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Harvey Keitel, Scorsese’s favorite leading man before Robert De Niro, plays J.R., an unemployed man living in Little Italy. He pretty much just hangs around with his buddies in their favorite lounge, their discussions routinely leading to hot-headed pushing and shoving. Throughout the film there are flashbacks of scenes between J.R. and a woman known only as The Girl, played by the beautiful Zina Bethune. Their meeting is showcased; J.R. joins her on a bench and becomes interested in the French magazine she is reading. From there on their relationship is only explored in small details, we see them discussing “Rio Bravo” or walking across building rooftops. The bigger events in the beginning of their relationship are unimportant, Scorsese aims to suggest that it’s always the little things that are most longed for in the aftermath of a failed relationship.

There are some very memorable sequences in the film, like a minutes-long fantasy scene between J.R. and a nameless woman, where the bed is the centerpiece of a large and empty loft. This is a surreal scene in stark contrast of an earlier scene in The Girl’s bedroom, a scene with stark intimacy provided by the close-ups of delicate embraces and hair brushing lightly brushing faces. Scorsese is elaborating on how he sees the differences between a woman and a broad, both with their own qualities. The broad is a source of adventure; the woman is a source of security. They conflict in J.R.’s mind like most men and are a point of frustration for many of Scorsese’s future characters, from mob foot soldiers to Jesus Christ.

“Who’s That Knocking at My Door” is far from being a great film, but the movie Scorsese has made in his debut is at a quality that most filmmakers try to achieve their entire careers. It was released in 1967 and went by mostly under the radar; it was still a few years shy of Scorsese’s first real entrance to prominence and cinematic relevance with “Mean Streets.”

It’s an intensely personal story that serves as homage to the director’s inspirations, a good portion of the dialogue discussing John Wayne, before becoming throughout the next four decades one of cinema’s most influential filmmakers of all time.

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originally posted: 08/23/04 07:15:32
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