Brand new case. Discs in excellent condition.
John Cassavetes engages film noir in his own in his own inimitable style with The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Ben Gazzara brilliantly portrays gentleman's club owner Cosmo Vitelli, a man dedicated to pretences of composure and self-possession. When he runs afoul of a small-time gangster, Cosmo is forced to commit a horrible crime in a last-ditch effort to save his beloved club and way of life.
This DVD contains the original 135-minute cut of 1976 film and the 108-minute recut from 1978. True to Cassavetes' form, the 108-minute version is not just a simple edit of the 135-minute version. The order of several scenes have been changed, there are different edits of a few scenes, and there are a few segments that are unique to the 108-minute version. The bulk of the cutting in the 1978 version removed many of the nightclub routines that were in the 1976 version.
