Themes: Inner City Blues, Crime Gone Awry, Down on Their Luck
Main Cast: Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, David Proval, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus
Release Year: 1973
Country: US
Run Time: 110 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
"You don't make up for your sins in church; you do it in the streets; you do it at home. The rest is bulls--t, and you know it." Returning to the autobiographical milieu of his 1968 debut Who's That Knocking at My Door? for his third feature, Martin Scorsese examined the daily struggles of a wannabe hood to keep his morals straight on the streets of Little Italy. Driven equally by his wish to become a respectable gangster like his uncle (Cesare Danova) and his desire to live his life like St. Francis, Charlie (Harvey Keitel) takes on his energetically unhinged friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) as his own personal penance, intervening to get Johnny Boy to pay off a debt to the local loan shark Michael (Richard Romanus). Despite his promises to his epileptic girlfriend Teresa (Amy Robinson) that they will move out of Little Italy once he strengthens his position in his uncle's world, Charlie's involvement with Johnny Boy further ensnares him in the neighborhood. When Johnny Boy decides to mouth off to Michael rather than pay him, Charlie, Johnny Boy, and Teresa try to flee Michael's murderous anger (and an assassin played by Scorsese), forcing Charlie to realize that the rules of the streets do not mesh with absolution. Whereas fellow "film school generation" director Francis Ford Coppola transformed the Hollywood gangster movie into metaphorical epics about the Mafia and capitalism in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), Scorsese revised the genre in the opposite direction, focusing on the gritty minutiae of daily life and drawing from personal memory. Combining documentary-style realism (even though most of the film was shot in L.A.); kinetic editing and camera movement; and expressionistic lighting, angles, and film speed, Scorsese presents an intimate picture of the trivial incidents and latent violence of Charlie's and Johnny Boy's world, naturalistically unfolding their experiences rather than simply explaining what motivates them. They lead a claustrophobic, petty existence that Scorsese and screenwriter Mardik Martin witnessed growing up in Little Italy, complete with a soundtrack of hit songs like "Be My Baby" and "Jumping Jack Flash" that had poured out of neighborhood radios. Mean Streets opened at the New York Film Festival to excellent notices and played strongly in New York but failed to duplicate that level of business elsewhere. Even so, Mean Streets established Scorsese and De Niro as formidable young talents and marked the beginning of a long-running and fertile collaboration that continued in such films as Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), and Goodfellas (1990). Scorsese's exceptional grasp of the texture of day-to-day life, the rhythm and cadences of street talk, and cinema's visual and aural possibilities makes Mean Streets one of the pivotal films of the 1970s, as well as of Scorsese's career, and an influence on such future filmmakers as Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino, among many others. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Review
Mean Streets was not Martin Scorsese's first film, but it was the first one that really mattered, an alternately troubling and exhilarating look at one man's obsessions and at a subculture that other movies rarely examine beneath the surface. Scorsese's fascination with sin, redemption, guilt, and crime first bore real fruit in Mean Streets, and in many ways Charlie (Harvey Keitel) is the ultimate Scorsese character: a sincere Catholic who, as a low-level gangster, has chosen to live outside the laws of God and Man, and who tries to find a penance and personal moral code that will mean something to him. Charlie's inner turmoil underscores the film's every movement, as his loyalties are torn among the church, his boss Giovanni (Cesare Danova), his irresponsible best friend Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro), and his epileptic girlfriend Teresa (Amy Robinson). Meanwhile, Scorsese and his camera revel in the details of Charlie's world, finding a dizzying excitement and strange beauty in the violence, drunkenness, and intrigue of life along the criminal margins. Charlie seems to have one foot in the present and the other in turn-of-the-century Sicily, and the soundtrack, which combines the rickety Italian folk melodies of the Feast of Gennaro with classic jukebox rock-and-roll (drawn from records in Scorsese's own collection, complete with scratches), plays this duality for all it's worth. Mean Streets is packed with superb performances (it made Keitel and DeNiro major names overnight, and deservedly so) and remarkable moments that stick in the memory long after the film is over: the drunken welcome home party, the fight in the pool hall, Johnny Boy's strange little dance while Charlie is trying to get him out of town. If Scorsese's first two films were about refining his ideas and learning his craft, Mean Streets was where he first put the pieces together properly, and the result was the first great work from one of the most important filmmakers of his generation. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Cesare Danova - Giovanni; Julie Andelman - Girl at Party; Victor Argo - Mario; Jeanie Bell - Diane; Robert Carradine - Young Assassin; D'Mitch Davis - Black Cop; Peter Fain - George; George Memmoli - Joey Catucci; Murray Moston - Oscar; Harry Northrup - Vietnam Veteran; Lenny Scaletta - Jimmy; Catherine Scorsese - Woman on the Landing; Dino Seragusa - Old man; Ken Sinclair - Sammy; Lois Walden - Jewish girl; David Carradine - Drunk; Martin Scorsese - Car Gunman (uncredited); Jaime Alba - Young Boy #1; Robert Wilder - Benton
Credit
Russell Vreeland - First Assistant Director, Martin Scorsese - Director, Sid Levin - Editor, Eric Clapton - Songwriter, David Nichols - Production Designer, Kent Wakeford - Cinematographer, Paul Rapp - Production Manager, Jonathan Taplin - Producer, Glen Glenn - Sound/Sound Designer, Don Johnson - Sound/Sound Designer, Mardik Martin - Screenwriter, Martin Scorsese - Screenwriter, The Rolling Stones - Featured Music
The first of the Tex Murphy adventure games is set in the year 2033. Tex is a private investigator in a world that has been marred by nuclear war and many of the citizens are genetically deformed.
Tex is contacted by Sylvia Linsky who believes that her father's apparent suicide was actually a case of murder. It is up to Tex to unravel the conspiracy behind Sylvia's father's death.
This game combines the traditional point and click style of adventure games with video footage and digitized sound to lay claim to the title of interactive movie. The player has the chance to explore a variety of locations, travel around in a hovercar and engage in a few combat sequences.
~ Aidan Doyle, All Game Guide
Review: Overall
Mean Streets was one of the very first adventure games that called itself an interactive movie and was still enjoyable to play.
It mixes the traditional adventure game theme of exploring rooms, finding objects and using them to solve puzzles, with the ability to see digitized images of actors when the player is conversing with other characters. The player has a menu of game options to choose from, such as get, open, push, and so on. They can combine these keywords with objects that are found in the game world.
In terms of graphics and sound, Mean Streets was way ahead of its competitors. It was one of the very first MS-DOS games to use more than 16 colors and also was a pioneer in its use digitised speech and images of real actors.
There are sections of the game that don't work. Flying the hovercar between game locations is mind-numbing and essentially a time waster. The combat sequences are repetitive and not likely to appeal to adventure game fans. Thankfully these elements were trimmed from later Tex Murphy games.
The puzzles in the game are clever and none of them are overly frustrating. The humor throughout the game works well, and there are several very funny responses when you try and make Tex do something strange. The mystery behind the game's storyline is interesting and well thought out. The game's setting is an mix of science fiction and Chandleresque style detection that works well and should appeal to fans of both genres.
Mean Streets was later remade as Overseer and is one of the classics of the adventure game genre.
~ Aidan Doyle, All Game Guide
Review: Enjoyment
A very fun game to play. Plenty of humor, and an interesting storyline.
~ Aidan Doyle, All Game Guide
Review: Graphics
One of the very first games to utilise the 256 colors available in VGA mode
~ Aidan Doyle, All Game Guide
Review: Sound
One of the first PC games to incorporate digitised sound and speech
~ Aidan Doyle, All Game Guide
Review: Replay Value
Once you've finished the game and solved the puzzles, there's not much to do after that.
~ Aidan Doyle, All Game Guide
Review: Documentation
Contains a well written manual.
~ Aidan Doyle, All Game Guide
Production Credits
Produced and Directed by: Bruce Carver; Programming: Kevin Homer, David Curtin, Brent Erickson, Roger Carver; Story and Game Design: Chris Jones, Brent Erickson, Brian Ferguson; RealSound by: Steve Witzel; Graphics and Art Direction: Doug Vandegrift; Graphics: Jon Clark, John Berven; Cinematography: Zeke McCabe; Data Base Design: Roger Carver, Chris Jones, Jon Clark; Play Testing: John Berven, James Slade; Package Design: Doug Vandegrift
In 1997, Mean Streets was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Charlie (Keitel) is an Italian-American man who is trying to move up in the local Mafia and who is hampered by his feeling of responsibility towards his childish and destructive friend Johnny Boy (De Niro). Charlie works for his uncle Giovanni (who is the local mafiacaporegime), mostly collecting debts. He is also having a hidden affair with Johnny Boy's cousin, Teresa, who has epilepsy and is ostracized because of her condition - especially by Charlie's uncle. Charlie is torn between his devout Catholicism and his Mafia ambitions. As the film progresses, Johnny becomes increasingly self-destructive, growing continually more disrespectful of his creditors. Failing to receive redemption in the church, Charlie seeks it through sacrificing himself on Johnny's behalf.
