Christmas is almost here, and if there's one thing nobody talks about it's that it's perfectly fine to not be in the Modern Christmas Mood. Even though the stories of people getting trampled in a mad search for Tickle Me Biebers are exaggerated, there's a secret contingent of those who want them to be true in hopes that Kristmas Kommercialism will be shut down for good and they can get back to holing up next to the space heater with their complete series box set of Gilligan's Planet. While Bad Santa is a logical choice for an anti-Christmas movie, it still manages to squeeze in the True Meaning of Christmas at the end, if only jokingly, so consider this movie an ode to the X-Mas Discontent. A longtime staple of festival circuits and why-in-the-fudge-isn't-this-on-video-yet lists, Blast of Silence is a 1961 crime thriller shot in crisp B&W on the holiday decked streets of New York, and I couldn't think of a more black-hearted plot to garnish the birthday of Baby Jesus.
A train hurtles through a black tunnel towards the light as blacklisted actor Lionel Stander narrates:
"Remembering out of the black silence...you were born in pain. Easy! Easy does it, little mother...you've never lost a father! You're job is done, little mother... You were born with hate and anger built in, with a slap on the backside to blast out the scream..."
Hitman Frank Bono (played by Allen Baron, the movie's writer/director) returns to New York after a stint in Cleveland, and though he hates Christmas decorations and music surround him at every turn. A contact meets him on a ferry to tell him his instructions, reminding him not to be spotted or else the deal is off. His target is a mob boss nestled in suburbia, and the narrator quips, "His neighbors will say 'But he was such a respectable man!'" Beneath all the narration is a wild jazz score by none other than Meyer Kupferman, one of Classical music's great nutballs and an equally nutty Re-Composing subject. Also a great subject of discussion is Larry Tucker, here supplying Bono his gun as Big Ralph, who you may remember as Pagliacci from Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor. He was more notable as a writer, having worked on Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (movie and series!) and I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, as well as developing The Monkees. I'd like to think it was his idea for his character to hide his money in the oil well of a student lamp, or keep several mice as pets.
Much of Blast of Silence is made up of "Baby Boy" Frank Bono, in wait for his target to be alone, walking the streets of New York, dense with life and detail, a character in itself. The narrator swings between Bono's internal thoughts and a persistently cynical micro-manager, and he may hate Christmas more than Bono himself. It's more than just grinchiness, as Bono doesn't want to spend "another Christmas running from the cops," and Stander blows his mood out to searing existential bitterness. The long and directionless waiting of a hired gun is a deft portrait of loneliness, and the extended handheld tracking shots of Bono make a grand spectacle of late-50's modern design, doubly gaudy with the multicolored (I assume) lights, with a reindeer merry-go-round as a capstone. As much as we all love late-50's/early-60's design it's very easy for the look to turn tacky, and I can only imagine what a vacuum of taste it must have felt like to be trapped in Blast of Silence's Department Store Metropolis.
He is invited to a party by old friends, but the narrator reminds him how much he hates parties. The mood is bizarre - a mixture of doped-up swing music and a guy with a conga drum, spiced up by a contest wherein Bono and his friend push peanuts across the floor with their noses. The next day brings more bells and boychoirs, and Bono goes to see Lori, an old flame who he met at the party. After a tense conversation about what Bono was doing in Cleveland, the two kiss and Bono gets a little too carried away; Lori asks him to leave, as well as why he doesn't have a girlfriend. Perhaps it's because he spends all his time stalking murder targets, and having to kill Big Ralph for demanding more money after an accidental moment of exposure doesn't help things - there are only more people waiting in the wings to do Bono in.
The plot doesn't get any cheerier - people are going to die and nobody is going to be wished a Happy New Year*. In many ways Blast of Silence is the polar opposite of a Christmas movie - it's every man for himself, eternal strife on Earth and ill will towards men. The black & white cinematography makes Winter in the city especially bleak, all bare trees and bare asphalt. Bono doesn't crack a smile the whole time, and he has no reason to. The narrator is out for blood, his snide death rattle of a voice leading the audience to the spirit-crushing end with a twisted grin. All of this is in the spirit of noir cinema, of course, and Blast of Silence was one of the last true noirs ever made, the end of an era kissing the fresh behind of 60's B&W underground cinema. It's unblinking brutality and breakneck pace made it a sleeper classic, and much like the coming blogtraction A Cold Wind in August has been kept in a meek limelight by devoted fans of vintage independent rarities. It didn't receive a video release until 2008, when the Criterion Collection added it to their ranks, complete with a comic book insert recreating the movie's opening with stark, pulpy glee. I'm a bit mad as I write this, because while somebody had uploaded the whole thing to YouTube it was taken down, and so I can't be as generous as I'd like, but I do have the brilliant opening sequence, courtesy of another reviewer. And hey, you've still got time to shop on Christmas Eve, so you've got a chance to make Blast of Silence an icy gift for that special, pessimistic someone. See it ASAP, and blast out the scream of Yuletide Malice.
~PNK
*
Rats, rats, double rats, of course I wrote that sentence before Lori wishes Bono a Happy New Year over the phone.
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