The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie

John Cassvetes' film The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) is an atypical film from the director for a number of reasons. The main reasons being that it has significantly less dialogue than his typical films and that it has a standard film genre plot; it is essentially a hard boiled crime film. The owner of a strip club in L.A., Cosmo Vitelli (played by Ben Gazzara in a standout performance), finds himself in trouble when he loses $25,000 gambling at poker. Vitelli is basically a decent, above board guy who takes pride in his business and tries to treat people properly, but is now at the mercy of gangsters who want him to do a job for them and they will forgive the debt-they want him to kill a rival. Vitelli is told that this is a low level guy in the rival gang, but it turns out to be the boss, and they try to double cross him and knock him off as well. However, throughout the film there are long scenes of acts at the club moderated by the less than talented "Mr. Sophistication." The story is a sort of allegory of Cassavetes' dealings with Hollywood where money spoils everything. The original release was poorly reviewed and pulled from the theaters and re-cut by Cassavetes and the result was a film that was 30 minutes shorter. It seems to me to be one of Cassavetes most accessible and least accessible films at the same time. It is one of two films, the other being Faces, that I saw before seeing the films in the box set, but I have little memory of the film beyond the hit. The Criterion extras include: video interviews with star Ben Gazzara and producer Al Ruban, an audio interview with Cassavetes by film historians Michel Ciment and Michael Wilson, conducted after the film’s release, stills gallery featuring rare behind-the-scenes production photos, and an essay by Phillip Lopate.