the film by award-winning artist Sean Phillips

(Criminal, Sleeper, Batman: Jekyll & Hyde)

Somewhere between film noir and The Sopranos lies Blast of Silence, a concise, compelling psychological portrait of a low-level hit-man, shot in 1961 on a shoestring budget with New York City grit. This is the sort of movie, unique but out of sync with its time, that Criterion practically exists to rescue. Accompanied by an avant-jazz soundtrack and hard-boiled Beat narration from the gloriously gravel-voiced Lionel Stander, the blue-collar assassin wanders through the city at Christmastime, revolted by human contact but sucker enough to think a girl he once knew might redeem him. Writer/director Allen Baron stepped into the lead role when he lost Peter Falk; while he's certainly not as expressive an actor, his face has an uncomfortable mixture of yearning and defensiveness that suits the character to a T. Stylishly framed images and sharp, staccato editing, combined with the almost documentary feel of the performances and settings, wrap the entire movie in an alienated tension. This being a Criterion release, it's got fantastic extras: A relaxed interview with the chatty, garrulous Baron, which is combined with a short documentary from 1990 in which Baron went back to all the locations used in Blast of Silence and reminisced; Polaroid photos from the set that look like lost Weegee photographs; a loving essay by critic Terrence Rafferty; and more. But the movie doesn't need any of this to make its mark--it's an American classic, as crucial to the launch of independent film as Cassavetes. Highly recommended. --Bret Fetzer

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