Mean Streets (1973) A Little Italy Neo Noir

"An impressive early                 Scorsese"

Directed by Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, After Hours, Goodfellas, and Casino). 

Written by Martin Scorsese and Mardik Martin. Cinematography was by Kent L. Wakeford. Soundtrack music list here.

The film Stars Harvey Keitel as Charlie Cappa, Robert De Niro as John "Johnny Boy" Civello, David Proval as Tony DeVienazo, Amy Robinson as Teresa Ronchelli, Richard Romanus as Michael Longo, Cesare Danova as Giovanni Cappa, Victor Argo as Mario, George Memmoli as Joey, Lenny Scaletta as Jimmy, Jeannie Bell as Diane, Murray Moston as Oscar.

Story

Charlie Cappa is an Italian American living down in Little Italy, Manhattan. He's in his 30's, got his own apartment. He's got connections. His uncle is a capo of some local Little Italy underworld family, and he takes care of him. He still goes to confession, but he has questions. Charlie hangs out with Tony and his other goombah's at Tony's Volpe's Lounge. 

Harvey Keitel as Charlie Cappa

Tony Volpe runs the neighborhood dive. Bathed in red light, with a bar and stools along one wall, the other walls are all dark paneled. Black Naugahyde upholstered booths, a small stage where on Fridays and Saturdays Tony has a few strippers. We first meet Tony chasing a junkie out of his men's room. 

 David Proval as Tony DeVienazo

Michael Longo is a small time wannabe wise guy with a lot of rackets. Loansharking, fencing various boosted goods that "fell off the back of a truck," wink, wink, and pulling smalltime swindles. 

                                                      Richard Romanus as Michael Longo                                                       

Johnny Boy Civello is Charlie's crazy cousin who has a wild hair up his ass. He's a goofball. He does stupid shit like blowing up mailboxes. He likes to gamble but he don't like paying off on his markers. With him you just know bad shit is gonna happen, right from the get go. 

Robert De Niro as John "Johnny Boy" Civello

Johnny Boy's cousin, Teresa "hot pants" Ronchelli just happens to live in the apartment kitty corner across the air shaft from Charlie. Charlie and Teresa are an item. 

Amy Robinson as Teresa Ronchelli

By design, Michael, from his window, peeps through the venetian blinds on Teresa who is fully aware of it, and gives Michael a free show. It's part of their kinky foreplay. He's plowing her on a regular basis. Teresa however is quote "sick in the head" aka an epileptic. So that whole Civello / Ronchelli side of the family is genetically slightly wound a bit too tight.

BTW, this is my New York. In 1973 I was a 20 year old Italian American living in Astoria, Queens, but I did spend 5 days a week in Manhattan and my hang out was Times Square. I wasn't that much of neighborhood kid.  New York is big, and I hardly ever went to down to Little Italy and when I did it was usually just as a side trip when I was down in Chinatown. I was eating home made quality, Italian food every day, so it was Chinese usually for me for something different. As far as the Neapolitan San Gennaro Festival, my family were Northern Italians so we never went. The closest similar thing I knew to Volpe's lounge, was Johnnie Jay's under the Astoria el near 31st. Ave.

As the Warner Brother logo fades to black we hear the first lines.

A Voice in Charlie's Mind: You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit, and you know it.

This cuts to Charlie suddenly waking up as if from a nightmare. The room is dark illuminated only by a the light from a window across the air shaft filtering through venetian blinds. He jumps out of bed and walks over to a mirror and looks at himself contemplatively. 

He then goes back to the bed and lays down, and we hear Be My Baby by the Ronettes.

The opening scenes during the titles, look like they are from some 8mm home movies, this is the format where we first shots of Little Italy and the Festival. 

Then we cut to a nice full frame aerial over Little Italy at night, revealing Mulberry Street lit up like a Christmas tree. 

This segues to a toilet stall in Volpe's bar. An addict is shooting up. Cut to the barroom. Tony has to take a leak. 

He heads upstairs to the john. Passes the condom dispenser by the door, and catches the addict in the act. Tony violently pulls him out and kicks his ass out of the bar. This is our into to Tony.

We cut to the lower east side waterfront, under the FDR drive. Framed by two trucks is Michael Longo. He takes a sample of his merchandise over to a 1963 Caddy, opens the door, slides in, and hands over a box, telling his customer that they're quality German lenses. 

The customer pulls one out and tells Michael that its Jap and it's a lens adapter, "you got two shipments of lens adapters." 

We cut to Johnny Boy blowing up a mailbox, then to Charlie walking down the aisle of a church  sitting in a pew in a church. He walks to the communion rail and kneels. 

