Friday, October 20, 2023

Movie review - "Who's that Knocking at My Door" (1968) ***

 Full of energy, talent and verve. There's Harvey Keitel as the first in a long line of toxic male protagonists in Scorsese films, with his sex and religious hang ups, hanging out with dead beat mates, tormented by Catholicism, creepy with women whom he treats as Madonnas/whores. 

Zita Bethune is the woman (called "The Girl"). She's lovely. All the acting is good. Funny riffs on John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter in The Searchers. There's long scenes with boorish friends crapping on.

The nude scene, put in at the recommendation of buyers, does perk things up. Scorses learned his lesson - for Mean Streets, which this has a lot in common with (bars, deadbeat mates, madonna/Whores) he added gangters and nudity.

It's very interesting, made by someone with talent, doesn't quite hang together as a feature. I gave it three stars considering the low budget.

No comments: