Last month, a black-and-white crime thriller called Blast of Silence (1961) finally came out on DVD, courtesy of The Criterion Collection. This film has been virtually impossible to find for decades. You’ve probably never heard of it, but you need to see it.
The protagonist of Blast of Silence is a professional killer, which is unusual for a film of this vintage. “Baby Boy” Frankie Bono (Allen Baron) arrives in New York City just before Christmas and immediately begins preparations for rubbing out a troublesome mid-level gang boss. A cautious killer, Frankie’s routine includes following his quarry for a few days to learn his target’s migration patterns. This extra time also allows Frankie to build up enough contempt for the target that he’ll feel good about killing him. It doesn’t take long; Frankie’s enough of a misanthrope that he can always find something to hate about everybody. In fact, the only stressful parts of the job are when Frankie has to interact with people. Telephoning clients, arranging to buy firearms, mingling with the public — these tasks make Frankie profoundly ill at ease, yet the actual act of murder is a breeze for him.
Frankie’s unease is compounded when he’s recognized by a childhood friend who invites him to a Christmas party. With no good excuse to decline and some time to waste until Boxing Day (the gun he needs for the assassination isn’t ready yet), Frankie reluctantly accepts, inwardly fearing that all of this human contact might be a bad idea, considering his occupation. This prediction turns out to be accurate.
When I first read about this film in the outstanding 1986 reference book RE/Search #10: Incredibly Strange Films, I recall thinking it odd that a hit man would need to buy a gun while on the job. Surely a criminal like Frankie would own one already? Years later, I started reading the crime fiction of Richard Stark (a.k.a. Donald E. Westlake), whose criminal antiheroes make a habit out of buying weapons for specific jobs and then ditching them afterwards. Why keep evidence around? The only reason Frankie decides on a gun in the first place is that the target turns out to be too dangerous and well-guarded to attempt killing without one. Not all jobs require such firepower — when he goes to knock off a naive but troublesome gun dealer, Frankie enters the building unarmed, calmly aware that a fire axe is situated in a handy spot on the corridor wall.
The voice-over narration in this film is incredible. Not just because it’s hard-boiled and catchy (thanks to writer Waldo Salt), not just because it’s delivered in a confidently booming voice (that of narrator Lionel Stander), and not even because there’s so damn much of it. No, the most startling thing about the narration is the fact that it’s delivered entirely in the second-person. When the narrator speaks of Frankie Bono, cold-blooded killer, he doesn’t refer to him as “he” or “I” — it’s always “you.” At first, the technique seems eccentric, but before long it pulls us in completely, and we find that we really do identify with this lowlife, because the narrator keeps speaking to us like we’re him. “You” go to Manhattan, “you” buy a gun and “you” shoot a man.
Like many remarkable movies, Blast of Silence achieves some of its power by accident. The extraordinary narration and music, which add so much to the overall experience, were late additions. An overhead shot of children walking single file out of a playground accidentally forms a swastika pattern just as the camera is there to capture it. Plus, the film’s nail-biting finale is filmed outdoors, just as Hurricane Donna (September 10 to 12, 1960) is buffeting the landscape!
Blast of Silence reminds me of the “Hitman” series of video games — in fact, it recaptures the sweat-inducing, nihilistic spirit of those virtual experiences much more effectively than the actual movie Hitman (2007) which was based on the games. Hitman, the film, is filled with action-movie clichés that fail to generate any excitement. Blast of Silence consists mostly of watching people walk around, yet is utterly fascinating because the viewer experiences what it must feel like to stalk human prey.
