LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Michelle Ridley The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

morrison-dylan-fan Taking a look at a poll being held on IMDbs Classic Film board for the best movies of 1963,I noticed a fellow IMDber mention that they were interested in seeing stand up comedian Lenny Bruce's one & only movie.Taking a look around online,I was pleased to discover that the flick had come out on DVD as a double bill with Joe Sarno's (surviving) debut,which led to me getting ready to see Bruce cause a racket.The plot:Talking to a newspaper reporter,a police captain begins giving details on a case that they are currently investigating-Learning that a gangster who has kept his mouth shut (partly thanks to his tongue getting chopped off!) over where he has hidden a stash of stolen diamonds,is to be released,local leading gangster/dance hall owner Umberto Scalli tells all of his workers that they must put on a special show,so that he can find out where the diamonds are hidden.Following every order given by his boss,"Ice-Pick" Vincent keeps the girls in line whilst killing any clients who try and steal cash from the dance hall.Expecting Scalli to stick by his side,Vincent soon finds out that it is murder on the dance floor.View on the film:Filmed before he had settled on the stand up stage,the screenplay by writer/co-star Lenny Bruce (whose wife & mum also appear!) takes a sharp satirical shot at the dead end pit stops that he was working at,and also gives the title a Film Noir sheen.Sliding the title close to reality,Bruce paints a blunt picture of the dance hall as a place where everyone from the gangsters to the strippers can get pushed aside for some cold hard cash,which gives the title a chance to go down a very good Film Noir route,as Vincent discovers that loyalty means nothing.Despite the print sadly jumping when moments where the strippers show some skin have been cut,director Phil Tucker does very well at building a seedy atmosphere,where every killing that Vincent makes for Scalli ending in a raw short,sharp,shot,as "Ice Pick" Vincent chills the dance.

sol1218 ****SPOILERS**** Worth watching only for the film having the legendary stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce as the knife wielding wise cracking and cold blooded hood Vinny in what was to be Bruce's only movie role. And what a part it is! Bruce plays sleazy dance-hall operator Umberto Scalli's right-hand man whom as "Vince the Knife" keeps things in line in his joint by slicing up anyone, man woman and even pet, with his trusty switch-blade who gets out of line. Bruce for his part has trouble keeping a straight face even though he was the one who wrote the screenplay to this turkey that his utterly brainless unintentionally funny dialogue,"So I killed a guy! Does that makes me a criminal!" comes from.The movie has to do with Scalli using his dance-hall as a cover in smuggling stolen goods, mostly uncut diamonds, into the country by seamen who come there to get plastered and friendly with the young women who work there. There's the usual rivalry between Bruce or Vinny with his boss Umberto over who's running the place that leads to the enviable explosion at the very end of the film. Bruce does his best to stay focused on his part as Vinny by knifing a couple of customers who get out of line in demanding their money back, that was lifted from them by their dance partners, that's so outrageous that it takes a while for you to realize, in how phony them being murdered was, that they actually were killed!Knowing that there's no good going on in Scalli's dance-hall the US Customs Department has undercover Agent Edson go there looking for action as a seaman trying to get contraband into the country and using Scalli to fence it. It doesn't take much for Edson to get invited to this exclusive party being thrown by Scalli for just released hood Victor Pappas who spent 11 years in the can and hid $250,000.00 in gold before he was arrested. At the party we get to be entertained by Lenny Bruce's real life mom Sally Marr as dance-hall hostess Maxine who does a great version of the "Charleston". There's also at the party this really drunk and obnoxious looking character Punchy, with a phony combination Swedish and Irish accent, doing something called the "Tahitian Love Dance" that's interrupted when Bruce, or Vinny, spots Pappas getting a little friendly with his wife in real life and in the movie Honey, Honey Friedman Bruce. It's then that the action in the movie that up to that point was almost non-existent really starts to picks up with the you know what finally hitting the fan at full blast! This gives Bruce the chance he's been waiting for throughout the entire movie to get himself killed off so he can finally get himself out of being in it before it destroys his acting career!P.S As things turned out "Dance Hall Racket" was the only film Lenny Bruce was ever in which convinced him that acting wasn't exactly his cup of tea. Going into doing stand-up comedy Bruce ended up being busted by the police and court system for his off color jokes and dialogue that despite his popularity he ended up broke and in debt living off the charity of his friends and admirers and becoming hooked on hard drugs. The end of the road for Lenny Bruce came on the evening of August 3, 1966 when he was found dead in his motel bathroom from an overdose of heroin that seemed to be more suicidal then accidental on Lenny's part!

