Blast of Silence (1961)
I first saw Blast of Silence, a neonoir film recently released by the Criterion Collection, praised in the back pages of the excellent comic book Criminal. I next saw a good review in Entertainment Weekly:
Director-star Allen Baron’s hitman takes on one last job – can you guess how it ends? But this wintry noir is a trove of unexpected delights, from the sumptuously shot NYC locations and proto-Scorsese touches (several street scenes look like Taxi Driver outtakes; the opening voice-over could be a dry run for Mean Streets) to a mesmerizing performance (as a gun-dealing slob) by Larry Tucker, who would go on to co-create…the Monkees?!?
Alas, though it came with impressive credentials, Blast of Silence left me mostly cold. Its glacial pace meant that its mere 77 minutes felt much longer, and I struggled to stay awake through it. Still, there were good things, like the scene where Baron discovers a girl he’s interested in with another man, when he walks away from a wad of money clearly lying in front of him, and when he finally connects with the man who’s his target. The packaging of the dvd, with Sean Phillips’ art, is also very nice. I think this one is more for noir completists, though, than the general viewing public.