17
Jul/16

CASSAVETES / ROWLANDS: THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE

17
Jul/16
Ben Gazzara gives one of his best performances in  John Cassavetess THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE

Ben Gazzara gives one of his best performances in John Cassavetess THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE

THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (John Cassavetes, 1976)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Wednesday, July 20, 1:30 & 9:15, and Sunday, July 24, 3:30
Series runs July 15-24
212-660-0312
metrograph.com

John Cassavetes’s 1976 gangster picture, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, is no mere neonoir shoot-’em-up but a deep and involving character study of a low-level jiggle-joint owner who fancies himself a classy, big-time player. Cassavetes regular and close friend Ben Gazzara gives one of his best, most nuanced performances as Cosmo Vitelli, a Korean War veteran who runs the Crazy Horse West gentleman’s club on the outskirts of the Sunset Strip. Instead of just having his female employees take their clothes off to music, he writes, directs, and choreographs ridiculous fantasy scenarios with songs, costumes, and dialogue, hosted by the shlumpy Mr. Sophistication (screen and television writer Meade Roberts) and poorly acted by his devoted harem, Sherry (Alice Friedland), Margo (Donna Marie Gordon), Haji (Haji), Carol (Carol Warren), and his lover, Rachel (Azizi Johari). After gambling impresario Mort Weil (Seymour Cassel) enjoys a night at the Crazy Horse, he invites Cosmo to his club, Ship Ahoy. Cosmo turns the outing into a pseudo prom, taking a limo to three of his girls’ houses, giving them corsages, drinking Dom Perignon, and bringing them with him to the secret gambling club, where he proceeds to embarrass himself and lose twenty-three thousand dollars. Because Cosmo is unable to pay the debt, Mort has a proposition for him, one that weighs heavily on the club owner’s conscience, but he’ll do just about anything to keep his beloved club.

Gazzara, who previously appeared in Cassavetes’s Husbands and would later star with Cassavetes’s wife, Gena Rowlands, in Opening Night, is extraordinary as Cosmo, a schlemiel who thinks he’s a smooth operator ready for the major leagues, although he has glimpses of the truth about himself. “You learn to be happy, you learn to play the fool, you learn to be what everybody wants you to be,” he says at one point. He cares so much about his productions (which evoke a Fellini-esque Cabaret in very strange ways) that even with his life in danger, he finds a pay phone to call in and see how the performances are going at the club. Cassavetes fills out the cast of sleazy mobsters and others with such distinctive-looking character actors as Timothy Carey, Robert Phillips, Val Avery, John Finnegan, and producer Al Ruban. Cassavetes and cinematographers Ruban and Mitch Breit keep the handheld cameras on the move, weaving their way through the lurid club and the dark streets, with natural light and sound adding to the often cinéma vérité, improvisatory feel. (One of the camera operators was Frederick Elmes, who went on to become DP on such films as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Night on Earth, and Olive Kitteridge.) The original 135-minute cut is way too long; in 1978, Cassavetes released a 108-minute version with substantial changes, including deleting a lot of the performances at the club, which was a very good idea. But the main reason to see The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is to watch Gazzara strut his stuff, his shirt unbuttoned to show off his chest hair, his sly smile nearly ever-present, knowing that he is killing it. The longer version of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is screening July 20 and 24 at Metrograph in the series “Cassavetes/Rowlands,” celebrating the king and queen of independent cinema by showing all twelve of Cassavetes’s films. Cassavetes died in 1989 at the age of fifty-nine, leaving behind quite a legacy. The series continues through July 24 with such other works as Love Streams, Shadows, and Faces, with Rowlands participating in several sold-out postscreening Q&As.