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One year ahead of Weir's Witness, the virginal eye on the adult world's stabbing complications. A gangland murder in a Manhattan alley is glimpsed by a toddler (Matthew Stockley) who can't yet speak, his mother (Anne Carlisle) is romanced by the contract killer (Brad Rijn) who's being pressured by the Mafia. (The capo rationalizes the assignment to the Vietnam vet: "You dropped a lot of bombs on kids during the war, didn't you?") Playground swings and iron fences figure in a choice suspense set-piece, though thriller elements are largely secondary to Larry Cohen's thorny panorama of precarious homes and gender collisions, filmed on the fly with plenty of candid verve. "So that's what World War III is going to be, the girls against the guys." The ex-husband (John Woehrle) follows his own bruised code, the private investigator (Otto Von Wernherr) is liquidated in a waterfront warehouse just as the cityscape in the distance lights up at dusk. Elsewhere, the best friend (Ann Magnuson) launches into a feminist aria on men and knives: "They don't realize that the kitchen they've imprisoned us in is full of weapons!" A Take Back the Night rally en vérité, a nod or two to Cassavetes' Gloria, the climax from Strangers on a Train shrunk down to pocket size during the boy's abduction. A couple of amusingly blatant songs ("I'm a Shadow on the Walls of the City" and "Mama, Look What the Big City's Doin' to Your Little Boy") contribute to Cohen's gritty-ethereal spirit. Silhouettes on a graffiti sprawl reflect the family in the end, cf. Special Effects. With Stephen Lack, Zachary Hains, Kitty Summerall, and Bill Fagerbakke.
--- Fernando F. Croce |