Synopsis
Cosmo Vittelli, the proprietor of a sleazy, low-rent Hollywood cabaret, has a real affection for the women who strip in his peepshows and the staff who keep up his dingy establishment. He also has a major gambling problem that has gotten him in trouble before. When Cosmo loses big-time at an underground casino run by mobster Mort, he isn't able to pay up. Mort then offers Cosmo the chance to pay back his debt by knocking off a pesky, Mafia-protected bookie.
Votre Filmothèque
Cast
- Ben GazzaraCosmo Vittelli
- Timothy CareyFlo
- Seymour CasselMort Weil
- Robert PhillipsPhil
- Morgan WoodwardThe Boss
- Al RubanMarty Reitz
- Azizi JohariRachel
- HajiHaji
- Alice FriedlandSherry
- Derna WyldeDerna
Recommandations
- 100
Entertainment Weekly
Gazzara struts like a polyester peacock, playing a doomed nightclub owner in debt to the wrong people. - 80
Chicago Reader
Peter Bogdanovich used Gazzara in a similar part in Saint Jack (1979), but as good as that film is, it doesn't catch the exquisite warmth and delicacy of feeling of Cassavetes's doom-ridden comedy-drama. - 80
Empire
With a heavily improvised script Cassavetes gets the most from his actors, each giving emotive performances. - 80
The Guardian
A film that displays most of the faults of his kind of on-the-hoof film-making - and all the virtues. - 75
LarsenOnFilm
Gazzara is riveting as man who exudes cool and calm—style—while also stinking of panic. - 70
Time
As always, the acting is superlative. Gazzara's Cosmo catches all the paradoxes and puzzles of the character, the wired ambition and the rapture over doom. - 70
Time Out
Like a shaggy dog story operating inside a chase movie. Chinese Bookie is the more insouciant, involuted and unfathomable of the two; the curdled charm of Gazzara's lopsided grin has never been more to the point. - 60
CineVue
A meandering, almost impenetrable tale of sweaty strip joints and sleazy gangsters.
