Trivia for
Mean Streets (1973) More at IMDbPro »

• While many consider this to be the quintessential New York film, very little of it was actually shot there. Many scenes, including the famous pool hall sequence, were shot in Los Angeles.
  
  
• Director Cameo: [Martin Scorsese] The director appears a further two times in addition to his credited appearance as Jimmy Shorts: first, he is visible in a "portrait" with Harvey Keitel (for one frame) in the opening home movies/main title sequence. Second, his voice appears as narration: "Father I'm not worthy of your flesh."
  
  
• Cameo: [Catherine Scorsese] the woman who comes to Teresa's aid when she has an epileptic fit.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Martin Scorsese] [mother] the woman who comes to Teresa's aid when she has an epileptic fit.
  
  
• The leader of the super-8 home movie which runs under the opening credits reads: "DATE: 12/8/69 TITLE:[illegible] w/ baptism Processed by KODAK"
  
  
• Original the financial backers wanted Jon Voight to play Charlie but he turned them down.
  
  
• For the soundtrack music Martin Scorsese sourced much of his own personal record collection
  
  
• The production was pretty much made on-the-run from the Teamsters, as it would have been financially impossible to make the film had it been a union shoot.
  
  
• After the release of his previous film, Boxcar Bertha (1972), both John Cassavetes and John Milius advised Martin Scorsese to do a more "personal" project next. That encouragement led Scorsese to finish this script and get it produced.
  
  
• Marks the first film collaboration between director Martin Scorsese and star Robert De Niro.
  
  
• The voice over narration in the opening of the movie ("You don't make up for your sins in Church; you do it on the street; everything else is bullshit and you know it...") is actually not said by Harvey Keitel (the character we are intended to believe is thinking these thoughts), but director Martin Scorsese. Scorsese felt that using a separate voice to make the distinction between Keitel's thoughts and actions was necessary. Scorsese borrowed this technique from Federico Fellini, who used it in I vitelloni (1953).
  
  
• When raising money for the film, Martin Scorsese was offered a healthy sum by his mentor Roger Corman on the condition that he shoot the movie with an all-black cast. Scorsese had to turn Corman down.
  
  
• Based on a script which Martin Scorsese co-wrote with Mardik Martin in the 1960s, entitled "Season of the Witch".
  
  
• The innovative use of the hand-held camera was largely down to the fact that the film's meager budget didn't stretch to laying down lots of tracks for all the tracking shots.
  
  
• To really get inside Harvey Keitel's drunken scene, the camera was actually strapped to the actor while he swayed about, and under-cranked to give it a woozy, drunken feel.
  
  
• The schedule for the movie was 25 days (according to director Martin Scorsese's commentary for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)).
  
  
• The title change from SEASON OF THE WITCH to MEAN STREETS was inspired from a Raymond Chandler line, "Down these mean streets a man must go." Film critic Jay Cocks suggested the change to Martin Scorsese, who thought it pretentious at first but eventually came to agree it was effective.
  
  
• The very last shot of the movie is of Martin Scorsese's mother, Catherine Scorsese, closing a window.
  
  
• Clearing the songs for use in the film ended up being approximately half of its budget.
  
  

• SPOILER: This is the first of two Martin Scorsese / Robert De Niro collaborations where De Niro's character is shot in the neck at the end - the other film being their second collaboration, Taxi Driver (1976).
  
  

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