1967
Written and Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring Harvey Keitel and Zina Bethune
One of the nice things about the spread of DVD is that obscure archival movies are far easier to find than they ever were before. HMV, Kino and, of course, the Criterion Collection have made it profitable to release old movies, meaning that MGM and Fox have opened the floodgates of their libraries as well. For the first time in any film-lovers life, marathoning a director's career is something that can be done from home. While Who's That Knocking At My Door isn't up there with the work of John Cassavettes in the "hard to find" department, it's a film that hasn't seen any widespread release since the earliest days of VHS. Now usually packaged in one of the two Scorsese box sets (courtesy of Warner Brothers,) a whole new generation of viewers, raised on the Scorsese of Goodfellas, Casino, and 2006's The Departed can experience Scorsese's first attempts at film-making.
It's as unwieldy as one can expect, and almost as embarrassing as Martin's performance in Dreams. A film clearly in love with the new wave, Knocking contains about as much intimate black and white photography as it does uncomfortably emotional conversation: this isn't at all the assured and cocky Scorsese that made Raging Bull or Taxi Driver; instead, it's a Scorsese most people haven't experienced before. (Unless they've seen Kundun.) Knocking follows a loosely plotted script that centers on the relationship between it's two leads, a romance begun in a conversation on the merits of John Wayne and ending in a pointlessly emotional rejection. It's a nonsensical film, devoid of the playfulness that made these sorts of stories work when done in French cinema, and the various touches of what made Scorsese such a force in American cinema are few and far between. Interesting only for it's historical value, and then so because it raises the question of whether it has any, Who's That Knocking is a film that didn't need to see re-release. Now that it has, it will probably only appeal to people who enjoy irritating their populist friends by saying that the Departed sucked, and if you want to see the real Scorsese, "you should see..."
Throw them a smirk, and consider yourself in the know.
-Tucker Stone, 2006
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