Production
Aside from his student film project Who's That Knocking at My Door and Boxcar Bertha, a directing project given him by early independent maverick Roger Corman, this was Scorsese's first feature film of his own design. Director John Cassavetes told him after he completed Boxcar Bertha, to make films he wanted to make, about things he knew. Mean Streets was based on actual events Scorsese saw almost regularly while growing up in Little Italy.
The screenplay for the movie initially began as a continuation of the characters in Who's That Knocking. Scorsese changed the title from Season of the Witch to Mean Streets, a reference to Raymond Chandler's essay "The Simple Art of Murder," where he writes, "But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid." Scorsese sent the script to Corman, who agreed to back the film if all the characters were black. Scorsese was anxious to make the film so he considered this option, but actress Verna Bloom arranged a meeting with potential financial backer, Jonathan Taplin, who was the road manager for the musical group, The Band. Taplin liked the script and was willing to raise the $300,000 budget that Scorsese wanted if Corman promised, in writing, to distribute the film.
According to Scorsese, the first draft of Mean Streets focused on Charlie's religious conflict and its effect on his worldview. Along with fellow writer Mardik Martin, Scorsese wrote the whole script while driving around Little Italy in Martin's car. They would find a spot in the neighborhood to park and begin writing, all the while immersed in the sights, and sounds of what would eventually appear on-screen.
Once the financing was in place, Scorsese began to recruit his cast. De Niro had met the director in 1972 and liked what he had seen in Who's That Knocking at My Door. De Niro was impressed with how the film had so accurately captured life in Little Italy; De Niro had grown up in a similar area, Hell's Kitchen. Scorsese offered the actor four different roles, but he could not decide which one he wanted to portray. After another actor dropped out of the project, Scorsese cast Harvey Keitel in the pivotal role of Charlie. Keitel was also responsible for convincing De Niro to play Johnny Boy[citation needed].
Reception
The film was well received by most critics; some even hailed it as one of the most original American films of all time. Pauline Kael was among the most enthusiastic critics; she called it "a true original, and a triumph of personal filmmaking" and "dizzyingly sensual".[1] Other critics like Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader said "the acting and editing have such original, tumultuous force that the picture is completely gripping".[2]Vincent Canby of the New York Times reflected that "no matter how bleak the milieu, no matter how heartbreaking the narrative, some films are so thoroughly, beautifully realized they have a kind of tonic effect that has no relation to the subject matter".[3] One of Scorsese's most consistent supporters, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote that "In countless ways, right down to the detail of modern TV crime shows, Mean Streets is one of the source points of modern movies."[4]Time Out magazine called it "One of the best American films of the decade".[2] Currently the movie has a 98% "certified fresh" approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 43 reviews.[2]
Trivia
On DVD, Mean Streets preserves the original 1972 Warner Bros. logo.
Martin Scorsese has a cameo appearance toward the end of the film.
Given his bad experience directing The Godfather, and after seeing Mean Streets, Francis Ford Coppola chose Scorsese to direct the sequel. The opposition of film executives convinced Coppola to direct the film, with a few conditions.[5]
Charlie's voice-over narration is actually spoken by Martin Scorsese, not Harvey Keitel.
In fact no one in Europe wanted to touch the project; the press slammed it and the distributors were naturally dubious to the film's merits. It was Peter Hayden who rescued the project. New to the business, he went to America with a film crew and recorded his early meeting with Marty and the cast which later appeared in the documentary attributed to him, " Martin Scorsese - My Life in Films" which won the Best Documentary at Cannes Film Festival the following year. The story goes that Peter arrived in the middle of industrial action on the film set and Marty and he struck the distribution deal in a cupboard hiding from the shop stewards. The net result was that Peter Hayden became the first independent film distributor in the UK since Gaumont and released Mean Streets and his accompanying documentary as a double bill. If others had helped to make Scorsese's film, it was Hayden's tireless work that secured its fame, forcing many critics to review the film for a second time and pressing for its exposure which he undertook himself.
