The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
- Directed by
- John Cassavetes
- Genre
- drama film, crime film, art film
- Country
- United States
- Runtime
- 2h 15m
- Rated
- R
- Rating
- 7.0 of 10 from 296 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
A strip club owner owes a gambling debt to mobsters. They force him to commit a murder to pay it off. He struggles to navigate the violent underworld while trying to protect his club.
grittyrawmelancholicslow-burnbleaktensecharacter-drivenunsettlingvisceral
What happens
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a 1976 American crime film, written and directed by John Cassavetes and starring Ben Gazzara. 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. 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. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
Mikey and Nicky (1976)
The Death Collector (1976)
Cat Murkil and the Silks (1976)
Crunch (1976)
Diary of the Dead (1976)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Breaking Point (1976)
Network (1976)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.