Criterion: Blast of Silence

Partly in an effort to prove that I do more than sit around pondering Emmy nominations, I thought I'd review one of the newest additions to the Criterion Collection, an underseen 1961 film noir called Blast of Silence.

It's Christmastime in the naked city, and hit man Frankie Bono, played by Allen Baron, has one last contract to settle. We follow him as he receives instructions from his contractor, makes contact with a sleazy gun dealer, and stalks his mark down decorated midtown streets. It's a simple story with an appropriately short running time, but its low budget does not prevent the film from reaching greatness.

The first thing that hits you in the movie is the narration, words written by blacklisted Waldo Salt and spoken by blacklisted Lionel Stander. Before we meet Frankie Bono, we hear Stander address him--the narration is accusative and second-person--and what's more, he speaks with such vitriol that we're unsettled from the start. He yells about being born into a world of hate as we hear a screaming mother giving birth and see only a black screen with a slowly growing white spot. Eventually we realize we're in Frankie's car inside a black tunnel, about to be born into a world of hate ourselves.

The narration overwhelms us from the start, and even during a scene of reconciliation between Frankie and an old friend, we aren't able to hear them speaking because the aggressive narrator is too busy ranting about Frankie's pathetic inability to connect with other people. But it's not called Blast of Silence for nothing: after the film's first violent outburst, we are treated to a series of scenes that, except for ambient noise, are completely silent. No angry narration, no jazz cues, just Frankie Bono and his bleak environment.

Perfectly in tune with the narration, the violence is sudden, angry, and engrossing. It's also expertly developed. Consider the film's first violent outburst: Frankie finds his gun dealer and his mark at the same nightclub. Amidst rapid intercutting of close-ups, the situation gets stickier as the club singer (singing a pulse-pounding story of escalating violence, himself) rages on, and the tune lingers in your head even after Frankie leaves the club, chasing his quarry to his death.

Of course, New York plays a vital role in the film, the low budget demanding location shooting that beautifully sets the tone. The busy holiday streets contrast the starkness of Frankie's preferred solitude as the narrator blasts him for it as well. The chilly harbor ferry sets Frankie apart from the rest of his city, but the wintry climate is even harsher out on the water. And the docks, no stranger to seedy plot entanglements, are still bleaker, an overcast day cutting Frankie off from all hope as he navigates the maze of piers and ruined seaside buildings.

I'm ever grateful to the employees of the Criterion Collection for excavating underseen gems. Like its closest companions, Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player and Melville's Le Samourai (both also in the Criterion Collection), Blast of Silence is a sharp, effective crime story that refuses to let you forget that the biggest battles are internal.