The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Original Theatrical Cut)

The August 24 screening preceded by a conversation with Philip Lopate, moderated by David Schwartz

Dir. John Cassavetes. 1976, 135 mins. U.S. DCP. With Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel, Morgan Woodward, Meade Roberts, Azizi Johari. In Cassavetes’s distinctive take on the film noir, Gazzara brilliantly portrays gentleman’s club owner Cosmo Vitelli, who counteracts the seediness of his milieu with a grinning air of sophistication. When his own fiendish predilections leave him indebted to loan sharks, Cosmo is forced into a choice between carrying out a deadly mission or losing everything. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is presented here in Cassavetes’s original 1976 edit, preferred by presenter Phillip Lopate, who says this longer version allows the viewer “to sink into each moment voluptuously.”  

Lopate writes, “Thirty years ago, when The Killing of a Chinese Bookie was first released, it bombed at the box office, much to Cassavetes’s disappointment. Critics found it disorganized, self-indulgent, and unfathomable; audiences took their word for it and stayed away. Today, the film seems a model narrative lucidity: we have caught up to Cassavetes, the reigning aesthetic has evolved steadily in the direction of his personal cinematic style. Now we are more accustomed to hanging out and listening in on the comic banality of low-life small talk; to a semi-documentary, hand-held camera, ambient-sound approach; to morally divided, not entirely sympathetic characters, dollops of ‘dead time,’ and subversions of traditional genre expectations.”

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership. 

Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission.