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The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

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The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
File:Killing-Chinese-Bookie.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJohn Cassavetes
Written byJohn Cassavetes
Produced byAl Ruban
StarringBen Gazzara
Timothy Agoglia Carey
Seymour Cassel
CinematographyMitchell Breit
Al Ruban
Edited byTom Cornwell
Music byBo Harwood
Distributed byFaces Distribution
Release date
  • February 15, 1976 (1976-02-15)
Running time
135 minutes
108 minutes (Re-release)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a 1976 American crime film directed and written by John Cassavetes and starring Ben Gazzara.[1][2][3][4][5] A rough and gritty film, this is the second of their three collaborations, following Husbands and preceding Opening Night.

Gazzara's character of the formidable strip club owner Cosmo Vittelli was in part based on an impersonation he did for his friend Cassavetes in the 1970s. But in an interview for the Criterion Collection in the mid 2000s, Gazzara stated that he believed Vittelli, who cares deeply about the rather peculiar "art" aspect of the routines put on at his nightclub but can't get his patrons (who are only there for naked girls) to, was a double of sorts of Cassavetes himself. Gazzara described his friend as a writer and director that totally believed in the importance and value of his work, because the work represented his heart and soul.

Plot

The film, set in California, opens with Cosmo Vittelli (Ben Gazzara) making the final payment on a longstanding gambling debt to a sleazy loanshark (played by the film's producer Al Ruban). It turns out that the person who Vittelli had just repaid his debt to is associated with the mob and sets up Vittelli by bringing larger fish gangsters to Vittelli's artistic club. Vittelli and Mort (Seymour Cassel) share talk and conversation about the club ownership business, Vittelli orders Mort and his party bottles of Dom Pérignon. Mort then sets Vittelli up by offering an open invitation to gamble at the mobster's club, all expenses paid, other than the gambling gains or losses. To celebrate his long-anticipated freedom, cabaret owner Vittelli has an expensive night out with his three favorite dancers ("Margo", "Rachael", and "Sherry"). The evening culminates in a poker game in which Vittelli loses $23,000 ($123,151 in today's money) returning him to the debtor's position he had just left. Using the debt as leverage, his mob creditors coerce him into agreeing to perform a "hit" on a rival. Vittelli is led to believe that his target is a small-time criminal of minor consequence, the Chinese bookie of the film's title; but in fact, he is the boss of the Chinese mafia, "the heaviest cat on the West Coast." Vittelli manages to kill the man and several of his bodyguards, but is severely wounded before escaping.

In addition to the potentially fatal gunshot wound he sustains, Vittelli comes to realize that his assignment was a set-up: that his mob employers double-crossed him and had no expectation he would survive his debut as a hitman. Vittelli loses his "black" and "beautiful" girlfriend, Rachel (Azizi Johari) and the support of her loving mother due to the chaos and the gunshot wound he refuses to acknowledge. It also becomes evident that due to Vittelli's direct combat experience in the Korean War and his snap execution of the West Coast Chinese gangster leader and his bodyguards, that, in fact, his Italian gangster foes are "amateurs" in comparison to him. Vittelli fatally shoots Mort but Mort's mob companion is left in a warehouse firing off rounds into warehouse walls, hunting for Vittelli. Forced into a corner again, Vittelli manages to kill or elude his assailants, but the film ends with no indication of whether Vittelli will survive his ordeal, as the show at his club goes on. Vittelli (with a bullet in his side) informs his artists that Rachel has left the production team and has the "flu" or has moved on to "bigger and better things", never accounting for the lost love potential between Vittelli, Rachel and her mother who said she loved Vittelli but wanted him out of her house until he sought medical attention to remove the bullet.

Cast

Release

The film's original release, at 135 minutes in length, was a commercial disappointment and the film was pulled from distribution after only seven days. At a May 17, 2008, George Eastman House screening in Rochester, Gazzara said he "hated" the original cut; "it's too long", he had told Cassavetes.

Eventually, Cassavetes decided to re-edit the film, and it was re-released in 1978 in a new 108-minute cut. The 1978 version is the one that has been in general release since that time, though both versions of the film were issued in The Criterion Collection's John Cassavetes: Five Films box set, marking the first appearance of the 1976 version since its original release.

True to Cassavetes' form, the 108-minute version is not just a simple edit of the 135-minute version. The order of several scenes has been changed, there are different edits of a few scenes, and there are a few segments unique to the 108-minute version. The bulk of the cutting in the 1978 version removed many of the nightclub routines that were in the 1976 version.

Reception

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie received mixed reviews upon its initial release, but has developed a cult following since. Jay Cocks of Time gave the film a positive review, explaining, "When John Cassavetes makes a gangster movie, you can be sure only that it will be like no other. A film maker of vaunting, demanding individuality, Cassavetes is like a jazz soloist, an improviser who tears off on wild riffs from a basic, familiar melody."[6] Vincent Canby of The New York Times thought differently, saying, "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is like the last three of the director's films (A Woman Under the Influence, Husbands and Minnie and Moskowitz) in the way it resolutely refuses to come to a point strong or interesting enough to support the loving care that's gone into its production, particularly on the part of the actors."[7]

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 81% of 26 film critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 6.4 out of 10.[8]

References

  1. ^ Carney, Ray (Spring 1991). "The Dangers of Systematic Explanations (and the Imaginative Movements They Leave Out)". Ray Carney's Website. Excerpted from a Review of David James, Allegories Of Cinema, Printed in American Studies (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas), Volume 32, Number 1, pp. 123–124. Retrieved 1 January 2014. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ Carney, Ray (1994). The Films of John Cassavetes: Pragmatism, Modernism, and the Movies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 230–231.
  3. ^ Brenner, Paul. "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie: Overview: Allmovie". Allmovie. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
  4. ^ Lopate, Phillip. "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie: The Raw and the Cooked". Criterion. Retrieved December 8, 2012.
  5. ^ Hardy, Phil (1997). The BFI Companion to Crime. University of California Press. p. 192. ISBN 978-0520215382. Retrieved December 8, 2012.
  6. ^ Cocks, Jay (March 8, 1976). "Cinema: On the Edge – The Killing of a Chinese Bookie". Time. Time Inc.
  7. ^ Canby, Vincent (February 16, 1976). "'Chinese Bookie': Cassavetes Is Director of Bland Effort". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved June 9, 2014.
  8. ^ "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved June 9, 2014.

Further reading