At a glance this looks like a U.S. promo for the classic Martin Scorsese drama Mean Streets, but the U.S. promo is not nearly this artful. This is the Italian locandina painted by Luciano Crovato, with centerfold Jean Bell prominent in the composition. The movie played in Italy as Mean Streets – Domenica in chiesa, lunedì all’inferno. There isn’t much we can tell you about something so extensively analyzed, praised, and ranked. You get an improving director honing the visual and storytelling themes he would return to over and over. You get talents De Niro and Keitel flexing the abilities that would later lead to stunning performances such as in Raging Bull and Bad Lieutenant. In De Niro you see an archetype of the self-destructive, hard-headed, confoundingly obtuse wannabe alpha male you’ve seen in scores of movies. In Keitel you see a Catholic, low level mafia footsoldier struggling with the idea of sin. You see a Big Apple that hadn’t yet glossed over its scabs in the urban renewal wave of the ’90s. But mostly you see an atmospheric, dark, kinetic thriller set in the enclave of Little Italy that stands up well even half a century later. Mean Streets, after premiering in October 1973 in the U.S., opened in Italy today in 1975.
