BLAST OF SILENCE (1961; w/d/p/starring Allen Barron, narr. w. Mel Davenport)

Long POV of train emerging from tunnel à la birth canal (reinforced by [distributor-imposed, à la Dementia/Daughter of Horror?] narrator's 2nd-person address to "Baby Boy" Frankie Bono), title reversal of trad baby-cry for orphaned (w/o model for romantic + spiritual union), inarticulate hitman alienated from feelings as well as infant-innocence, emergence also into existential-silent universe devoid of articulated meaning; arrives at Grand Central Station/womb from Cleveland (now his pseudonym [forever carrying imprint of origin]: becoming not-self, entering world à la dream, real life antithetical to authentic interior) to tune of "'Silent’ Night" (time of re-birth + redemption) to knock off "2nd-string Syndicate boss [ego-consciousness + own corruption] w/ too much ambition [own low self-esteem keeping Frankie down] + a mustache to hide the fact he has lips like a wmn" (unconvincing exterior masking inner softness) Troiano, narr’s "You don’t have to know a man to live w/ ’im, but you have to know a man like a brother to kill ’im" figuring FB as mental annihilator ridding own system of obsolete, "inflamed" material.

1st contact corpulent, effeminate Ralphie (disdained body weighting ascendant dreamer/soul to earth), who keeps sewer rats in cages (Frankie B just sprung from prison: slow journey from life to death/death to oblivion) + who arranges for silencer (anti-lifegiving phallus, eliminating "noise" of world), stashing $ in lamp w/ huge wad (hidden illuminating "richness" of the physical: one of few scenes not including Frankie); shadows Troiano around Harlem (T darkside of own personality he targeting in order to attain purity), running into orphanage pal Pete (lost part of self sprung off at youth), who parlayed GI bill into commercial art degree (translating hardship into creativity, opposite F) + invites him to Xmas Eve party (possibility for redemption), where he beats F at peanut-rolling contest (!: return to innocent fun, at which he fails).

There (where multiple facets of self surface + interact) mts old crush Laurie (not old flame Sally, who Ralphie sez "liked" him: mommy to rotund infant-self, Laurie unsuccessful crossover to mature sexuality [diminutives everywhere entrapment in infantile stage]), who has him over for Xmas dinner (she the nourishing redemptive part of self) + reminisces about mutual Chillicothe, OH origins (small town south of CLE, underworld moniker focusing on post-Edenic i.d.), his turning point when CLE parking-lot boss (God; city/world/adolescence temporary, transient situation) worked over by mob (loss of faith + start of dream on death of conscious "authority," current contract revenge for archetypal trauma); misreads offer to dance (casual intimacy w/ nostalgia) + proceeds to ravage her (attempt to re-possess past/innocence), for which he rebuffed (not immediately thrown out: trying to kill wmn/anima self-destructive impulse).

Next day (Dec 26: btwn redemption + renewal) tails Troiano to mistress’s apartment (voyeurism sublimating frustrated desire, she no substitute for absent romantic model) + night club (bongosinger à la Pete’s party’s similar musician, song "Dressed in Black" underside to cheerful other, this place where negative aspects converge) where Ralphie arm-wrestles 2 men (macho complement to peanut race, fem R in power strength of own weakness in underworld) + shakes Frankie down for more $ (demands of body taxing ego); follows R home + garrotes him (transcending body, in violent scene reminiscent of Akim Tamiroff’s Touch of Evil signoff), film’s loooong, ground-level shot of F approaching camera along deserted early-a.m. street revision of opening: from birth to damnation.

Headline HOODLUM STRANGLED, POLICE HUNT KILLER encroachment of conscience; unsuccessfully calls to delay contract till New Year's (holding out for renewal/salvation; nixed) then obtains .38 Special from Joe "Boniface" ("to make good"; cf FBono) on barge (à la earlier rendezvous on ferry: offshore à la unconscious, transport btwn realms [i.e. to hell]) + scopes out T-mistress’s (overseen by another: conscience, again).

Back at own place, realizes rm overlooks orphanage (never far from roots: 1 – return to innocence always possible for "Baby Boy," except 2 – doom w/ him from beginning anyway) + heads to Laurie’s for last-ditch at redemption, to find she’s shacked up w/ old acquaintance (oedipal barrier; paths not taken converging to trap him up); steeled to contract ("You’ve got a job to do" determinism despite Catholic Free-Will doctrine), stakes out T-mistress’s (not-Laura’s) + shoots teddy-bearing "boss" (not-the-father/mind, in futile attempt to assume his oedipal role), escaping via fire escape to cellar (the Fall; asleep), witnessed, again, by nun (as at orphanage: parallel paths of life both fwd + bkwd to/from both hell + salvation).

At windswept marsh (psychic storm, nature gathering force against him: city/body/life transcended), shot by both sides (as all thru life) by trenchcoats of indefinite association (not that it matters) in dialog-free denouement (beyond logic/civilization at elemental Ground Zero), falling into amniotic lake stillborn, death final title Blast after meaningless life.

Last film noir plays like dry run for Mean Streets (w/ Barron proto-DeNiro) by way of Killer’s Kiss, ending up like similar auteur Orson Welles at end of Touch of Evil, film rewritten by AB (whose career – according to tradition as well as own prognosis – shd’ve ended here) w/ happier outcome 3 yrs later as Pie in the Sky.

Title borrowed from ’53 Crash of Silence?