Charlie: Okay, okay, I just come out of confession, right? Right. And the priest gives me the usual penance, right? Ten hail Marys, ten Our Fathers, ten whatever. Now, you know the next week I'm going to come back and he just going to give me another ten Hail Marys and another ten Our Fathers, and... And I mean you know how I feel about that shit. Those things, they don't mean anything to me, they're just words. Now that may be okay for the others, but it just doesn't work for me. I mean, if I do something wrong I just want to pay for it my way. So I do my own penance for my own sins. It's all bullshit except the pain. [he holds his hand over the flames of the votive candles] The pain of hell. The burn from a lighted match increased a million times. Infinite. Now, ya don't fuck around with the infinite. There's no way you do that. The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart... your soul, the spiritual side. And ya know... the worst of the two is the spiritual.

We cut to a tracking shot along the bar at Volpe's and Tell Me  by The Rolling Stones begins to play.  Michael walks past the bar. 

Two strippers begin to gyrate upon the small stage. 

Jeannie Bell as Diane

Here we get a nice stylistic sequence following Michael as he strides snapping his fingers among the tables stopping by the stage where he steps up, drops his jacket, and dances with Diane the black stripper.  

When he sits at a table he's playing with a match holding his finger near the flame. When a bud Jimmy questions him he explains that a priest showed him this. 

Lenny Scaletta as Jimmy

We next see Charlie sitting by himself thinking in V.O. 

Charlie: You know something? She is really good-lookin'. I gotta say that again. She is really good-lookin'. But she's black. You can see that real plain, right? Look, there isn't much of a difference anyway, is there. Well, is there?

Then two cartons of Marlboro's plop on the table a delivery from Michael, another truck boost no doubt. Charlie complains about the brand, Michael retorts "at these prices." Charlie pays him and then Michael asks him if he's seen Johnny Boy. He is concerned that Johnny Boy is trying to stiff him. Charlie vouched for him and he explains that he doesn't want to have to ask Charlie for the dough. Michael wonders why he hangs out with a jerk-off like him. Charlie tells him its a family thing. 

Cut to Johnny Boy coming ito to Volpe's with two hippy chicks he picked up in the Village at Cafe Bizarre. He stops at the hatcheck girl and tells them to check their coats. He then takes off his pants and asks the girl if she'd check his pants. The two chicks of course laugh. Johnny Boy gives a shout out to Tony behind the bar. 

Charlie sees all this and in V.O. he says to himself that "here's his penance Lord, walking in the door." Then to Jumping Jack Flash by the Stones, Johnny Boy struts down the bar with his arms around both of the babes. He introduces them as Sarah Kline and Heather Weintraub. When Johnny Boy pulls out a bill Charlie starts busting his balls about it and requests his presence in the back room. 

In the backroom Charlie asks him what does he think he's doing. Michael didn't get his money last week and wants it. Johnny boy gives a long bullshit answer about Joey Clams and a poker game he owed money in and how most of his check went to his mother an Joey. Charlie takes most of the rest of his money. 

Just after they get back to the bar Michael confronts Johnny Boy, and as he gets Johnny Boys promise to pay after his next paycheck over Johnny's shoulder he sees Charlie give him an OK sign with his fingers. They all have a drink.

Now at this point get little vignettes in the life of these goombahs.

The film cuts to a restaurant. Here wme find out what Michael does for a living. He is sitting at a table waiting for Oscar the owner. When Oscar appears he tells Michael that he can't make this months payment. 

Murray Moston as Oscar.

Oscar tells Michael that Giovanni might as well take the restaurant. Michael is a collector for his mafia uncle Giovanni. When he ends up at Giovanni's he tells him about Oscar and he asks what he should do. Giovanni tells him to just wait.   

Cesare Danova as Giovanni Cappa

We cut to two high school kids from Riverdale walking down a street. 

They've been to Chinatown looking for fireworks and now they approach Michael and ask if he knows where they can get some. Michael tells him that they are against the law. Then they tell Michael that they have forty dollars to spend.

Michael tells them to get in the car, takes their money, then drops them off near his "stash" and tells them he'll be right back with the goods. Of course they just blow the two kids off and never go back. 

Next Charlie, Johnny Boy, and Tony, hop into Tony's 1972 Imperial LeBaron and go meet Jimmy, at Joey Cartouchi's pool hall to collect on a bet that Jimmy placed with Sally last Friday. Joey tells them he never heard of Sally. Joey then calls Jimmy a mook and they have a brawl that gets broken up by the cops.

1972 Imperial LeBaron 

We also get various crazy incidents at the bar, sequences of Charlie's love life, and more interactions between Giovani and Charlie with Giovani warning him about Teresa "she's sick in the head" and to stay away from Johnny Boy "honorable men hang with honorable men."

It goes Noirsville after Michael confronts Johnny-Boy again after missing another payment and    Johnny -Boy pulls a gun on Michael.

Noirsville

A nice slice of Little Italy, New York circa early 1970s. This is Scorsese's love letter to Little Italy and the eleven day San Gennaro Festival an Italian-American street fair that takes place in September. 

It's based on a Scorsese family story that took place about ten years earlier in 1963. 

All the vignettes that are sidebars to the main Charlie - Teresa - Johnny Boy storyline are amusing and stylistically entertaining. According to Scorsese half the budget was used acquiring the music rights. You pretty much from the get go knew things would break bad. 7/10