Blast of Silence (1961)

The Hate of Harlem.

Blast of Silence is written and directed by Allen Baron, he also stars along with Molly McCarthy, Larry Tucker and Peter Clume. Music is by Meyer Kupferman and cinematography by Merrill Brody.

It’s Christmas week and hit man Frankie Bono (Baron) blows into New York City from Cleveland to take out a mobster who has gotten above his station. Casing locales and plotting his course of action, Frankie is shaken out of his dead cold approach to his work by a couple of faces from his past…

Blast of Silence beats a black heart, stripped down to the basics it’s a film about one man who hasn’t known what it is like to be human. Frankie Bono is case study of self-loathing, of how to hate everything around him, his biggest crime may not actually be the hits he carries out with cold blooded efficiency, but that of being born in the first place. But now Frankie, in all his miserable glory, has strolled into the Big Apple and hitched a ride to noirville, and those well balanced ice chips on his shoulders are starting to melt.

The air is pungent, reeking of fatalism, pessimism and of course nihilism. New York City is a place of towering construction wonders, we can see that, but Baron and Brody film it as a foreboding entity, with a cold grey veneer befitting our hit man rattled out of his cemented equilibrium. The constant gravel voiced narration by Lionel Stander is in the second person, it’s also in Frankie’s head, mocking him, reminding him of failures and pitfalls, of impending misery. While over the top is Kupferman’s jazzy score, where at times it’s like a panzer attack (that ferocious double bass is just magnificent), at others a melancholic lament to a life never lived.

The low budget and use of every day Joe actors helps keep the film grounded, which is just perfect for the tale. There’s no need for histrionics or visual tricks here, Baron and Brody use the naturalism of the actors and the city surrounds to great effect, covering proceedings in a semi-documentary style. Blast of Silence is a hard picture, it isn’t trying to cheer you up, this is not a Christmas movie for annual pleasures. From the super opening of a speeding train birthing out of a tunnel, to the bleak finale, it’s a film noir movie of considerable class. Don’t let anyone tell you film noir ended in 1958… 9/10