KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

bkoganbing I doubt very much that if both the director and the star had not gone on to very substantial careers Who's That Knocking At My Door would get too many viewings. But as cheap as it is, it does portend bigger things for Martin Scorsese and Harvey Keitel.Actually the biggest name associated with this project is Zina Bethune who already had a television series The Nurses to her credit at the time she was Keitel's co-star. The advice given writers is also given filmmakers, start with what you know. Scorsese sure knew Little Italy in Manhattan.Keitel is your typical kid from the hood, a lot like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever who takes up with Zina Bethune. But later she confesses an incident in her past and Keitel reacts badly. Remember in Saturday Night Fever how Donna Pescow was treated after Travolta's pals had their way with her. Very similar here.Not sure why she opened her mouth other than Bethune wanted to keep things open and honest. Sometimes discretion is better than honesty.I did love the scene at the beginning where Keitel is actually Scorsese himself dissecting the film they had just seen which happened to be John Ford's The Searchers. That film hadn't achieved the status it has now so Scorsese was a prophet in that regard.I can't say this was a masterpiece, but it sure shows what potential the creator had.

sol- 'Who's That Knocking at My Door' (sometimes known as 'I Call First') - this gritty drama filmed on the streets of New York marked both Harvey Keitel's acting debut and Martin Scorsese's directing debut. Neither one disappoints and Scorsese experiments with an extensive array of filmic techniques, from lethargic dissolves to high camera angles that look down on the characters, all of which makes the film feel very much alive. Especially effective are some shots that voyeuristically track and pan between Keitel and co-star Zina Bethune as he chats her up. The film is far less enticing in the story department though. The basic premise is decent, with Keitel having to overcome some religion-based prejudices regarding the purity and innocence that he expects of Bethune, however, the movie was originally expanded from a short film and it very much shows with precious little else narrative-wise other than overload of scenes of Keitel associating with his friends. Keitel does have quite a curious character though, even if his character is not given the strongest story to work with. He seems unable to talk about anything but western movies with his girlfriend and many of his views on life (whether a woman is a 'girl' or a 'broad') seem dictated by western tropes. There is also a fascinating bit in which still photographs are inserted to show how he imagines himself as a western movie hero, shooting kitchen glasses. Without doubt, there is quite a bit going on in the film, which makes it one of the more interesting directing debuts out there, if not the most satisfying one by far.

Jack Kierski I just finished watching Who's that knocking on my door on DVD and I thought the movie was pretty excellent for a first feature film that was directed and written by Martin Scorsese( one of my favorite film directors) before he became internationally famous.The movie is about this Italian-American J.R.(Harvey Kietel) who lives in New York City.He meets this girl (Zina Bethune) and when he gets into a relationship with her, she told him a secret that she once got raped by a man, and J.R. cannot stop struggling from the secret that she told him.I honestly thought both Harvey Kietel and Zina Bethune played great roles. The dialogue in the movie was pretty good for Marty's first flick.I especially liked the acting. I highly recommend that movie a must see for Martin Scorsese fans & movie lovers.I will definitely give the movie 10 out of 10 stars.I also think that it's definitely worth buying, as a matter of fact, they actually sell the movie on DVD for $3.00 at Big Lots.This movie is such a great American classic.

RainDogJr I imagine someone who watches most of the films by Quentin Tarantino, but not the very first one (RESERVOIR DOGS). Then I imagine this person's reaction when he or she finally gets to watch "Dogs"; you know, he/she will realize, and maybe even be surprised by the fact that Tarantino was doing "his thing" (great dialog with references to pop culture, all with a tasty soundtrack) since the very beginning of his career. Some weeks ago I finally watched the very first feature film of Marty Scorsese. It's been quite a while since I began referring to Scorsese as one of my three all-time favorite directors. I have seen most of his films but until this day I have yet to experience like half-dozen or so, mostly stuff from his early years like BOXCAR BERTHA and ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE. So I finally sat down to experience WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR (aka as I CALL FIRST) and it truly amazed me. I realized Scorsese was doing the stuff Tarantino is famous for since his early days as filmmaker! I was delighted and a bit surprised too as I didn't recall having Marty's characters doing dialog about movies (the ones Marty loves to be exact) or pop culture in general. HUGO doesn't count, certainly, as the material comes from the marvelous book by Brian Selznick (and MY VOYAGE TO ITALY, well, that's a documentary!). Obviously, Tarantino learned everything from films like WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR. I would say this is the kind of film that changed lives - here we have a young Harvey Keitel talking to a girl about John Wayne and John Ford (Scorsese doesn't hesitates to go for 3 or so minutes of talking about Wayne and company, near the very beginning of the film) and later taking her to a screening of Howard Hawks' RIO BRAVO; I can easily imagine a guy like Tarantino totally wanting to *be* Harvey Keitel. In fact, you can read in IMDb that Quentin "screens RIO BRAVO for potential girlfriends as a test of their compatibility". It doesn't seem impossible that he took that from here, right? And well, the whole tribute that Marty did to Wayne, Ford and, especially, their film THE SEARCHERS (cultural gap here for me, I'm sad to report), is simply a very cool and memorable homage. Just like the imaginary person from the beginning of this commentary, I found Scorsese doing his thing since his very first feature. If you ever wondered why Marty has used music by legends like Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones but not by the Doors, well, you just haven't seen this. Yeah, the big connection that Scorsese has with rock and roll began here, with the use of a masterpiece by that great Los Angeles band: "The End". It's true that the Doors' "The End" is synonymous of Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW. But the song wasn't use here in some random scene or anything like that; no, in fact, it's a great and crazy part that stands for itself (and that definitely defines the term "broad"!). Like other debut films, it doesn't have "much of a plot" (to refer the Everly brothers). It's just a very natural work with Keitel hanging out and having fun with other "tough" guys and, on the other hand, getting something a little more serious with the already mentioned girl. Abel Ferrera's BAD LIEUTENANT, by the way, owns a whole lot to it too. *Watched it on 26 August, 2012