Mean Streets

2 Cast

For other uses, see Mean Streets (disambiguation).

Harvey Keitel as Charlie

Mean Streets is a 1973 crime lm directed by Martin

Scorsese and co-written by Scorsese and Mardik Martin. The lm stars Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. It
was released by Warner Bros. on October 2, 1973. De
Niro won the National Society of Film Critics award for
Best Supporting Actor for his role as John Johnny Boy
Civello.

Robert De Niro as Johnny Boy

David Proval as Tony
Amy Robinson as Teresa
Richard Romanus as Michael

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
signicant.

Cesare Danova as Giovani

Victor Argo as Mario
George Memmoli as Joey
Lenny Scaletta as Jimmy
Jeannie Bell as Diane

Murray Mosten as Oscar

Plot

David Carradine as Drunk

Robert Carradine as Boy With Gun

Charlie (Harvey Keitel) is a young Italian-American man

who is trying to move up in the local New York Maa but
is hampered by his feeling of responsibility towards his
reckless friend, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), a smalltime gambler who owes money to many loan sharks.
Charlie works for his uncle, Giovanni (Cesare Danova),
the local caporegime, mostly collecting debts. He is also
having a secret aair with Johnny Boys cousin, Teresa
(Amy Robinson), who has epilepsy and is ostracized because of her conditionespecially by Charlies uncle.

Lois Walden as Jewish Girl

Harry Northup as Soldier
Martin Scorsese as Henchman

3 Production

Charlie is torn between his devout Catholicism and his

Maa ambitions. As the lm progresses, Johnny becomes
increasingly self-destructive and disrespectful of his creditors. Failing to receive redemption in the church, Charlie
seeks it through sacricing himself on Johnnys behalf.

Apart from his rst actual feature, Whos That Knocking

at My Door, and a directing project given him by early independent maverick Roger Corman, Boxcar Bertha, this
was Scorseses rst feature lm of his own design. Director John Cassavetes told him after he completed Boxcar Bertha: Youve just spent a year of your life making
a piece of shit. This inspired Scorsese to make a lm
about his own experiences.[2] Cassavetes told Scorsese
he should do something like Whos That Knocking At My
Door, which Cassavetes had liked, and then came Mean
Streets, which was based on actual events Scorsese saw almost regularly while growing up in New York Citys Little
Italy.

At a bar, a local loan shark named Michael (Richard Romanus) comes looking for Johnny to pay up, but to his
surprise, Johnny insults him. Michael lunges at Johnny,
who retaliates by pulling a gun on him. After a tense
stando, Michael walks away, and Charlie and Johnny
decide to leave town for a brief period with Teresa. After a calm getaway by car, the trio is eventually pursued
by Michael and his henchman, in another car. The henchman res shots at Charlies car, hitting Johnny in the neck
and Charlie in the hand, causing Charlie to crash the car.
The lm ends with an ambulance and police arriving at
the scene, and paramedics take them away.

The screenplay for the movie initially began as a continuation of the characters in Whos That Knocking. Scorsese changed the title from Season of the Witch to Mean
Streets, a reference to Raymond Chandler's essay "The
1

Simple Art of Murder", wherein Chandler 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 lm
if all the characters were black. Scorsese was anxious to
make the lm so he considered this option, but actress
Verna Bloom arranged a meeting with potential nancial 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 lm. The blacksploitation suggestion was to come to
nothing when funding from Warner Bros. allowed him to
make the lm as he intended with Italian characters.[3]
According to Scorsese, the rst draft of Mean Streets
focused on Charlies religious conict and its eect on
his worldview. Along with fellow writer Mardik Martin, Scorsese wrote the whole script while driving around
Little Italy in Martins car. They would nd a spot in the
neighborhood to park and begin writing, all the while immersed in the sights and sounds of what would eventually
appear onscreen.
Once the nancing was in place, Scorsese began to recruit
his cast. De Niro had met the director in 1972 and liked
what he had seen in Whos That Knocking at My Door.
De Niro, who had grown up on Bleecker Street, Little
Italys northern boundary at the time, was impressed with
how the lm had so accurately captured life in Little Italy.
Scorsese oered the actor four dierent 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. Scorsese himself plays the gunman who shoots at
Charlie and Johnny Boy from Michaels car.

EXTERNAL LINKS

a 98% Certied Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[9]

James Gandolni, when asked on Inside the Actors Studio
(season 11, episode 2) what lms most inuenced him,
cited Mean Streets among them and said he watched the
lm four times in a row.

5 American Film Institute recognition

AFIs 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary
Edition) Nominated lm

6 Home media
Mean Streets was released on VHS and Betamax in 1985.
Mean Streets was released on Blu-ray for the rst time
on April 6, 2011 in France.[10] It has since received an
American release on Blu-ray as well.

7 References
[1] Gleiberman, Owen (April 23, 2004). Gross Oversights.
Entertainment Weekly.
[2] Brown, Mick (March 7, 2010). Martin Scorsese interview for Shutter Island. The Daily Telegraph (London).
[3] http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/2011/11/
mean_streets_wa.php
[4] Kael, Pauline (1991). 5001 Nights at the Movies. New
York: Holt Paperbacks. p. 473. ISBN 0-8050-1367-9.
[5] Mean Streets. The Chicago Reader

Reception

[6] Canby, Vincent. Oct. 3, 1973. Movie review - Mean

Streets (1973) The New York Times
[7] Mean Streets :: rogerebert.com :: Great Movies Chicago

The lm was well received by most critics; some even

Sun-Times
hailed it as one of the most original American lms of
all time. Pauline Kael was among the most enthusiastic [8] Mean Streets (1973) Time Out London
critics: she called it a true original, and a triumph of [9] Mean Streets (1973) Rotten Tomatoes
personal lmmaking and dizzyingly sensual.[4] Other
critics like Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader said the [10] Mean Streets Blu-ray (France)". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved
2013-02-28.
acting and editing have such original, tumultuous force
[5]
that the picture is completely gripping. Vincent Canby
of The New York Times reected that no matter how
bleak the milieu, no matter how heartbreaking the nar- 8 External links
rative, some lms are so thoroughly, beautifully realized
they have a kind of tonic eect that has no relation to
Mean Streets at the Internet Movie Database
the subject matter.[6] One of Scorseses most consistent
Mean Streets at AllMovie
supporters, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote:
In countless ways, right down to the detail of modern TV
Mean Streets at the TCM Movie Database
crime shows, Mean Streets is one of the source points of
[7]
modern movies. Time Out magazine called it one of
Mean Streets at Rotten Tomatoes
the best American lms of the decade.[8] The lm holds

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