In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

I watched Mean Streets a few years ago (which is sort of intended as a sequel to this film) and hated it if I'm totally honest. However, I noticed this film on Sky Movies and seeing that it was a forerunner to Mean Streets I decided to check it out (hoping that it would be better than Mean Streets), but nope sadly it's just as bad....Like Mean Streets this film has a virtually non-existent plot which only seems to kick into a gear at past the 1 hour mark (by which point I was long past caring). Even when the plot is established (what little of it there is), Scorsese never really seems interested in his own story (many scenes are punctuated with inappropriate music and potentially powerful scenes are skimmed by or glossed over in favour of many members of the cast goofing around). In fact when watching this, I got the feeling that Scorsese was like an inexperienced teacher who was in charge of a bunch of unruly kids; he has no real control and just lets them do what they want. I felt that Scorsese's immaturity showed through far too often, but thankfully this is something that he grew out of in later life.Scorsese injects the film with pretentious dialogue and pop-culture references (John Wayne's name is mentioned every 30 seconds for about the first 30 minutes of the film). The uninteresting dialogue is evident throughout the running time, but now after watching films like Pulp Fiction (where Tarantino fuses pop-culture and snappy dialogue effortlessly) Scorsese's effort here seems weak in comparison (although it may have at least proved influential).The characters are barely developed, the romance between JR and the girl is trite and the one powerful moment in the film is barely explored and the religious allegory at the end seems to only exist to try to give the picture deeper meaning which it never really earns through the narrative. Like Mean Streets, Who's That Knocking At My Door is tonally confused and totally boring and even though it's only 85 minutes long it took an eternity to get to the end of the picture.As far as I'm concerned Scorsese's career began with Taxi Driver (a fascinating and involving film) and the likes of Mean Streets and Who's That Knocking At My Door are basically failed experiments from a man that would go on to improve his craft. If you're unfortunate enough to have already watched this film then I would suggest skipping Mean Streets and watching Taxi Driver which will showcase how great Scorsese can be.

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.

was so intrigued to see one of my fav directors first foray into the media... OK perhaps one turns the sound off, it more closely resembles an artsy home movie... BUT the themes, conflicts, dialogue, anguish, and dilemmas definitely compensate with this overwhelmingly emotional experience... and the MUSIC! had no idea Marty started with that quintessential element so early, and being disappointed because his g/f has no clue about Percy! priceless.... related well to the experience with the b/f rage and the helplessness of being raped, still exists to this day unfortunately... seeing the game of SHOOT being played brought back a lot of memories... so many of the characterizations of Roman Catholic Italian American homelife was well captured... Marty your Mom was absolutely beautiful and am delighted that you have continued to include her in your films, adorable! was most shocked to see such a young Harvey in a sensual role, and the splurge on the revealing dream sequence with that level of passion in a first major film role was jaw dropping... apologies but really quite enjoyed that and guess that makes me a bad girl? lol kudos my dear for your level of entertainment throughout my life... xx oo

The promise in crafting an independent feature film in America were richly and passionately exemplified by Who's That Knocking at My Door?, the very first feature directed by great Martin Scorsese. In 1967, whether or not anyone was ready for its individualism, it most certainly declared the onset of an essential new director of great consequence. Without a doubt, Scorsese's ardor-stained debut is at times too stylistically obvious, and it has clear flaws in form, however not a soul who feels real affection for cinema trusts that a perfect one will ever come. What we look forward to in its place are minute rewards of our fulfillment of dreams, love, humor and drama. Scorsese would move on to make Mean Streets, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, GoodFellas, and several other movies that double, triple and demolish the impact this first work, completed with greatly impatient urgency when he was 25, but as with most independent debuts, nearly all of which overstep the bounds of self-indulgence anyway, which has yet to prove a problem for Scorsese, one must be objective with its flaws and not water down its lack of guile. The movies, in their urge to be fashionable, too repeatedly give us a false depiction of corrupt youth and juvenile delinquency and young romance, especially around the time of this film. In Who's That Knocking, Scorsese takes in hand the testosterone overpump of young men on a much more truthful level.Harvey Keitel plays J.R., a classic Italian-American on the streets. When he gets caught up with a resident girl, he fixes on settling down with her, except when he finds out that she was once raped, he cannot come to grips with it. More overtly associated with Catholic guilt than Scorsese's latter pieces, we see what materializes when Keitel's devout guilt complex pulls alongside him.As the movie opens, we cross the threshold into a society of young Italian-Americans in New York's Lower East Side who twiddle their thumbs and hang around and wonder without direction about where the action is. Sometimes they convene at someone's apartment to get drunk, watch Charlie Chan in a dazed state of bemusement and notice one of them who says he knows a couple of girls whom he could call. In this culture, still clearly under a suppressive ethical convention, there are only expected to be two kinds of girls: nice ones and sluts. You try to score with the sluts and you identify the nice girls on an unattainable, romanticized platform.The Harvey Keitel character of Who's That Knocking hails from this world but is not wholeheartedly of it. One day on the Staten Island ferry, he encounters a pleasant, polite blonde girl. They slip into a conversation that ranges John Wayne, reading French, and each other's aspirations. It is an excellently acted scene, a great deal of it shot in one take to keep hold of time as the two survive their awkwardness and agree upon a date.We steadily grasp that they come from dissimilar environments. She is a college student, reads a lot, lives on her own, and doesn't have a TV set. He is hugely nonetheless a part of the neighborhood bunch of hooligans. And then, eventually, when she tells him she isn't a virgin, he is unable to cope with this and he breaks it off. It is a very real concept, a guy not cultivated enough to break from the repressive reigns of his environment even in the face of love.Scorsese has always been skilled at directing delicate scenes, but this early he had certain difficulty with the more conspicuous moments. A scene late in the film, when Keitel goes to a church and kisses a nail on a crucifix and blood drips, is clumsily unnatural. For another absurdly incongruous scene, on the other hand, Scorsese does not merit fault. In order to acquire distribution for his film, he was expected to shoot and slot in a nudie scene to give the film a leg up from the sexploitation approach, therefore he shot a what could I suppose be described as a dream sequence, exhibiting his fantasy encounters with prostitutes. It has the very opposite of anything that could be remotely considered structural function in the movie, save for its acknowledged stylistic competence.Like most Scorsese pictures, this character study which in some sense follows the pattern of John Cassavetes's work, is in effect a director's film. Scorsese has come a long way since, having honed his craft to a point where he is able to engross his audience in a story without hiding, and the go-for-broke energy of his style is actually what makes his films so ceaselessly enthralling.