Who's That Knocking At My Door (1967) Transitional Drama Noir

Religious Guilt Obsession Drama.

Written and directed by Martin Scorsese. Cinematography was by Richard H. Coll and Michael Wadleigh. This was Martin Scorsese's first feature film.

The film stars Zina Bethune as Girl, Harvey Keitel as J.R., Ann Collette - Girl in dream, Lennard Kuras as Joey, Michael Scala as Sally Gaga, Harry Northup as Harry, Tuai Yu-Lan - Girl in dream, Saskia Holleman - Girl in dream, Bill Minkin as Iggy at Party, and Philip Carlson as Boy in Copake.

This film began as a student short film project in 1965. It originally was about J.R. and his screw off goombahs. Original working title was called "Bring On The Dancing Girls." The romance plot with the girl, Zina Bethune was cut into the original footage in 1967.  This combined work premiered in Chicago in 1967. In 1968 Joseph Brenner an exploitation distributor, bought the film in 1967 with the caveat that a sex scene be added (in a fantasy/dream sequence) giving the product some Sexploitation value. By the way, this was a done with a lot of independent films at the time brought on by three factors. The demise of the Motion Picture Production Code. The "grindhouse" public demand, and the evolving obscenity laws. The addition of Skin could made looser and marginal films at least profitable enough to get your investment back. 

Scorsese shot the additional footage in Amsterdam and edited it into the film that would now be titled Who's That Knocking at My Door.

The Virgin Mary and the Christ Child

la cucina

A beat. Bongo drum. Castanets. Religions iconography. Virgin Mary and Christ Child. The ancient Roman Household Gods transmogrified. They face the ancient hearth, modernized by the magic of man into a wonderful place, in our time called la cucina. The Italian kitchen. The domain of our eternal Earth Mother. Who in this guise is J.R.'s Nona.

This I relate to personally. As it was for J.R. so was it for me growing up as a kid in far Eastern Astoria, New York.  Backyard fence was on border with Jackson Heights. In my case it was my Nona also. La cucina was where you bond with family, eat with family and learn by watching. My Nona baby sat me in la cucina. I know all the quasi rituals, the handed down artistry. and work that go into making real raviolis, capoletti, and agnolini. 

We see the Mama/Nona working dough on la tavola, the table . She's doing it the hard way with a rolling pin. Its the real deal she knows what she's doing. She's making a calzone. Fore readers unfamiliar its a type of peasant Italian pot less pot pie that's sort of an ingredient of your choice, filled in a pie crusty-dough, folded over itself. Think of it as a sort of giant ravioli with the sauce and good stuff all on the inside. Anyway that goes in the oven. Then dinner with Nona and her grandchildren. Its a flashback.

City archetypes. Sidewalks. J.R. and his hoodies are about to rumble over turf with the Puerto Ricans. Chain link fences. To Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels we get a anti cutesy West Side Story. Jets and Sharks gutter reality. Tail Fins. The films titles are edited into the warfare. It's tribal. It's still got a fifties feel. A VW Bug though puts us in the mid 60s. Turf is the neighborhood. Your street. Your block. Whatever you can hold on to. The Block. A butcher shop. Five floor walk-ups over storefronts. The 8th Ward Club a private pleasure club. A low rent wise guy/Rat Pack, wet dream rendezvous.

 8th Ward Club

What a dump. Cheesy wall paper. A jukebox. A small bar. Playboy centerfold pinups art festooned about. Card tables. A card game. A fight breaks out over money owed. One of the players is welching. A smack down. This is J.R.'s wise guy world now.

J.R. flashbacks to the Girl

J.R. zones out. He flashbacks to "the Girl." Staten Island.  He's in ferry terminals public waiting room sitting on a wooden bench. She's sitting near enough for J.R. to see an article about John Wayne in a Paris Match magazine. She notices him and smiles, they like what each other sees. A cute meet. J.R.'s in love. She's his first real girl.

The come on smile

We flash back and forth between J.R.'s "the Girl" flashbacks and his reality with his dopey macho goombahs. He's in the car. A 1960 Ford Thunderbird a genuine pussy magnet. By the Westinghouse Whiteways, the distinctive bar shaped streetlights we know they are heading up town on either 3rd. or 9th Avenues.

