[Marxism] Blast of Silence

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@panix.com>]

For anybody passionate about film, especially nuggets from the past, I 
cannot recommend Dave Kehr’s weekly new DVD’s column in the N.Y. Times 
highly enough. On April 15th, Kehr reported on the new release of an 
obscure 1961 film noir called “Blast of Silence”:

	“Blast of Silence,” coming out Tuesday in a very good edition from the 
Criterion Collection, stands out even in this field for its elemental 
style and relentlessly bleak vision. A late film noir shot with hardly a 
trace of the Expressionist distortions that initially defined the genre, 
Mr. Baron’s terse, 77-minute feature describes a few days in the life of 
a seasoned hit man, played with few surface signs of emotion by Mr. 
Baron himself.

	An expert imported from Cleveland, Frank (Baby Boy) Bono has been 
assigned to eliminate a “second-string syndicate boss with too much 
ambition.” An easy assignment, but one that will require him to spend a 
few days in New York during the Christmas season, just enough time to 
fall in love, or something like it, with the sister (Molly McCarthy) of 
a half-forgotten acquaintance. This is a disturbing development for 
Frankie, whose hands sweat uncontrollably when he’s around other people.

	Mr. Baron’s stripped-down visuals are complemented by an almost 
continuous voice-over narration, composed under a pseudonym (”Mel 
Davenport”) by the blacklisted writer Waldo Salt (”Midnight Cowboy”) and 
read (with no credit at all) by the blacklisted actor Lionel Stander: 
“You were born with hate, and anger built it. Took a slap on the 
backside to blast out the scream. And then you knew you were alive.”

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/blast-of-silence/

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