John Cassavetes - The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

In Cassavetes’ very personal neo-noir, Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara, in the performance of a lifetime), a small-time but passionate strip joint owner, gets in debt to the mob and is forced to commit the title act to make amends.

Cosmo Vitelli se enfrenta a un dilema de vida o muerte: o paga con dinero que no tiene una deuda de juego ilegal o mata a otra persona como pago para evitar su propia muerte.






The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie is a film that is one of those overlooked gems that is not only a great film, but a great record of its time. The film remains a key work in John Cassavetes’ oeuvre as it marked the first time in which he adapted his style to the rigours of genre filmmaking. The film offers a stark portrait of a dejected man riddled with debt and struggling to maintain a near lifeless strip club. Unmarried and without children, his greying temples suggest nothing more than middle aged impotence. The significance of the character study should not be understated as it is this which kickstarts the plot. Though it’s made clear that Ben Gazzara’s character has a gambling problem, it is only when trying to assert his masculinity by impressing some of his girls at a poker club that he incurs a huge debt and gets mixed up with the mob. As the title would suggest, he is then set up to perform the titular task as a means of clearing the sum.




Unsurprisingly, the attachment of Cassavetes’ style to the gangster film results in some notable genre subversion. In some cases this is more conscious than others – note how the scoring becomes less prominent as the film progress so that by the time it most greatly resembles a thriller, this element no longer exists – and as such the subtler details prove more effective. Particularly strong is the manner in which the director’s favouring of lengthy scenes only serves to enhance the tension and suspense; we know, for example, that when Gazzara is pulled into a car full of hoods, Cassavetes is going to keep us there for a long time. Moreover, the approach also serves to make the various gangsters that little bit more knowable. Whereas such results are only yielded through the epic (The Godfather) or the television series (The Sopranos), here we escape their usual activities and instead focus in on the ordinary. Indeed, if they could be summed up in one word then it would be, simply, ordinary.



That said, Cassavetes’ attentions are far more wide-ranging than this and he also gains plenty of mileage out of the club itself. Whatever veneer of class or style Gazzara may think it has is slowly stripped away with an eye which recalls the approach of Nick Broomfield’s earliest works. By holding onto the scenes, any sense of fun or entertainment – which should be integral to such a place – is instead replaced by the sad and the pathetic, merely straining at respectability.



In this respect The Killing of a Chinese Bookie could also be seen as having certain affinities with the film noir inasmuch as its environs clearly match those who reside in it. And in combining the atmosphere and the characters it is here where Cassavetes and genre filmmaking meet head on. The dejection which Gazzara exudes infuses the whole film, yet we also get the impression that the atmosphere is also exuding its own influence on him, perhaps even controlling him. Just as John Garfield, say, was seemingly as vulnerable to the nightmarish elements of noir as he was to Lana Turner, so too Gazzara really has no choice. And it’s this sour realisation – especially in conjunction with his final scene – that makes Chinese Bookie all the more forceful.

Ripped with MeGUI from the Criterion DVD-9 posted by CerealRipper here at AVAX.

Script/Guión: John Cassavetes
Music/Sonido: Bo Harwood
Cinematography/Fotografía: Mitchell Breit, Al Ruban
Cast/Reparto: Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel, Robert Philips, Morgan Woodward, John Kullers, Al Ruban, Azizi Johari, Virginia Carrington, Meade Roberts, Alice Fredlund, Donna Gordon, Haji, Soto Joe Hugh, Catherine Wong, Val Avery