Allen Baron in Blast of Silence (1961)
Vitals
Allen Baron as Frankie Bono, misanthropic Mafia hitman
New York City, Christmas 1959
Film: Blast of Silence
Release Date: March 20, 1961
Director: Allen Baron
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Time to kill. 24 hours to stay faceless in the crowd. Get yourself lost in the city. Lose yourself in the Christmas spirit with the rest of the suckers.
I love Christmas movies—whether bona fide holiday classics like It’s a Wonderful Life, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, or White Christmas, schlocky made-for-Hallmark holiday romances, or among of the many great movies set at yuletide even when the holiday isn’t central to the plot (looking at you, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Thin Man, Three Days of the Condor.)
When the Criterion Channel announced their Holiday Noir lineup this month, I was understandably thrilled. A few, like Lady in the Lake and They Drive By Night, I was already familiar with, but I had long wanted to see Blast of Silence, the stark neo-noir filmed guerilla-style on location in New York City during the 1959 holiday season, following Frankie Bono, a lonely killer working for the Cleveland mob who has returned to the Big Apple for a hit. Blast of Silence was written and directed by Allen Baron, who also starred as Frankie after his first choice—Peter Falk(!)—was hired instead for the similarly themed film Murder, Inc.
Days before Christmas, Frankie Bono steps off the train onto the platform in Manhattan, taking in his hometown through a cloud of cigarette smoke while a choir sings “Silent Night”. “The railroad company makes sure you don’t forget you’re coming to town on Christmas,” Frankie narrates. “It gives you the creeps, but that’s alright! Everyone on the goodwill kit, maybe they’ll leave you alone?”
Similar to this year’s The Killer, Frankie’s ongoing voiceover—voiced by an uncredited Lionel Stander—chronicles his on-screen experiences in the context of a primer to contract-killing while illustrating that he’s not immune to breaking his own rules, similar to Michael Fassbender’s narration in David Fincher’s latest film, The Killer. “The sisters at the orphanage used to say God moves in mysterious ways,” he recalls. “Sometimes you wonder if he moved you in to rid the world of men like Troiano.”
His cab drops him off at the Hotel Valencia, a polite enough dump for transients like him, who checks in as “Fred Moore of Albany, in town for a week or less… on business,” and from there it’s the Staten Island Ferry to make contact with his client and begin tailing his target, a sleazy gangster named Troiano:
You don’t have to know a man to live with him. But you have to know a man like a brother to kill him.
As the “danger signals” compound and it looks like Frankie could be growing some inconveniently timed remorse, our born loner is given until New Year’s Eve to complete the hit. Or else.
You have a job to do and you’re an expert. A killer who doesn’t kill gets killed!
What’d He Wear?
Frankie’s Outerwear
Frankie Bono builds his distinctive silhouette by regularly wearing a pork pie hat, the distinctive flat-crowned headgear, associated with figures like jazz saxophonist Lester Young, NYPD detective Eddie Egan, and Egan’s fictional counterpart “Popeye” Doyle (as portrayed by Gene Hackman in The French Connection.)
Though it can share some similarities with other snap-brim business hats like the fedora and trilby, the pork pie hat is characterized by its round, flat “telescope”-style crown that earned the hat its moniker in the late 19th century for its similarities to an English meat pie. By the late 1950s, pork pie hats had generally fallen out of fashionability among all but the hippest hipsters like Young, its cultural image at the time more associated with wearers like Art Carney’s pitiful Ed Norton on The Honeymooners. Given some of the trendier aspects of Frankie’s wardrobe, he seems to see himself as more of the former than the latter.
Frankie’s medium-to-dark pork pie hat features a wide black grosgrain band. Unlike many famous pork pie wearers, Frankie typically keeps the front of his brim snapped down rather than turned up.
Frankie wears a light-colored topcoat over his suit through the entirety of his mission to New York. Made from a medium-weight wool likely colored a light shade of brown or gray, the knee-length overcoat is styled with narrow notch lapels and a large three-button single-breasted front. The set-in sleeves are roped at the shoulders and finished with “turnback” cuffs, decorated with a single button in the upper corner. The coat also has a long single vent and straight flapped hip pockets.
Frankie typically wears dark-brown leather three-point gloves.
Frankie’s Suit and Extras
Frankie appears to wear the same dark woolen flannel two-piece suit, cut and styled conventionally for the era. The single-breasted jacket has a 3/2-roll with the narrow notch lapels rolling over the top button to the center buttoning point positioned at Allen Baron’s natural waist-line. The jacket has a single vent, three-button cuffs, welted breast pocket, and straight flapped hip pockets.
The suit’s matching trousers proportionally rise to Baron’s waist, where they’re held up by a dark leather belt that closes through a single-prong buckle. The trousers have double reverse pleats, turn-ups (cuffs), side pockets, and jetted back pockets.
Frankie wears dark pebbled leather plain-toe two-eyelet derby shoes. His socks are typically black (or a very dark color), though several continuity errors include lighter-colored hosiery seen in some exterior shots, such as his arrival to visit Lorrie (Molly McCarthy) on Christmas Eve or when escaping the Troiano hit several days later.
Frankie’s dress watch features a flat, round white dial attached to an elegant mesh bracelet. Though I haven’t seen any contemporary color photography or footage to confirm, I suspect the watch case and bracelet are yellow-gold.
