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One of my favorite film noir is Allen Baron's Blast of Silence, a white-hot tale of hitman Frankie Bono's return to New York after a long absence. Bono's in town to assassinate a mob fool during the Christmas season, but he's unexpectedly recognized by a childhood friend, who invites him to a Christmas party. The cold killer and loner meets an old fling at the party and starts to question his lifestyle--a move that carries dangerous consequences.

It's a fun and reasonably short film (77 minutes) that looks and sounds more like a travelogue of New York than a crime movie. A constant stream of voiceover narration follows Frankie for his every move, mixing Jack Kerouac with Dashiell Hammett. It's just the epitome of cool; which perfectly dresses the action, humor and romance that form the movie.

While it's a lesser-known classic, it's been a favorite among a lot of noir enthusiasts. Many crime/noir film festivals like to showcase the film. Comedian/actor Patton Oswalt is an outspoken fan of the film; he wrote an article about the movie for the noir comic/magazine Criminal a couple of years ago, which in turn raised the film's popularity further.

Blast of Silence was hard to find in the US, back when I saw it, since it never had a proper release. You had to pay up a couple of dozen bucks for some crappy bootleg on DVD-R discs from some collector's online trading website. I turned to Le Video because they always seem to have everything, and sure enough they did. I rented from them a VHS copy of the film that looked like it was recorded off some late-night TV broadcast. But it was still awesome, and allowed me to finally see this film without buying it.

But now I might just buy it anyway.

Criterion has picked up the film and did a brand spankin' new digital remaster, set to release on April 15th. To acknowledge Criminal in having a hand in popularizing the film recently, they've tapped Criminal artist Sean Phillips to draw the cover, pictured below. The DVD set comes with an exclusive comic book by Phillips that adapts the first few scenes from the film.

So no excuses for not checking out this kickass film. You don't have to go for a hunt like I did. In two weeks, you'll be able to Netflix it. Click the DVD cover to pre-order it on Amazon.

Watch Out! is a feature on JustPressPlay where Arya Ponto showcases lesser-known, lesser-appreciated and often bizarre small films that are cool and deserve to get some attention.

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