Cast

Ben Gazzara, Timothy Agoglia Carney, Seymour Cassel, Robert Philips, Morgan Woodward, John Red Kullers, Al Ruban, Azizi Johari, Virginia Carrington

Film description

In The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, as he did before in Minnie and Moskowitzu, Cassavetes called on genre formulas, this time the film noir. He used not only iconography (city, nightclubs, strippers, gangsters, night city spaces, etc.), but also a very important theme of the genre – the crisis of masculinity.

Cosmo Vitelli, played by Ben Gazzara, created his own world. The strip club he runs on the outskirts of Los Angeles is a very special place. It is a source of profit, but also his home and small world under his complete control, defined by special rules. It is a place where the show is most important. Vitelli spends all his time in the club, eagerly devoting his life to it. Strangely and as if against himself, he does everything to endanger and even lose it.

Since A Woman Under the Influence was very demanding emotionally for Cassavetes, he claimed a desire to do something lighter and fun underpinned the decision to make The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Instead, he was unable to make his way through the movie, losing his love for the project. From today’s perspective, it seems he may have feared the character he created, recognizing much of himself in Cosmo.

Elżbieta Durys