Watch The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) Free Online

Release Date: 1976

Cast: Seymour Cassel, Morgan Woodward, Al Ruban, Azizi Johari, Robert Phillips, John Kullers, Timothy Carey, Ben Gazzara

Categories: Movies, Drama Film, Crime, Indie, Crime Fiction, Crime Drama, Gangster

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a 1976 gangster film directed and written by John Cassavetes and starring Ben Gazzara. A rough and gritty film, it is comparable in form to Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973) and indeed Scorsese helped Cassavetes in its inception. The formidable character Gazzara plays was based on an impersonation he did for his friend Cassavetes in the 1970s. The actor and director collaborated for the first time on Cassavetes' film Husbands (1970) where Gazzara appeared alongside Peter Falk and Cassavetes himself. The collaboration of the two men culminated in The... MORE

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a 1976 gangster film directed and written by John Cassavetes and starring Ben Gazzara. A rough and gritty film, it is comparable in form to Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973) and indeed Scorsese helped Cassavetes in its inception. The formidable character Gazzara plays was based on an impersonation he did for his friend Cassavetes in the 1970s. The actor and director collaborated for the first time on Cassavetes' film Husbands (1970) where Gazzara appeared alongside Peter Falk and Cassavetes himself. The collaboration of the two men culminated in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, with Gazzara taking the lead role of the hapless strip joint owner Cosmo Vitelli. The film, set in California, opens with Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara) making the final payment on a longstanding gambling debt to a sleazy loanshark (played by the film's producer Al Ruban). To celebrate his long-anticipated freedom, strip club owner Vitelli has an expensive night out with his three favorite dancers ("Margo", "Rachael" and "Sherry"). The evening culminates in a poker game in which Vitelli loses $23,000, returning him to the debtor's position he had just left. Using the debt LESS