First time director Allen Baron's Blast of Silence begins with a smart visual metaphor for birth, where utter blackness gives way to a pinhole of light that ultimately grows into an entrance into NYC via the opening of a train tunnel. This birth symbolizes the harshness of the world we're entering, a nasty departure from the warm tranquility within the womb (or wherever it is we've come from). From frame #1 we are bombarded by a tough as nails narration written by blacklisted great Waldo Salt. The narration not only establishes we are in a cold and brutal world where thugs like our protagonist, Frankie Bono, prowl, it thrusts us into the goings on in Bono's head.
Despite being a prototypical film noir, BOS also has a documentary feel to it as we spend every minute of the film following every move the hired gun Bono makes, from the mundane to his moment of truth. Bono doesn't say much, he doesn't have to, since the narration relentlessly dictates every thought going through his troubled mind. When watching BOS you can't help but wonder if it would have been more interesting to have not known what Bono was thinking, since the second-person narration leaves nothing to the imagination. Despite being smartly written and sharply delivered by Lionel Stander, the narration fills in too many blanks and ends up smothering the visual merits of BOS. With stark and visceral documentary style authenticity, BOS hints at being a great noir, but it falls well short of the mark. BOS may be referenced as an obscure favorite of certain noir fans angling for street cred, but the truth is it ain't all its cracked up to be. My suggestion to aspiring cineaste hipsters would be to reference the more familiar but far superior Sam Fuller masterpiece Pickup on South Street or even Murder, Inc. the movie Peter Falk chose over BOS despite being cast as Bono.
http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/
Despite being a prototypical film noir, BOS also has a documentary feel to it as we spend every minute of the film following every move the hired gun Bono makes, from the mundane to his moment of truth. Bono doesn't say much, he doesn't have to, since the narration relentlessly dictates every thought going through his troubled mind. When watching BOS you can't help but wonder if it would have been more interesting to have not known what Bono was thinking, since the second-person narration leaves nothing to the imagination. Despite being smartly written and sharply delivered by Lionel Stander, the narration fills in too many blanks and ends up smothering the visual merits of BOS. With stark and visceral documentary style authenticity, BOS hints at being a great noir, but it falls well short of the mark. BOS may be referenced as an obscure favorite of certain noir fans angling for street cred, but the truth is it ain't all its cracked up to be. My suggestion to aspiring cineaste hipsters would be to reference the more familiar but far superior Sam Fuller masterpiece Pickup on South Street or even Murder, Inc. the movie Peter Falk chose over BOS despite being cast as Bono.
http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/