Shirts and Ties
Frankie rotates through three different shirts during the week or so that we follow him in New York. He arrives on December 23rd wearing a dark drapey sport shirt with large white plastic buttons that fasten up through horizontal buttonholes on the plain front. The neck button is placed farther back on the right side, a convertible spread collar that can be left open or closed by the self-threaded loop extending from the left side. He buttons overt the neck when sporting a tie, a narrow, dark tonal-patterned silk tie worn with a Windsor knot.
As seen when dressed down in his room with the top button undone to show his white cotton crew-neck undershirt, the shirt also has a breast pocket on the left side and squared barrel cuffs that fasten through one of two buttons.
With a day until he intends to carry out the hit, Frankie hopes to spend an anonymous Christmas Eve in the city until he’s spotted by his loquacious orphanage pal Pete (Danny Meehan), who insists on inviting him to a party that evening. He wears a medium-colored shirt that otherwise follows the same design as his darker shirt, complete with the loop-fastened convertible spread collar, white-buttoned plain front, breast pocket, and adjustable button cuffs. His silk twill tie is a similar shade as his shirt.
Christmas… December 25th. You have all of Christmas day to kill. You hate Christmas so much you can’t stand the thought of sweating it out alone in a crummy hotel room.
To relieve himself of this loneliness, Frankie drops in for an intimate holiday dinner with Lorrie, Pete’s sister and his own former flame. Apropos the formality of the situation, he wears a white shirt for the first and only time in Blast of Silence. Unlike the sportier dark shirts he wears through the rest of his mission, this is clearly a dress shirt with its full button-up front, spread collar, and double (French) cuffs.
Tied in a Windsor knot like his others, Frankie’s Macclesfield tie for this scene consists of small medium-colored silk diamonds arranged within a dark mini-grid check.
The Gun
Knowing he’ll need a gun for the job, Frankie is forced to visit the underworld arms dealer “Big Ralph” (Larry Tucker), whose messy lifestyle and laidback attitude turns Frankie’s stomach. “I need a piece… .38 with a silencer,” Frankie orders. The two settle on a price of $350, which Ralph tries to raise a few days later in an attempted blackmail that leaves him brutally beaten to death on the floor of his apartment.
Luckily for Frankie, Ralph had already made the connection with fellow gun merchant Joe Boniface (Bill DePrato) to hook Frankie up with his silenced revolver, though—like Ralph—Joe makes sure to assure Frankie of the trouble it takes to get a silencer. (If this was real life, Frankie would have even more trouble using it, as very few revolvers are able to have their sound suppressed as seen in the movies, due to the gap between the cylinder and the barrel where the gas escapes, unlike a semi-automatic pistol.)
As with many productions that aren’t devoted to firearm verisimilitude, Frankie merely slips the “silencer” over the revolver’s muzzle, securing it over the front of the barrel with electrical tape.
The gun in question is a Smith & Wesson Model 10, though based on the condition and grips, it’s more likely the older model that was named the “Military & Police” before Smith & Wesson standardized their nomenclature with numbered models in the late 1950s. Frankie had specified to Joe that he wanted “a .38 Special”, which had been introduced alongside the first Military & Police model just before the turn of the 20th century.
While preparing the gun, he dry-fires on an empty cartridge from the .38 Special shells he procured for the hit. (Although the box says Remington, the test round that he “blanks” is imprinted “W.R.A.”, for Winchester Repeating Arms.)
After the hit, he disposes of the silenced Smith & Wesson by slipping it into a paper bag and tossing it into the river from the open window of his rented Chevrolet coupe.
What to Imbibe
Frankie is eager to leave Big Ralph’s squalid digs, but Ralphie insists on a drink “for the New Year,” pouring each of them a shot of Kentucky Gentleman bourbon whiskey. This long-established, budget-priced spirit is distilled at the Barton Distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky—one of the oldest distilleries in the state, having been established by Tom Moore in 1889. Like many others, it temporarily suspended operations for the 13 years of Prohibition, but it reopened after repeal and was renamed the Barton Distillery after it was purchased by Oscar Getz in 1944.
Three days later while spending part of his Boxing Day in a Greenwich Village bar, Frankie orders himself a shot of Cutty Sark blended Scotch whisky. This whisky celebrated its 100th anniversary this year as it was introduced by Berry Bros. & Rudd on March 23, 1923. The whisky was named for the venerated clipper ship that continues to adorn its yellow label.
How to Get the Look
Allen Baron in Blast of Silence (1961)
With his penchant for dark sport shirts rather than conventional white shirts, Frankie Bono adds a mobbed-up mystique to his otherwise standard mid-century business uniform of dark flannel suit, derby shoes, topcoat, and pork pie hat.
- Dark woolen flannel suit:
- Single-breasted 3/2-roll jacket with narrow notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
- Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
- Dark sport shirt with convertible spread collar (with loop), plain front (with horizontal buttonholes and white buttons), breast pocket, and squared barrel cuffs
- Tonal silk tie
- Light-colored medium-weight wool single-breasted 3-button knee-length topcoat with narrow notch lapels, straight flapped hip pockets, 1-button “turnback” cuffs, and long single vent
- Brown pebbled leather plain-toe 2-eyelet derby shoes
- Black socks
- White cotton crew-neck short-sleeved undershirt
- Medium-colored felt pork pie with black grosgrain band
- Yellow-gold dress watch with round white dial on gold mesh bracelet
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
You’re alone, but you don’t mind that. You’re a loner, and that’s the way it should be. You’ve always been a loner—by now it’s your trademark. You like it that way!
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