| The Killing of a Chinese Bookie | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Theatrical release poster ("Style A") | |
| Directed by | John Cassavetes |
| Written by | John Cassavetes |
| Produced by | Al Ruban |
| Starring | Ben Gazzara |
| Cinematography | Mitchell Breit Al Ruban Frederick Elmes[1] |
| Edited by | Tom Cornwell |
| Music by | Bo Harwood |
| Distributed by | Faces Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time | 135 minutes 108 minutes (Re-release) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a 1976 American neo-noir crime film written and directed by John Cassavetes and starring Ben Gazzara.[2][3][4][5][6] A rough and gritty film, this is the second of their three collaborations, following Husbands and preceding Opening Night. Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel, Morgan Woodward, Meade Roberts, and Azizi Johari appear in supporting roles.[7]
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. In an interview for the Criterion Collection in the mid-2000s, Gazzara stated that he believed that Vittelli, who cares deeply about the rather peculiar "art" aspect of his nightclub routines but is faced with patrons who are only there for naked girls and care little about the artistic value of any of the routines, was a double of sorts of Cassavetes himself.
- ^ "The ASC -- American Cinematographer: ASC Close-Up".
- ^ 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.
- ^ Carney, Ray (1994). The Films of John Cassavetes: Pragmatism, Modernism, and the Movies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 230–231.
- ^ Brenner, Paul. "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie: Overview: Allmovie". Allmovie. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
- ^ Lopate, Phillip. "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie: The Raw and the Cooked". Criterion. Retrieved December 8, 2012.
- ^ Hardy, Phil (1997). The BFI Companion to Crime. University of California Press. p. 192. ISBN 978-0520215382. Retrieved December 8, 2012.
- ^ Silver, Alain; Ward, Elizabeth; eds. (1992). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (3rd ed.). Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-479-5