Piecework

Blast of Silence

(1961)

Wow: mega-gritty, astonishingly economical (sub-80 minutes), Manhattan-location story of a hit man who thinks he sees his one chance to get out of the game and settle down with a good woman. Only one guess as to his success.

Written and directed by the star, Allen Baron, who spent almost all of his subsequent career directing the cheesiest TV (Room 222, Night Gallery, The Brady Bunch, Love, American Style, Fantasy Island, Charlie's Angels, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Love Boat)--if it was '70s crap, he was there. This film has about as much in common with an episode of Charlie's Angels as . . . well, I'm sorry, there's just no comparison, except, I suppose, in involving homo sapiens behind the camera, if not necessarily in front of it. Baron resembles a young De Niro a bit, by way of George C. Scott.

Wonderful edgy (in every sense, but mostly in the sense of nervousmaking) modern jazz score by Meyer Kupferman. One of those movies--sort of like when I discovered Ascenseur pour l'échafaud a few years ago--that I have to slap my forehead and wonder why I'd been ignorant of it all these years.