Mean Streets

DVD Features:

Audio:

• Mono - English

Additional Release Material:

• Audio Commentary - 1. Martin Scorsese
• Featurettes - 1. "Back on the Block"
• Trailers - 1. Theatrical Trailer

Description by OLDIES.com:

"A true original and triumph of personal filmmaking" (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker), Mean Streets announced Martin Scorsese's arrival as a new filmmaking force - and marked his first historic teaming with Robert De Niro. It's a story Scorsese lived, a semi-autobiographical tale of the first-generation sons and daughters of New York's Little Italy.

Harvey Keitel plays Charlie, working his way up the ranks of a local mob. Amy Robinson is Teresa, the girlfriend his family deems unsuitable because of her epilepsy. And in the star making role that won Best Supporting Actor Awards from New York and National Society of Film Critics, De Niro is Johnny Boy, a small-time gambler in big-time debt to loan sharks.

Product Description:

Martin Scorsese's electrifying drama tells the story of Charlie (Harvey Keitel), a charming 27-year-old who is supported by his devoutly Catholic mother. He spends his days wandering the streets of New York City and nights hanging out drinking with his good friend Johnny Boy (the terrifyingly brilliant Robert De Niro), a loose cannon that can't seem to escape trouble. Charlie's extreme affability makes him the middle man between his mob-tied uncle Giovanni (Cesare Danova) and various clients, as well as between Johnny Boy and Michael (Richard Romanus), a bookie who has become fed up with Johnny Boy's constant debt dodging. As the city's San Gennaro Festival takes over the streets of Little Italy, Michael seeks revenge on Johnny Boy once and for all.

MEAN STREETS is the film in which Scorsese blossomed into one of the world's most ferociously distinct visionaries, a vision which has, for better or worse, become one of the most mimicked in the history of modern cinema. While his usage of a nostalgic pop music soundtrack, long one-takes and handheld cameras, and brutally realistic performances, spawned a generation of imitators, MEAN STREETS proves that while others may try to imitate, there is only one original. MEAN STREETS is a work of sheer cinematic bravado.

Plot Synopsis:

This classic of modern cinema tells the brutally realistic story of a small-time hood who gets in over his head with a vicious loan shark. In an attempt to free himself from both the obligations and dangers of the debt he incurred, he enlists the aid of a friend who is also involved in criminal activities.

Plot Keywords:

Betrayal | Classic | Essential Cinema | Lowlife | Organized Crime | Recommended | Suspense | Theatrical Release | Vengeance

Production Notes:

• Theatrical release: October 2, 1973
• Shot on location in New York City.
• MEAN STREETS was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1997.
• De Niro's performance as the out-of-control Johnny Boy earned him awards from the New York and National Society of Film Critics.
• Much like Scorsese's earlier WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR?, MEAN STREETS is a deeply personal film that deals with issues Scorsese himself had seen and experienced while growing up in New York City.
• Part of the film was shot in the cemetery of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan's Chinatown, where Scorsese had been an altar boy as a youth.

Cast and Crew: