Customer Reviews

Killing of a Chinese Bookie [VHS]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you like Cassavettes' stuff, you will love this finally developed tale of an aging strip club owner in 1970s LA. If you would like to try this American original, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie might be the best place to start as it is possibly Cassevettes' most accessible film.

"The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" is one of my all time favourite films and I bought it the moment I saw it was on DVD. However the DVD is quite dissapointing considering it is not in widescreen (even though it doesn't really suffer from cropping) and the picture and sound quality are quite dodgy. Nevertheless it is a brilliant and powerful film that contains an excellent performance from Ben Gazzara as well as some very memorable scenes and visuals. This is surely a films that deserves a place in any true film buffs DVD collection.

This is a great starter into John Cassavette's films. If you have not seen any of his films, start here. Casavettes has made a masterpiece that truly looks at life and not the glorification of life. No Hollywood over-dramatisation here. The people are sleeze and yet out of the sleeze comes a story. This must have been a very big influence to Quentin Tarantino in making Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

This film is another of Cassavetes' best. Like the others in this Pioneer series, the DVD is merely adequate: it delivers the picture and sound. Likewise, Ray Carney provides a brief analytical essay in the insert that should be useful to anyone not familiar with Cassavetes' film art. We're lucky to have this film available in any form, so there's not much more to say!

"The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" is John Cassavetes' contribution to the downbeat neo-noir style of the 1970s. Cassavetes wrote and directed this story of a hard-working strip club owner whose ego lands him in hot water with the mob. Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara) has finally paid off the debt on his club, and he celebrates by donning a tux and taking three of his lovely ladies to a private gambling club for an elegant evening. High on his own success, Cosmo runs up a debt of $23,000. The club's underworld owners say they will erase his debt if Cosmo kills a bookie in Chinatown who has been cutting into their business. "I may be stupid, but I'm not a fool," Cosmo replies.

This film has a languorous pace, to put it mildly. A lot of time is spent tooling around Los Angeles with Cosmo and watching the absurd burlesque shows at his club that seem entirely devoid of entertainment value. I did not become comfortable with the pace until an hour into the film, and I think it would have benefited from cutting 20 minutes. Dialogue is spare and almost unnecessary until the film's final minutes. The story is told visually, primarily through Cosmo's actions. That's a good thing, because the dialogue is often mumbled, and the volume is erratic. I don't know if that's a problem with this transfer or if the actors weren't miked properly.

In spite of pacing and sound problems, I really like Ben Gazzara's performance. Cosmo is a sleaze, but a lesser sleaze than those around him. He is completely committed to his business to the point of checking up on it while on his way to commit a murder. He's a self-made man with more savvy than his gambling debt would imply, embittered by the mobsters who suddenly control his destiny, but ultimately bemused by his predicament. The villains are an odd lot. There are five of them, seemingly inseparable, who rule by their own little argumentative committee. The film's structure is certainly open to criticism, but "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" is worth seeing for Cosmo.

The DVD (Pioneer 1999): There are 2 versions of "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie". This is the 108-minute edit released in 1978. The original edit, released in 1976, was 135 minutes. This print looks fine in well-lit scenes, but there is a lot of grain in a few scenes that are dark. Sound is a bigger problem. I had to adjust the volume on my remote for each scene with dialogue, sometimes more than once during the scene. There are no subtitles available.

Ben Gazzara's character is a classic in this story of a strip club owner's troubles with the underworld. It's one of my favorites too with its dark and sleazy atmosphere and the characters that drive this story. The gangsters are not cartoon characters. They actually have personalities. In fact, this film has many colorful characters. The Criterion version is longer and exposes more of this tawdry world but it is part of an expensive five film collection. This film deserves to be seen in the longer version.

One of the finest Cassavetes films, sadly overlooked (like the marvellous "Minnie and Moskovitz", never available on video). Defying genre categorization, it hovers between action movie (intimations of Scorsese, Wong Kar Wai), soft-porn critique by way of non-judgemental representation, improbable love story (Gazzara with one his strippers) and exploration of the limits of improvisational cinema. Extraordinary for its sense of milieu (strip joint, Low-life criminals and Chinese mafia) within which Gazzara tries to live what approximates a decent life. Possibly suffered when Cassavetes went into it again for a director's cut, surprisingly shortening it, the longer original version being much better. It seems it's the shorter version that was available on video. Should still be on sale in Britain, but then in PAL version only. In the end a remarkable exploration of the limits of cinematic representation in terms of drama (in this case of exceptionally seedy languor) and psychological characterisation, as with the best of Cassavetes films.

One of my favorite films ever. Gazzara gives an incredible performance. One of Cassavetes' best films. I have been greatly influenced by this film in my wanting to become a film director.

For a fascinating behind-the-scenes info about The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and a list of books about Cassavetes' work, go to Ray Carney's website dedicated to John Cassavetes (found through any search engine).

an indebeted club owner has to knockoff a prolific underworld figure as means of settling his tab. subtext abounds in this noir classic.