both my husband and i are new yorkers--though our heyday was the eighties and nineties, respectively--and we can't figure it out. is it some sort of wildlife preserve? something for birds? i seem to recall something like that out in one of the boroughs but i can't say for sure.
stunning movie, amazing location shoots, makes me wish i had lived in NYC in earlier times.
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"It's better not to know so much about what things mean." David Lynch
My favourite film, I think...
IMDb (referring to the ending), gives us -
Part of the movie was shot during the middle of a real hurricane - the wind seen during the fistfight is not artificial. It was filmed on Long Island during Hurricane Donna (September 10-12, 1960), the only hurricane of the 20th Century to strike the entire East Coast from south Florida to Maine.
Another source (referring to the 2008 Criterion DVD) -
The DVD extras provide lots of entertaining and illuminating material – most notably the documentary “Requiem for a Killer: The Making of a Blast of Silence.” This film features interviews with Allen Baron, decades later – he goes back to all the locations in the film and tells amusing anecdotes about the making of film and discusses how specific locations had special meaning for him. He also reflects on his career as an artist/cartoonist, then sudden filmmaker, and then Hollywood director. At one point, he has a “what-if” moment – wondering if he should have stayed in New York (i.e. if he should have chosen a more independent rather than Hollywood career). Especially interesting for the viewers who just watched A Blast of Silence are his trips back to the film’s locations, such as his childhood memories of the desolate and mysterious scene of the fishing village shooting (it’s hard to believe it’s anywhere near New York City).
Another -
As ever, Criterion’s DVD is meticulously produced. The film transfer will stun those who loved Blast of Silence when all they had was a grainy yet cherished bootleg tape. Also included is an excellent hour long documentary, Requiem For A Killer: The Making Of Blast of Silence, in which Barron — his sharp Brooklyn accent still intact and youthful — revisits the locations and shares some (but by no means all) of the backstory behind his masterpiece. Lastly, the disc offers two sets of still photographs to click through: The first is a collection of Polaroids taken during the production of Blast of Silence, the second finds 81-year-old Baron on the streets and in the Jamaica Bay wetlands, again, this past winter. Both have aged beautifully.
So we know it's a "fishing village" on Jamaica Bay on Long Island, maybe the making-of documentary gives more information.
There's more, it's now apparently The Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge -
Good luck!
The climax of "Blast" takes place in an abandoned fishing village that was known as The Old Mill. It was located on the southern shore of Brooklyn, just west of the Queens border and was visible from the Belt Parkway. Today it's the location of a shopping mall that includes Home Depot, Old Navy, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Outback Steakhouse...
I grew up about a mile from there. We used to go exploring through the marshes, catch crabs and dig clams. We would also go into those abandoned houses.
In 1961 I saw Blast of Silence at the Howard Theater, almost within sight of the Old Mill. During the final scene everyone in the theater sat up when we recognized the location.
Nearly, fifty years passed but the images from the film stayed with me. I often told my wife about the film, but could never find it. Then I discovered this thread and learned of the Criterion DVD. We got it from Netflix and I was thrilled to see that it was still as powerful as I had remembered.
That was last November.
On a hunch I sent an email to Allen Baron and he answered almost immediately. We began correnspondence that has lasted to this day. A few months ago, when visiting New York he called and we had lunch together. He's an incredibly friendly, creative, and personable guy. He is still painting and his work is very very fresh. If you google him his paintings can be seen on his website.
I think that last night's showing on TCM Underground will bring a whole new wave of fans to this newly-discovered jewel.
Good one martini - what did he say about Blast of Silence? Will he ever make money out of it? How did the shooting go?
Sounds like a nice chap.
He's a very nice chap. We sat in Angelo's on 57th Street for about three hours and he gave me a detailed rundown. He made the movie for less than $20,000. When they started shooting he used his own money until it ran out, then he finished with money from a production company. As a result, the production company owned the rights, which they sold to Universal. Universal then deep-sixed the film, giving it no marketing resources. The Universal connection did get him recognized and he headed west for a long and succesful career in TV.
I was lucky. The Howard Theater in Queens ran "B" Picture double features and "A" picures that were ten years old. 25 cents admission. The first run theater in the next neighborhood was 35 cents.
While he won't make any money from the film, per se, I can see him lecturing on the film festival circuit. He's very articulate and has lived a very interesting life. He's a street kid from Brownsville and he learned to ride a horse from Errol Flynn, learned to swim from Esther Williams and directed TV shows for nearly thirty years.
He did say that going off to Hollywood was probably a mistake. In the years after Blast, a new generation of directors emerged in New York. Many of them, including Scorsese and Coppola, have cited Blast of Silence as a strong influence on their work.
If you get the chance, rent the movie from Netflix. There's a documentary included where Allen describes the making of the movie and even visits the locales so you can see what they looked like thirty years later. Most of it was shot in 1991 with interview footage added in 2007. Great stuff.
Interesting factoid: Peter Falk was supposed to play Frankie Bono. A few weeks before shooting started Falk got the chance to play Abe Reles in Murder Inc. so Allen had to step in front of the camera to play Frankie.
Interesting - I bought a German import (I'm in London) 18 months ago just off the cuff and was completely mesmerised by the film. I've been rattling away at it on IMDb ever since, and ordered all my friends (with threats of violence) to watch my copy. Everyone loved it.
I'll get the Criterion just for the documentary.
If you talk to him please tell him I'm the President of the London Blast Appreciation Society (membership about ten or eleven).
But that's just how you like it, isn't it Frankie?
All the best...
wow, martini, i wasn't expecting a reply so soon! thanks for all the info about the location and about baron himself. he sounds like an extremely cool guy, you're lucky to have met him.
i personally read about this film in a book called 'incredibly strange films' when i was around 16. i've been dying to see it ever since and knew that it had been released on criterion, but had also sort of forgotten about that fact. when i saw it was on TCM underground last night i was so excited.
great, great film. i love watching any movies that are shot in old new york, but this is an AMAZING movie shot in old new york. so glad we have TCM underground running these films and getting them a wider audience than they might otherwise have.
cheers!
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"It's better not to know so much about what things mean." David Lynch
Hiya Jinx...
It's great that this film is reaching a wider audience. Over the years it had become a cult classic, but was not available except in grainy video tapes made off-the-air. The Criterion DVD is terrific.
What part of New York are you from?
BTW: Right after viewing Blast we got Killer's Kiss from Netflix. It's an early Kubrick and shows a lot of the style that he would refine in subsequent films. It was made about six years earlier than Blast on a budget that was more than double Allen's. Shot-for-shot and scene-for-scene Blast compares very favorably. In many ways Blast is a better movie. If you love movies shot in old New York, ya gotta see Killer's Kiss.
See you on the message boards.
Joe.