Allen Baron didn't make that many films (maybe only two or three at most in a career mostly dominated by TV gigs), but perhaps one near-great film is enough. There are two kinds of directors in this world, my friend: those who make one or two fantastic films that will live on and on, and then those who make several amongst many other excellent or very good films. Allen Baron falls into the former category, and his film Blast of Silence is an example of how to do something right on a super-duper low budget on the streets of New York, with no-name (or not-at-all) actors, and the one big name being Lionel Stander a at-the-time blacklisted actor who was paid $500 to speak Waldo Salt's blisteringly powerful hard-boiled narration.
Indeed the narration here is so good that it at times threatens the scenes it comes in on. It's a "you know it, Frankie" type of voice, a combination of some unseen presence looking on and perhaps just a voice of conscience ripped right off the shelf of a paperback. Stander's gravel-voice, a possible inspiration for Rourke in Sin City, and the real locations and hoppy jazz score, all add to this being a delicious fear of film-making. The story itself isn't that much more different than one might see in Melville (not exactly Le Samourai but close - take away the narration, some of the dialog and chunks of the music and its about the same), as a hired gun, Frank Bono (Baron), comes into the Big Apple on a contract killing, and suddenly finds himself in one of those crises of the existential sort.
Frank is all alone, and is fine that way, until he connects with a group of guys that run into him who used to be kids at the orphanage together. He sees a woman there that he wants to spend some time with, but this all just starts to mess with his head - that and a bad deal done with a shady, fat gun seller (you might remember from Shock Corridor and Angels Hard as They Come, an unforgettable presence if not great actor) that leads him to questioning the whole job he's on. Baron has some familiar ground he's dealing with, but it's all filmed carefully in Frank's following and casing of his target. The tension mounts brilliantly, and the tone is dark without being pretentious. And those shots of Frank Bono walking on the streets in mostly darkness, fedora and hat, jazz and Christmas songs, are for the film-noir fan just about perfect.
If there's a minor drawback, and it should be mentioned, it's that Baron isn't entirely fit in the role of Frank Bono, and as a first time director (save for Lionel Stander and maybe Tucker) he only gets the minimum out of his low-rent cast. On the recent Criterion DVD in an interview Baron said Peter Falk was originally considered for the role. That would've put it over the top, and something out of the ordinary to see Falk in that part. With Baron, doing triple duty as writer, director and actor, he does some decent work in some scenes, but isn't entirely comfortable speaking certain lines of dialog. He works better, and perhaps he himself knew this from seeing early test footage and whatnot, as a silent figure, moving as in Melville like some lone ghost on the streets or looking with a cold, lonely stare like in the jazz club or on a dark street.
Blast of Silence is terrific when it sticks to what it should: take to the streets and buildings in Greenwich Village and Harlem and the East Side in crisp black and white and give it the feel of one of the best paperback pulp books you've ever read brought to life. It's like a slightly rusty but practically unassailable ruby. 9.5/10
Indeed the narration here is so good that it at times threatens the scenes it comes in on. It's a "you know it, Frankie" type of voice, a combination of some unseen presence looking on and perhaps just a voice of conscience ripped right off the shelf of a paperback. Stander's gravel-voice, a possible inspiration for Rourke in Sin City, and the real locations and hoppy jazz score, all add to this being a delicious fear of film-making. The story itself isn't that much more different than one might see in Melville (not exactly Le Samourai but close - take away the narration, some of the dialog and chunks of the music and its about the same), as a hired gun, Frank Bono (Baron), comes into the Big Apple on a contract killing, and suddenly finds himself in one of those crises of the existential sort.
Frank is all alone, and is fine that way, until he connects with a group of guys that run into him who used to be kids at the orphanage together. He sees a woman there that he wants to spend some time with, but this all just starts to mess with his head - that and a bad deal done with a shady, fat gun seller (you might remember from Shock Corridor and Angels Hard as They Come, an unforgettable presence if not great actor) that leads him to questioning the whole job he's on. Baron has some familiar ground he's dealing with, but it's all filmed carefully in Frank's following and casing of his target. The tension mounts brilliantly, and the tone is dark without being pretentious. And those shots of Frank Bono walking on the streets in mostly darkness, fedora and hat, jazz and Christmas songs, are for the film-noir fan just about perfect.
If there's a minor drawback, and it should be mentioned, it's that Baron isn't entirely fit in the role of Frank Bono, and as a first time director (save for Lionel Stander and maybe Tucker) he only gets the minimum out of his low-rent cast. On the recent Criterion DVD in an interview Baron said Peter Falk was originally considered for the role. That would've put it over the top, and something out of the ordinary to see Falk in that part. With Baron, doing triple duty as writer, director and actor, he does some decent work in some scenes, but isn't entirely comfortable speaking certain lines of dialog. He works better, and perhaps he himself knew this from seeing early test footage and whatnot, as a silent figure, moving as in Melville like some lone ghost on the streets or looking with a cold, lonely stare like in the jazz club or on a dark street.
Blast of Silence is terrific when it sticks to what it should: take to the streets and buildings in Greenwich Village and Harlem and the East Side in crisp black and white and give it the feel of one of the best paperback pulp books you've ever read brought to life. It's like a slightly rusty but practically unassailable ruby. 9.5/10