Christopher Walken's Frank White is a spectral presence in Abel Ferrara's gorgeous gangster film. He's a wraith, recently exorcised from Sing-Sing prison, who attracts an almost fanatical level of loyalty from his grinning subordinates - including a never better Larry Fishburne as two-fisted stick-up artist Jimmy Jump. Quite apparently this pallid mob boss is a long established rallying point for the up-and-coming criminals who fail to meet the recruitment requirements of the racially segregated syndicates that otherwise rule the city's drug trade. This King of New York is tall and narrow; he betrays a searching, reptilian demeanour with a shock of hair permanently blasting away from his temples. People flock to this phantom though, and not just the lost boy crews looking for a figurehead.
White moves and shakes across his island's entire social strata, equally at home in resplendent dining rooms gently manipulating local dignitaries as he is staring into space in one of cinematographer Bojan Bazelli's smoked-out crack dens. Fresh from his Hudson Line lock-up, and consolidating his power base, White sends Paul Calderón's Joey Dalesio, a wavering consigliere, to sit in a cinema alongside a chatty Triad boss watching FW Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. We see glimpses of Max Schreck's verminous Count Orlok creeping across the decks of a schooner, preying on a startled sailor. This mocking insinuation from Joey Chin's drug smuggler, presumably arranged within the context of the film as a power play designed to ridicule his absent rival, does have deeper merit than a simple jab.
White is vampiric. Beyond his lifeless countenance and an affinity for the night, it's clear that he bewitches everyone he encounters, charming them with a directness that is itself rooted in a strange, complicated morality. He's Midtown Manhattan's very own prince of darkness. Like Dracula, he even has three brides, all unwavering in their loyalty. Theresa Randle's Raye and Carrie Nygren's Melanie are his bodyguards, never far from his side and willing to place their own bodies between White and bullets, while Janet Julian's Jennifer is his greatest treasure: a successful upper-middle class attorney whose very presence implies some level of propriety. Unlike his rivals in the city's law enforcement, who argue over a wife at her own wedding, White isn't possessive. These women pursue extracurricular entanglements with a variety of other men. Their fluid sexuality an extension of White's own corrupting spell.
