The Panic in Needle Park

Until the mid-Fifties, the taboo theme of drug addiction in films was either fleetingly mentioned - as in MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933) - or ridiculously overblown as in the REEFER MADNESS (1936) school of movies but, with the appearance of films like Otto Preminger's THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM (1955) and Nicholas Ray's BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956), Hollywood producers showed that they had learned to treat it in an objective, mature and sensitive way. But, with the the runaway box office success of EASY RIDER (1969), the subject got its own unexpected little niche and the general public was for the first time allowed to wallow in a no-holds-barred view of the junkie lifestyle; of course, I am discounting films like Shirley Clarke's THE CONNECTION (1961; which I've never watched myself) and the Andy Warhol Factory movies which are anything but mainstream Hollywood products.

I can't say I've watched many of those 1970s drug-related movies and, off hand, only John G. Avildsen's JOE (1970; with Peter Boyle and Susan Sarandon) and Ivan Passer's BORN TO WIN (1971; with George Segal and a young Robert De Niro) come to mind. Even so, I'd say that THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK is arguably the bleakest, grittiest and most realistic screen portrayal of drug addiction I've ever watched - at least, until Darren Aronofsky's REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000); for one thing, while most films of the era made extensive use of the contemporaneous rock scene, this one has no musical underscoring at all.

Frankly, I've had the film on VHS recorded off Cable TV for over 10 years and only now managed to catch up with it because my father rented it on DVD (and, subsequently, turned it off before long)! Indeed, the scrappy first half-hour is rather off-putting and dreary and it wasn't until the main protagonists - Al Pacino (already superb in just his second movie) and Kitty Winn (who would go on to win the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film festival for her work here) - really got together that I started to genuinely care about their plight; perhaps the most moving scene they share is their short-lived idyll in the country where the couple even purchase a dog with the little money they have (but lose it almost immediately through negligence when the urge for the drug habit kicks in once again). Subsequently reduced to prostitution, Winn is watched over by a sympathetic young cop but soon he's demanding that she turn Pacino over to the law. At the end of the film the couple are reunited, but it looks like their relationship has nowhere to go.

A year before Al Pacino got his career role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather he and Kitty Winn got great reviews as a pair of junkies in The Panic In Needle Park. This film is a brutal and realistic look at the New York's nasty world of the narcotics addict as seen through Pacino and Winn.

Even in this world romance can bloom even among these folks on the bottom most rung of society. Still the need for the needle overrules all, a fact that narcotics cop like Jesse Vint exploits to the max.

Richard Bright who plays Pacino's older brother who is a burglar by trade and not a junkie delivers a good performance. My one criticism of he Panic In Needle Park is Bright's willingness to take Pacino in on a job. Any good burglar wouldn't rust a junkie even if he was family.

The scenes showing the heroin use are brutally realistic. One scene that jolted me was the efforts to save Pacino from a hot shot dose of pure heroin. Done by his fellow narcotics peers without any professional medical help.

Not much has changed in the junkie world in the intervening half a century since Needle Park came out. The real tragedy of this film.

Sherman Square is in NYC on the West Side at the intersection of Broadway and 72nd Street. It is known as Needle Park for its heroin addicts. Petty criminal addict Bobby (Al Pacino) is a friend to artist Marco (Raul Julia). Helen (Kitty Winn) is in the hospital after a bad abortion from relations with Marco. She is homeless and looking to go back to Indiana. She moves in with Bobby and slowly drifts into the dark world of drugs.

This is very 70's. It's indie. It's grim and it's grimy. The two leads are compelling. It doesn't flinch away from the needle work. It's not pretty Hollywood but rather an ugly closeup vision. It is a bit slow and the plot meanders. There is a grinding inevitability to their predicament. It wallows in the gutter.

"The Panic in Needle Park" is an incredibly unpleasant film...which is what you'd expect about a film that centers around two heroin addicts living in New York. So, if you are looking for a film to make you smile or a good date film, do NOT see this movie! In fact, that is the biggest problem with the picture...most folks won't wanna see two people slowly destroying themselves. Most folks watch films to be entertained. Now I am NOT saying it's a bad film and it might be a good one to show teens, as it shows how wretched a life hooked on drugs can be...though there are a few more recent films which make drug use seem a lot more unpleasant, such as the brilliant but hard to watch "Requiem for a Dream".

The film has very little in the way of plot. It simply shows two addicts who are in love, Bobby and Helen (Al Pacino and Kitty Winn), as they slowly degenerate...sinking lower and lower and lower through the course of the movie. At first, Bobby is very glib...and fun to be with and Helen seems rather innocent. Naturally, this doesn't last and both sink deeper and deeper into their habit. Bobby claims he's a 'chipper' (a casual user who is not addicted) but after a while he's dealing and overdoses. Helen begins turning tricks to buy their next fix.

Unpleasant, to be sure, but mostly realistic. When they shot up, it looks real...and the language is street language...nasty and crude. But the only problem I saw is that both LOOKED healthy through the course of the film and the makeup could have been better...enabling them not only to act like addicts but to look more like them. Well made but I am strongly warning you...it's not a movie for kids or for the squeamish.

One of the rawest images of drug addiction ever shown in a movie ! "Drugstore cowboy" and "trainspotting" turn into cartoons by seeing this film. Pacino and Wynn : what an impressive performance. One of the best ever ! The film shows a horrifying image of the junk life in the city of New York in the seventies. This motion picture does not have the sparkling colors and action, of expensive Hollywood productions nowadays and that is just the beauty of it ! It's the brutal reality that makes us realize what harder drugs can do to a persons life. Every fourteen year old kid should see this film because of the damage hard drugs can do. Forgive me, English is not my native language i hope people understand what i am trying to say. Anyway great movie and it should be better known ! What in the name happened to Jerry Schatzberg ?