It’s Wednesday evening here at BCB After Dark: the hippest hangout for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. It’s so good to see you. The cover charge has been waived tonight. We can check your coat if you want. We still have a few tables available. Bring your own beverage.

BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.

Last night, I asked you about your level of interest in free agent left-hander Yusei Kikuchi. That one failed to excite you either way, as 45 percent of you gave such a move a big “meh.” The “yays” and “nays” were pretty evenly split, with 26 percent giving it the thumbs-up and 29 percent giving it a thumbs down.

Here’s the part where I talk about music and movies. Those of you who skip that can do so now. You won’t hurt my feelings.

We’re still paying tribute to drummer Roy Haynes, who passed away yesterday at the age of 99. Yesterday we featured him as a old man—and Haynes continued to perform well into his nineties—so today we have him much younger, on British television in 1966. Here Haynes is backing up saxophonist Stan Getz, along with bassist Steve Swallow and vibraphonist Gary Burton. This is the Charlie Parker-composed tune “Scrapple from the Apple.” So some bebop to take you into the rest of your week.

I know I’m supposed to be working on doing a winter tournament on screwball comedies, but I’m finding the whole thing to be a lot more difficult that I expected. If I do manage to get this thing off the ground, it will probably be a smaller tournament that we’ve had the past two winters. The Cubs offseason is going to be shorter anyway with the trip to Japan. But I may end up bagging it and trying again next winter. We’ll have to see. A big issue has just been getting ahold of the films for me to watch/rewatch without me breaking my bank account. I don’t mind renting one or two, but I don’t get paid enough to rent a ton of them.

But I do have a quick essay on a late-noir, Murder by Contract (1958), which was directed by Irving Lerner and starring Vince Edwards. Murder by Contract is a lean, minimalist and stylish thriller about a professional hit man trying to carry out a difficult assignment. Today, it’s famous for being highly-influential, as director Martin Scorsese has praised Murder by Contract as one of his favorite films and one that influenced him more than almost any other film. You can also see the film’s influence in the films of Jean-Luc Godard, in particular Breathless and Pierrot le Fou.

Edwards plays Claude, a good-looking but nihilistic young man from Ohio who applies for a job as a paid assassin to afford his dream house. Although Claude has no experience as a killer at that point, he quickly proves to be very good at the job. That earns him a trip to Los Angeles where he’s given an almost impossible hit to carry out—the former girlfriend (Caprice Toriel) of a mob boss who is planning to testify in court against her former lover. Billie is surrounded by armed guards 24/7 and Claude has to figure out how to get to her.

Murder by Contract is unusual for a crime film in that there isn’t a lot of action. Director Lerner is much more concerned about the planning of the hit than the hit itself. Edwards, as Claude, spends a lot of time in this movie just thinking. He leads his two handlers Marc (Phillip Pine) and George (Herschel Bernardi) all around Los Angeles sightseeing—just because he really needs time to think. (He also just likes jerking his handlers around.) It’s really remarkable how Lerner and top noir cinematographer Lucien Ballard manage to just capture Claude doing nothing but thinking and make it interesting. Edwards deserves credit for that too.

Edwards has an Elvis Presley-hairstyle in this film and even wears a leather jacket once. His Claude is perhaps the original cool hit man. He doesn’t show a lot of emotion in the film as his character really doesn’t get upset about much. He occasionally gets angry at his handlers, but even there Edwards keeps the character’s expressions in check. In many ways, Edwards’ performance is one that Clint Eastwood could have turned in a few years later. He even sounds a little bit like Eastwood.

Ballard’s camerawork isn’t flashy here—but it’s the kind of thing that allows you to focus on the mundane parts of the story. It captures the idea that most of the life of the hired killer is doing nothing but waiting around. The jazzy soundtrack is quite unobtrusive, only occasionally punctuating a plot twist. And there are several plot twists as Claude finds carrying out the mission to be quite difficult.

You can see why Scorsese likes the film so much. He wanted to put a clip of it into Mean Streets, but it ended up getting cut for time. There’s a lot of Goodfellas here too, about what life as a career criminal does to a man’s soul. Scorsese has even said that Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver is inspired by Claude. I don’t really see that, but I’m not going to argue with Scorsese about where he gets his own ideas. Scorsese would go on to hire Murder by Contract’s director Irving Lerner as an editor and dedicated New York, New York to Lerner after he died in 1976.

Again, Murder by Contract is cool and sparse—like Breathless would be two years later—and like Miles Davis, it pays as much attention to the rests as it does to the notes. It’s a slow burn, but that makes it stand out from so many other noirs made in this time period.

Here’s the trailer for Murder by Contract. There are several copies of the film floating around on YouTube and other sites for free.

Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.

Some news from our neighbors to the north.

In fact, there’s a strong belief that the Brewers will trade Williams. They don’t want to pay his salary and former Cub Trevor Megill filled in admirably as the Brewers’ closer over the first four months of the season when Williams was out with a stress fracture in his back.

So, do you think the Cubs should try to trade for Devin Williams? On the plus side, Williams is only 29 years old and has been an excellent closer over the past three years. Before that, he was an excellent set-up man for Josh Hader. In fact, over his career, Williams has a record of 27-10 with 68 saves and a miniscule 1.83 ERA. He’s struck out a whopping 14.3 batters per nine innings over his career. Last season, after he returned, he saved 14 games and had a 1.25 ERA over 22 games. There’s no question that Williams is an elite closer. On top of that, he’s obviously quite familiar and comfortable with Cubs manager Craig Counsell from their days together in Milwaukee.

On the downside, he did miss two-thirds of last season with an injury, although his injury history throughout his career is pretty good. He missed the minimum ten days in 2021 with elbow discomfort and missed the final week of that season and the playoffs with a fractured hand. The injury itself is not concerning, but how he got it—punching a wall—is a little. But that’s the entirety of Williams’ major league injury history.

The other downside is that Williams is a free agent after this season. Whether or not he’s determined to test free agency, I couldn’t say, but it would certainly be a risk if the Cubs traded for him that they’d only have him for one season.

Finally, Williams isn’t a free agent and the Cubs would have to give something up to get him. I can’t tell you what the Brewers would want in return for one year of Williams, but I don’t think a top five prospect from the Cubs system such as Owen Caissie or Kevin Alcántara is unreasonable. Of course, if you’re convinced the Cubs need to trade one of those two, then maybe that’s not a downside.

So what do you think? Should the Cubs try to trade for Devin Williams?

You can interpret “Meh” as meaning that you’d love to have him but you don’t want to give up what it would take to get him if you want. Of course, that could be a “Nay!” vote too. Let’s just say “Nay!” is a more emphatic version of not wanting to pay the costs. Or just that you don’t like Williams. That works too.

Thank you all for stopping by tonight and this week. We’re so glad to host you three times a week. Please tell your friends about us. Get home safely. Tip your waitstaff. And join Sara Sanchez here tomorrow night for her version of BCB After Dark.