It's Not Just You, Murray!

It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964)

*** (out of 4)

Martin Scorsese's second short is a nice homage to the gangster pictures from Warner. A middle aged gangster looks back over his life from the start of his career to the present. If you're a fan of the Warner gangster pictures then you'll enjoy this short film with all the references to those earlier pictures.

What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1963)

** (out of 4)

First film from Martin Scorsese about a writer who buys a painting and soon his obsession with it leads to writers block. There's not too much going on here but I guess that's to be expected with a student film. The camera-work and editing are nice.

I guess It's Not Just You, Murray! Would count as Scorsese's first crime film, even though it's pretty light on the crime overall and feels more like a broad comedy. Still, I found it to be a fairly fun, is scattershot watch. Another key first is this is, I believe, the first time Scorsese put his mother in a role in one of his films, and she's responsible for some of this short's funniest moments.

I wasn't expecting it to turn into a Federico Fellini parody or homage; it felt a bit like they didn't know how to wrap things up in just 15 minutes. But the bulk of this short film is pretty entertaining, and also succeeded in making me laugh a handful of times - Scorsese's knack for comedy has always been underrated.

This is one of the early shorts made by Martin Scorsese when he was a student at NYU. In this one, a middle-aged man looks back at his life and how he got successful like making illegal gin during Prohibition or producing some hit Broadway shows. He credits a "friend" with his successes but that "friend" is...not a friend at all! Filmed in black-and-white with some jump cuts and still frames, this was quite an amusing short to watch as an example of the early work of Mr. Scorsese. So on that note, It's Not Just You, Murray! is worth a look. P.S. The mother of the leading character is played by the mother of the director, Catherine Scorsese.

Martin was already 22 or 23 when this short was made at NYU. One has to wonder how he was able to score such elaborate sets for this film. I mean interiors couldnt have all been filmed at NYU, no?

You also have to wonder what happened to teh actors who never worked again and how they feel that he's still making money off this movie and they arent.

It's a really well made short although the story gets old quicker than the 15 minutes it takes to finish watching the film.

Ira Rubin plays Murray, who at the start of the film basically all about him- with an amusingly self-conscious camera (like a mockumentary of sorts)- he's dressed up extra nice, showing off his wares, and it's pretty clear he's a gangster. That cleared up, he tells his story in a free-form way in the narration skipping and scatting over time, including his good, good friend Joe (San De Fazio, funny in a straight-forward way), and his sting in making Gin. But then he goes to jail, meets his nurse-wife, makes a good gig doing musicals (Love is a Gazelle being the big hit, the funniest part of the film for me), and then finally it all collides into, what else, an 8 1/2 homage. Scorsese and co-writer Mardik Martin have something here that is genuinely clever, as it goes through various forms of comedy, all set to a very keen, specific rhythm.

And there are so many riffs and styles that it all somehow comes together through Scorsese's professional style of shooting. This isn't amateur hour here. Sometimes we get the physical comedy (the police raid), or just a wacky spoof or send-up (the musical sequences, quite ingenious overall), lampooning the movie-making process itself ("hey, sound-guy, turn down the sound", Murray says in one scene when Joe wants to talk private with him), and things of family (Scorsese's mom, of course, serving spaghetti to his son even through the gate in jail) and culture (gas masks in Jersey, ho-ho). All in all, it fills its time very well, with a style of comedy that almost reminded me of a lighter, though still quite witty and off-the-wall, version of the humor that would come in After Hours. Rubin is also very good as the title character, smarmy, self-satisfied, and charming in a sleazy way that Scorsese probably relates to from people in his neighborhood.

Plenty of film-making gusto to go with the laughs, this is a really cool little short film that I was very happy to seek out- even if this and his other NYU short film aren't as great as some of his later shorts like Big Shave and American Boy.