1960 Ford Thunderbird - Tail Fins - and The Westinghouse Whiteways

When they took the 3rd and 9th Avenue el's down the City experimented with the distinctive Whiteways as the replacement streetlights (see above). Sally GaGa wants to go uptown to look for five dollar hookers. Broads. Good Time Girls. He wants to get laid. J.R. just wants to have a drink down in The Village. They argue J.R. is throw out. The  wise guy's circle a block and pick J.R. back up. 

J.R.'s flashing back to a make out session. He and "the Girl" at his folks apartment. The petting got hot and heavy, the Girl wanted to go to third base and home,. J.R.'s Catholic guilt made him stop. He wants to wait for marriage. The Girl is truly perplexed.

getting hot and heavy

WTF?

J.R.'a life consists of hanging out with the goombahs and dating The Girl. They do the usual stuff and they go to the movies. They Come out of a theater.  They watched John Wayne's Rio Bravo. The girl points to a poster picture of Angie Dickinson. J.R. tells her that Angie is a broad.  J.R. tries to explain that a broad and a lady are two different things. Broads you play around with but you don't marry them. The Girl says "you don't believe that?" J.R. tells her that he does. 

J.R. and Sally Gaga go to see J.R.'s buddy Joey who lives upstate in Copake. They hang out in a local bar. They go to see the Taconic mountains. Joey gets J.R. and Sally GaGa to climb one. They to watch the sunset. J.R. seems genuinely moved by the experience while Sally's unimpressed. When J.R. gets back he and the Girl have another tete a tete at J.R.'s apartment.

A understandably  "blue balled" J.R. has sexually frustrated fantasy's of loft sex with various "broads". He's handcuffed to a cast iron bed during one of the sessions. Do the handcuff's symbolize his Catholic guilt restraining his sexuality? Probably. These are the sexploitation inserts that Marty shot in Amsterdam. It seems that was an unneeded excess/expense, at least the traveling to Amsterdam to shoot them was. There were plenty of sexploitation actresses and hole in the wall studios to shoot them in, in New York City at this period of time.

It all goes Noirsville  when the Girl tells J.R. about her recent past and a "date rape" that happened two years ago. J.R. with his fucked up moral attitudes, gets indignant and doesn't believe her story. He tells he here that he thinks she made it all up, because the story doesn't make sense to him. In his reasoning a "good" girl doesn't go for rides in cars. The Girl is appalled by his attitude and takes off.

The Date Rape Story

the car ride

the attack

Noirsville

After J.R. drops his double standard bombshell on the Girl we cut back to the goombah's. J.R. is back in his groove cutting up with them at a bar. Then we next see J.R. at an apartment party with the goombah's. They planned a gang bang with a couple of loose broads Susan and Rosie.

The attempted orgy goes haywire. J.R. then decides to fuck this shit, I still love the Girl. So he goes to see her at her apartment early in the morning waking her up. He tells her that loves her but then he blows it unwittingly when, he says that he forgives her, and that he will marry her anyway.

The Girl tells him if he feels that way the marriage will never work. J.R. gets pissed of and calls her a whore. She tells him go home. J.R. is last seen back in a church the cause of  all his problems. He's grabbing at mysteries with out any clues.

J.R.'s ordeal reminded me of the old Cheech and Chong quote that roughly stated "He used to be fucked up on drugs now he's fucked up on religion."  Well J.R. was just fucked up on religion and a double standard morality that basically blew his chances and screwed him out what would have been a pretty compatible relationship with a genuine soul mate.

Over all I don't know, must have been stricter in Marty's house. I'm about eleven years younger, somehow Catholic sexual guilt was a bullet I dodged with the help a more "with it" family, and also with the help of an accelerating sexual revolution. The Rat Pack/Playboy/free love mentality was more my mantra and if you found a gal pal who was into "doing it" and  you had the bon fortuna of a place to do it, you did it. Dig.

J.R. and his buds were kind of the last of the fifties greasers.

It's a good first film for Scorsese. Harvey Keitel and Zina Bethune are very convincing. All the rest of the principals involved do a compelling enough job to keep you interested. 6.5-7/10.