The Pope of Greenwich Village

The Pope of Greenwich Village, set in Manhattan’s Italian community, is a near-miss in its transition from novel [by Vincent Patrick] to film, setting forth an offbeat slice-of-life tale of small-time guys involved in big trouble. Read full review

The Pope Of Greenwich Village benefits immensely from Rosenberg’s decision to film on location in Little Italy, which gives every scene a lived-in feel. The city’s streets, restaurants, back rooms, and lofts are as much a character as Charlie and Paulie, a dreamer and a schemer trying to get ahead in a world where the chips are stacked against them. Read full review

Vincent Patrick, author of the best-selling novel, wrote the screenplay that gives the actors, including the superb Geraldine Page, plenty to run with. It just never gets them anywhere. Read full review

It's a candied Mean Streets, evenly and impersonally directed by Stuart Rosenberg. It has no temperament -- it doesn't even have any get-up-and-go. But Patrick supplies colorful "ethnic" dialogue, and the actors run with it.

Little works in this contrived mess, but by far the worst aspect of it is Roberts' over-the-top histrionics. The film tries hard to create a relationship similar to that of Harvey Keitel and Robert DeNiro in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, but the actors' performances are so out of sync that the effort quickly becomes hopeless. Read full review

Movie tradition sets awfully high standards for these sorts of fatalistic, criminally compromised sibling relationships. Rourke and Roberts don't quite measure up. [23 June 1984, p.C1]

With its close attention to the Little Italy milieu and its farcical treatment of a safecracking, the picture is designed to turn Martin Scorsese's scathing Mean Streets into a sitcom. It could be done, and done well, in the right hands, but those hands do not belong to the calloused paws of the pugilistically inclined director Stuart Rosenberg. [22 June 1984]

A sad re-run of the Mean Streets idea (awkwardly adapted by Vincent Patrick from his own admirable novel). Read full review