Kael — Mean Streets review (1973)

Pauline Kael, The New Yorker, 8 October 1973. Reprinted on Scraps from the Loft; The New Yorker's own archive blocks this site's fetcher. The Reel library has the review only second-hand, quoted in the Companion (smc 371) and by Ebert.

Good for

Proof of what the film looked like to the most influential American critic in the week it opened. It is the review usually credited with launching Scorsese, and it is still one of the best descriptions of the film: it notices the music, the look, the Catholicism and the two-man structure in one go.

What she actually says

The opening sentence, and the most quoted:

Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets is a true original of our period, a triumph of personal filmmaking.

On Charlie, in a sentence Ebert later quoted:

The clearest fact about Charlie (Harvey Keitel), junior member of a Mafia family—and, in a non-literal sense, the autobiographical central figure—is that whatever he does in his life, he's a sinner.

On the look: "It has its own hallucinatory look; the characters live in the darkness of bars, with lighting and color just this side of lurid." See Mean Streets — Tony's bar.

On the sound: "The music is the electricity in the air of this movie; the music is like an engine that the characters move to." See The jukebox is the score.

On the religion: "The whole world of the movie—Catholicism as it's actually practiced among these people, what it means on the street—is in Charlie's mingy-minded face." See Church and street in Little Italy.

On the two leads: "Keitel makes De Niro's triumph possible; Johnny Boy can bounce off Charlie's anxious, furious admiration." See Harvey Keitel.

Use with care

Every quotation above was checked word for word against the reprint in September 2026. The BFI's programme notes say Kael called it the best American movie of the year, but they report it rather than quote it; this site does not repeat it as her words until the sentence is found.

Films this source covers: Mean Streets (1973).