Mean Streets at 50: Martin Scorsese’s personal, powerful masterwork
In one particularly funny sequence from Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets – and Mean Streets is one of Scorsese’s funniest movies, even if it’s not understood as a comedy – two guys approach Michael (Richard Romanus), a half-competent loan shark, on a grimy corner of Little Italy, looking to buy illegal fireworks. Sniffing out a couple of suckers, Michael and an associate talk up a supply they don’t have. (“Do you know where this stuff comes from? It comes from Maryland,” says Michael. “That means it’s good,” says his cohort.) They set out to scam the buyers by taking the $40
