'Blast of Silence': Psychotronic noir

I can't think about Allan Baron's 1961 Blast of Silence without thinking of Cleveland, even though not a frame of the film takes place or was shot there. But the film's hitman anti-hero, "Baby Boy" Frankie Bono (played with note-perfect inarticulate inexpressiveness by Baron himself), is, as Lionel Stander's narrator notes, "out of Cleveland," and this bit of info was sufficient to compel a small coterie of film freaks from that burg to even-more-fanatically embrace a film they would have loved anyway.

One Cleveland expat of my acquaintance who was probably the film's biggest critical champion in the '80s was Michael Weldon. The first version of his Psychotronic magazine—a photocopied weekly television guide—had folded, but his book, The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, was gaining cred among putatively legit film critics. I don't recall the precise circumstances under which we met, but I do know it was through Katya Pendill, who was rooming with my friend and partner-in-Jersey-rock-criticism Rosemary Passantino. Aside from movie madness, Weldon and I had a lot of acquaintances in common, mostly from the music scene, including the then-Feelies drummer Anton Fier, another Cleveland transplant, who would title a Golden Palominos album Blast of Silence/Axed My Baby For A Nickel in 1987.

As it happens, Blast is not cited in The Psychotronic Encyclopedia, but when it came up in conversation, guys like Weldon and Fier would discuss it in hushed, reverent tones. Like the Druids of Spinal Tap's "Stonehenge," nobody seemed to know what Blast was or where it came from (there was no IMDB around then to tell us that Baron had gone on to a successful but relatively anonymous television directing career)...or even whether that was really Lionel Stander voicing that fantastic second-person narration: "You're relaxed now, your hands are cold." Or at least what I had to take on faith was the fantastic second-person narration, as I had never seen the film, and apparently the only way to see it was when and if it popped up in the graveyard shift of an obscure local television station.

But around this time the home video revolution was occurring, and creating a new underground network of film collectors. These were guys (always guys) who would pore over the television listings of local stations within a hundred mile radius—or whatever they were comfortable with, sometimes more—and when they came across a picture they absolutely had to have, they'd lug their big, bulky VCR into their car, drive out to a motel, check in, hook the deck to the motel's television, and tape the film. It was via this method that I acquired my very first copy of Blast of Silence back around 1986. A Betamax copy, of course, because Betamax was the format of serious people.

It was every bit as strange and wondrous as Weldon (through whose good offices I got the tape in the first place) and company claimed it was, and while the wonderful new Criterion disc brings both the film and Baron out into the light of day, as it were—Baron hosts a great documentary about the New York locations of the film, and his own history—the movie itself still has the unsettling feel of an out-of-time, one-of-a-kind artifact. Rather like Herk Harvey's 1962 undead-of-the-Midwest classic Carnival of Souls—another Psychotronic fave, one that made the book ("Required viewing")—itself also a Criterion disc. Or also, come to think of it, Romero's first Night of the Living Dead from 1968. American independent genre films often have this haunting, weird, simultaneously plugged-in and free-floating quality. It was one of the things that the lover of the kind of film's that I'll always call "Psychotronic" came to cherish.

I tried getting in touch with Weldon, who very intermittently publishes a second Psychotronic mag and kinda-sorta maintains a website for it, for the purposes of this post, but haven't been able to scare him up. He was a taciturn, droll fellow who, among other things, introduced me to Ghoulardi many, many years before Paul Thomas Anderson was, well, out of high school. He was an incredible repository of knowledge and passion, but his approach to movies was anything but hifalutin. I remember engineering a meeting between him and David Edelstein back when Edelstein was second to Hoberman at the Village Voice. Everything was smooth during the viewing sessions—Michael had brought some then-rare Ray Dennis Steckler and Russ Meyer stuff, if I recall correctly—but conversation was slightly awkward. I'll never forget the look on Michael's face when Edelstein earnestly asked him, "What do you think of body horror?"

In any case, I do miss him. And although the Criterion disc is well worth buying and cherishing, a part of me—probably a silly part—misses the time when stuff like this was circulated like samizdat rather than long-tail consumer goods...

Comments

[swhitty]

Nice appreciation, Glenn, particularly of MJW.

I never met him, but spoke to him several times on the phone and he was always enthusiastic, pushing whatever his love of the moment (Brazilian horror, first time I interviewed him) was. A smart advocate for Cle punk, horror pics and activist politics.

I remember first discovering "Psychotronic" in the early '80s, part of this whole vibrant punk/exploitation/cheap rent/East Village culture that's since been gentrified into non-existence. What a thrill to find a publication that actually seemed to speak to all of my guilty pleasures, from Pere Ubu to Barbara Steele.

I think the magazine is gone though -- they had problems with getting money from advertisers and distributors, and I don't think the web site's been updated in months. I really miss it.

It's a particular blow because I first started reading about film through monster mags like "Famous Monsters" or "Castle of Frankenstein" (a radical-manque rag that once named the Vietnam War as "horror film of the year"). Both gone now, of course, as is the excellent Scarlet Street.

I know, I know -- there are websites all over now covering the same material. But I miss these wonderful voices -- and the anticipation of waiting, waiting, waiting for the always irregularly published issues.

[Dan]

I'm incredibly excited for this disc. Your appreciation of those film enthusiasts with their video recorders really emphasizes to me why we need labels like Criterion and why I hate BitTorrents: you'd never find "Blast of Silence" or "Swamp Water" or "Mr. Freedom" on these.

[Axel]

Regarding Mike Weldon...

I never met the guy, but we became sort of pen pals in the early 90´s. I used to send him tapes of obscure argentinian horror films, way before DVD. He was and is a big influence. Also, he introduced me to Frank Henenlotter and John Waters. I don´t mean the films, but the guys themselves.
I´ll grateful to him forever - his books and mags are pure joy. The guy is an unsung hero.

[Jeff Siegrist]

Really enjoyed this article. Michael Weldon is great - hes truly an inspiration to fans of obscure cult films and really broke ground in the serious study of them. Most websites dedicated to the more esoteric cinema fare would probably not exist without him. As a fanzine publisher myself, hes been very influential on my work. Theres definitely a difference between the internet and publishing your own work - which is why I choose the later, despite the growing difficulties.

"Blast of Silence" is great (I'm really glad its finally on DVD - from Criterion nonetheless) and I see what everyone is saying about the video networks. I got into these films right before the DVD and file sharing revolutions took place. Theres definitely a sense of satisfaction after working hard to see an obscure title you read a blurb about in some publication. Still, it is very nice to have all these lost and forgotten masterpieces getting mass release and hopefully finding the audience they deserve.

[bill]

"American independent genre films often have this haunting, weird, simultaneously plugged-in and free-floating quality."

Well put. I just watched "Blast of Silence" over the weekend, and saw "Carnival of Souls" many, many years ago, and you nicely sum up the strange vibe given off by both films.

And I liked "Blast of Silence", although the weight of expectation might have been a little too great. Actually, my biggest problem might actually be that I simply wanted more Larry Tucker, even a whole movie about that character.

Even so, it's an extremely interesting crime film.