The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

John Cassavetes

Writer:

John Cassavetes (writer)

Release Date:

8 October 1977 (Sweden)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

A proud strip club owner is forced to come to terms with himself as a man, when his gambling addiction gets him in hot water with the mob, who offer him only one alternative.

Plot Keywords:

Strip Club | Gambling Debt | Murder For Hire | Reluctant Hitman | Neo Noir

Cast

Ben Gazzara	...	Cosmo Vitelli
Timothy Carey	...	Flo (Gangster) (as Timothy Agoglia Carey)
Seymour Cassel	...	Mort Weil (Gangster)
Robert Phillips	...	Phil (Gangster)
Morgan Woodward	...	John (Head gangster)
John Kullers	...	Eddie-Red (as John Red Kullers)
Al Ruban	...	Marty Reitz (Gangster)
Azizi Johari	...	Rachel
Virginia Carrington	...	Betty, the mother
Meade Roberts	...	Mr. Sophistication
Alice Fredlund	...	Sherry
Donna Gordon	...	Margo Donnar (as Donna Marie Gordon)
Haji	...	Haji
Carol Warren	...	Carol
Derna Wong Davis	...	Derna

Runtime:

135 min | 109 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 (re-rating) | Finland:K-16 | Portugal:M/16 | Sweden:15 | UK:AA (original rating) | USA:R

Company:

Faces Distribution

Trivia:

This was actually a story idea developed by John Cassavetes and Martin Scorsese years previously.

Quotes:

Cosmo Vitelli: I'm a club owner. I deal in girls.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in "South Park: Imaginationland (#11.10)" (2007)

Soundtrack:

Rainy Fields of Frost and Magic

Strange and Satisfying

Well, at least Cassavettes was never boring. How many directors can say that? This is the oddest of his films, a strange riff on gangster/noir pictures that starts at the end and takes us right back there. The night club manager, player by Gazzara, has just finished paying for his joint, as he would say. He goes out and loses some money gambling and finds that he has to kill someone in order to pay off his debt. A normal Hollywood film would make the owner an anti-hero, one to pity. This film just lets him be the slime he is. In one scene, he tries to tell a woman that his mother and father didn't love him. She tells him that she doesn't care and he should leave. That is, in some ways, the point. He doesn't have to be a louse and a loser, but he is. Ironically, he gives a speech later about choosing who we are and being comfortable, two things that he has failed at miserably. Like all of Cassavettes' losers, Gazzara is easy to hate. The painful part for the viewer is that we see the pain in their lives too. Most films, even great ones, leave you feeling one way or another about a character, but Cassavettes' films leave you stumped. I guess that that is great, but it is very odd and hard to understand.