Martin Scorsese didn't just arrive; he practically burst through the door with a camera in one hand and a stack of Doo-wop records in the other. It was 1967. Most people think Mean Streets was his first real "Scorsese" movie, but they're wrong. If you want to see where the guilt, the grit, and the Italian-American angst actually started, you have to look at the Who's That Knocking at My Door movie.
It’s raw. It’s messy. Honestly, it’s a bit of a miracle it even exists considering it took about four years to actually finish.
Originally, it was a student project titled Bring on the Pie. Then it became I Call First. By the time it hit theaters in 1967 (and a wider release later), it had become the film we know today. It stars a very young, very intense Harvey Keitel as J.R., a guy wandering the streets of Little Italy, stuck between the rigid "old world" Catholic values of his neighborhood and the confusing, changing reality of the 1960s. He meets a girl. He falls in love. Then, he finds out she isn't "pure" by his archaic, toxic standards, and the whole thing self-destructs.
The Catholic Guilt That Defined a Genre
You can’t talk about this film without talking about the Church. It’s everywhere. It’s in the statues on the dressers and the way J.R. looks at women. Scorsese captures that specific brand of New York Catholic guilt better than anyone ever has.
J.R. is a "tough guy" who spends his days drinking with his buddies and talking about movies. He's obsessed with John Wayne and The Searchers. But when he meets "The Girl" (played by Zina Bethune), he's suddenly forced to deal with someone who has an interior life, an education, and a past.
The turning point is brutal. She tells him she was raped. Instead of offering comfort, J.R. recoils. He sees her as "spoiled." It’s a hard watch. You’re seeing the birth of the Scorsese anti-hero—the man who is his own worst enemy, blinded by a cocktail of religion and misplaced masculinity. This isn't just some dusty old indie flick; it’s a psychological blueprint for everything from Taxi Driver to The Irishman.
🔗 Read more: Love Island UK Who Is Still Together: The Reality of Romance After the Villa
Why the Who's That Knocking at My Door Movie Looks So Weird
If you watch it now, you might notice some jarring shifts. One minute you’re in a high-contrast black-and-white street scene, and the next, there’s a psychedelic, awkwardly placed "erotic" dream sequence.
There’s a reason for that.
When Scorsese was trying to get the film distributed, Joseph Brenner, an exploitation film distributor, told him it needed "more skin." So, years after the original production, Scorsese flew Harvey Keitel to Amsterdam and shot a heavy-handed, slow-motion nude sequence set to "The End" by The Doors. It feels totally out of place. It is out of place. But that's the reality of independent filmmaking in the late sixties. You did what you had to do to get your reel into a theater.
Despite these inconsistencies, the cinematography by Michael Wadleigh (who went on to direct the Woodstock documentary) and Richard H. Coll is stunning. They used handheld cameras before it was cool. They captured the claustrophobia of the city. They made the bars and the tenements feel like characters.
The Keitel Connection
Harvey Keitel was a process server when he answered an ad for this movie. Can you imagine? One of the greatest actors of our time just showed up to a student audition and changed the course of cinema history. His performance is twitchy and vulnerable. He hasn't quite polished that "Keitel" intensity yet, which makes him even more fascinating to watch. He and Scorsese would go on to make five more films together, but this is the spark. This is where they figured out their visual language.
💡 You might also like: Gwendoline Butler Dead in a Row: Why This 1957 Mystery Still Packs a Punch
A Soundtrack That Actually Means Something
Most directors back then used music as background noise. Scorsese used it as a heartbeat. The Who's That Knocking at My Door movie features tracks like "The Wanderer" by Dion and the Belmonts and the title track by The Genies.
It’s loud. It’s invasive.
It reflects how J.R. and his friends use music to drown out their own thoughts. They don't know how to talk about their feelings, so they shout over the radio. Scorsese once mentioned in an interview that he spent a huge chunk of his tiny budget just clearing the rights for the songs he loved. It was a gamble that paid off, setting the standard for the needle-drops he’d later perfect in Goodfellas.
The Legacy of a Rough Start
Is it a perfect movie? No way. It’s uneven and occasionally self-indulgent. But that’s exactly why it’s important. It shows a master learning his craft in real-time.
When Roger Ebert first saw it at the Chicago Film Festival in 1967, he called it a "great moment in American movies." He saw the potential. He saw that Scorsese was doing something different—something more honest than the glossy Hollywood productions of the era. He wasn't trying to make a "message" movie; he was trying to capture the soul of a neighborhood.
📖 Related: Why ASAP Rocky F kin Problems Still Runs the Club Over a Decade Later
What to Look For If You Watch It Today
- The Editing: The jump cuts. Scorsese was heavily influenced by the French New Wave, especially Godard. Look at how he breaks the traditional rules of continuity to show J.R.'s fractured state of mind.
- The Dialog: It feels improvised because a lot of it was. The scenes of the guys sitting around drinking beer and talking nonsense are incredibly authentic.
- The Virgin-Whore Complex: This is the central theme. J.R. can only see women as two things. This tragedy is the engine of the plot.
Real Insights for Film Buffs
If you’re planning on diving into Scorsese’s filmography, don’t skip this. It’s tempting to start with Mean Streets or Raging Bull, but you’ll appreciate them more if you see the DNA here first.
The film is currently available on various streaming platforms like Max or can be rented on Amazon. It’s also part of several Criterion Collection sets.
The biggest takeaway from the Who's That Knocking at My Door movie is that it proves you don't need a massive budget to tell a haunting story. You just need a perspective. Scorsese had the perspective of a kid from Elizabeth Street who saw the beauty and the ugliness of his world and decided to put it on screen, warts and all.
Next Steps for Your Viewing Experience:
- Watch it back-to-back with Mean Streets. You’ll see the same locations and similar themes, but the evolution in technique is staggering.
- Pay attention to the religious iconography. Count how many times a cross or a saint appears in a scene where someone is doing something "sinful." It’s intentional.
- Research the "Amsterdam" scene. Knowing that the nude sequence was added years later for "commercial" reasons helps you understand why the pacing suddenly shifts gears in the middle of the film.
- Listen to the lyrics. The songs aren't just there to sound good; they often comment directly on J.R.'s internal monologue.