dbborroughs Watching this movie is a very bizarre experience. This movie was written by the comedian Lenny Bruce and if you listen to the delivery of every actor, it seems as though everyone is using Lenny's style of delivery for their performance. It becomes very surreal, especially if you're a fan of Bruce and his comedy. This notion of everyone using a similar style of delivery makes me wonder if the film is suppose to be drama or a comedy. Allowing for the lack of production values, questionable actors and Phil Tucker's direction this film seems to be more comedy or satire than drama. The situations and dialog are very close to some of Bruce's longer comedy routines where he spun out bizarre tales from Hollywood movies or from stereotypical situations. Could Dance Hall Racket have been intended as a send up of gangster films that instead was taken seriously by its director? (Then again maybe Lenny couldn't write anything that wasn't funny).For the record this movie is about a smuggling ring run out of a dance hall. Its also a better movie if you take it as a comedy rather than as a drama, though it cheapness of manufacture diminishes the experience.

madsagittarian This endearing sleaze classic is another "film a clef" from the Grade Z mastermind of ROBOT MONSTER, BROADWAY JUNGLE and CAPE CANAVERAL MONSTERS. This pulpy exposé film is best known for the casting of the notorious Lenny Bruce and his wife Honey Harlowe, but actually they're secondary characters in this "dance hall". Lenny plays the henchman of the gangster-owner, slapping around anyone who tries to double-cross this dubious entrepreneur.All things "Tucker-ian" are in abundance here: non-existent art direction (check out when customers want "to go to Hawaii", which basically means having some crummy palm tree put in front of their table while a dance hall girl smooches with them; that's the best set decoration in the entire film); badly overacted performances which go to the realm of baroquely cartoonish; impossibly dreary single-take medium-long shots in which you can view all the non-decor and the non-actors; and spare, washed-out cinematography only rivalled by Dreyer.But also, DANCE HALL RACKET is perhaps Phil Tucker's most structurally challenging film. Not bad for a movie taking place entirely in a shabby set with three tables, a cramped generic office and a back alley (these limited locations also compliment the stagnant lives of their inhabitants). This "complex meta-narrative" operates on several planes at once. The time-old tradition of having a wraparound story is in effect here, as one detective explains to another that "shocking story" of all the crime and corruption in this dance hall, where we view scenes the detectives couldn't possibly have known, much less been a part of. Despite the known presences of Bruce, Honey, and everyone's favourite world-weary bad guy Timothy Farrell, there are really no major characters. Even the eccentric customers "wanting to go to Hawaii" take equal precedence. There is really no plot in this impressionistic study, despite the faint whispers of racketeering. I've only ever seen this movie on the video offered by Something Weird, and that print more than a few times has some small scenes repeated. Evidently, the reels were mixed up and someone stopped it, put the right one on and kept going. But leaving these moments in adds another bizarre touch to the screwy narrative. It's as confounding as anything by Alain Resnais.By the same token, the latter incident is a classic example of how Tucker's filmography is in disrepair. Isn't it sadly ironic that the most well-preserved film in his legacy is ROBOT MONSTER... the film over which he threatened to commit suicide? Otherwise, the only remnants I've ever seen of Tucker's work come from some tattered composite prints. Phil Tucker is perhaps the last undiscovered country of Grade Z filmmaking. I mean, even Andy Milligan had a book written about him! Little exists in print about Mr. Tucker, and perhaps there are a few more films signed by him, that are collecting dust somewhere that need to be found. Because of his poverty row films, and the enigma surrounding their creator, his legacy remains a fascinating one.