Shot over a period of several years and shown under the alternate titles I Call First and J.R., Martin Scorsese's debut feature is an autobiographical look at the conflicted life of a young, Italian-American, Catholic man in early 1960s New York. J.R. (then-unknown Harvey Keitel) spends his days and nights hanging out with his buddies in Little Italy, going to the movies, goofing around, and looking to score with "broads." When he meets The Girl (Zina Bethune) on the Staten Island ferry, she
rocks his world with a shared admiration for John Ford's The Searchers (1956). A blond WASP beauty, the girl is more sophisticated than J.R.'s parochial friends and shows him that there's more to life than the neighborhood. J.R. falls in love, yet he refuses to soil her by sleeping with her. The girl, however, reveals that she is not a virgin because of a date rape. Locked in his Catholic virgin-whore complex, J.R. is disgusted by the revelation, but, after a squalid evening with his friends, J.R. decides to do the righteous thing by forgiving and marrying her. The girl will have none of it, leaving J.R. to sort out his prejudices on his own. Originally conceived as part of a trilogy with what would become Mean Streets (1973), the black-and-white Who's That Knocking already has the acute grasp of daily life, fluid camera movements, and vivid editing of images to music (such as the slo-mo scuffle to the lilting "El Watusi") that would define Scorsese's later work. Despite a successful debut at the 1967 Chicago Film Festival, no distributor picked up the film until a soft porn distributor agreed to release it if Scorsese added a nude scene. By the time, Who's That Knocking was finally released in 1969, with J.R.'s sexy fantasy accompanied by The Doors's "The End," the loose counterculture mood had made the focus on sexual repression seem out-of-date. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
The director, who also wrote the original story and screenplay, hasn't succeeded in making a drama that is really much more aware than the characters themselves.
Problems aside, this film is a fascinating look at the creative development of one of the new American cinema's most important directors and well worth a look.
Like all his films, Scorsese's debut, about an Italian-American youth (Keitel) caught between an affair with upper-crust blonde and the lure of gang life, has strong personal elements; the milieu and characters would reaappear in the classic Mean Streets
A crudely shot but effective film that not only introduced us to Scorsese but several of the themes around religion, love and gender that he's continued to explore even in his more recent films.
In the aggressive self-confidence, the use of rock music, and the perceptive observation, Scorsese reveals an anthropological feel for street life and the attitudes of male adolescence.
Who's That Knocking at My Door? may not have any fluidity or order to it but due to it being made over a period of two years it's not surprising. What you're left with is a selection of scenes, quite grainy and amateurish but really quite impressive even by today's standards. The dialogue is brilliant throughout, with
real thought and heart at the centre. The film never seizes to look good but two scenes in particular stand out; the scene with the guys messing about with a gun, shot in slow-motion to an upbeat soundtrack and the scene with J.R. and the prostitute - a scene added later by order of the soft porn distributor who was the only person to see value in the production. Only Scorsese could take that on and improve an already impressive film. Hints of the amazing career to come and proof that some people are just naturally talented.
scorsese's first feature length film is largely experimental, but the film had wonderful dialogue and possessed a certain charm to it that helps us to recognize the things about this film that are really the roots of scorsese's future greatness. really only truly engaging to the hard core scorsese fan, but the film is
benefited by the short running length and solid performances.
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