It's Not Just You, Murray!

Out of his earlier works, I would say Italianamerica is my favourite, but this short film is just as important.

Not to be compared with his more serious works, Scorsese's short film is a comedy piece where we are introduced to the life of a small time hood - Murray, who is oblivious to the fact that even his best friend is betraying him. This gives way for some interesting set pieces.

This film could have been a start of Scorsese's interaction with mob life. The ideas of male bonding etc, are used here, and will later be seen in Mean Streets in 73. Mean Streets was also influenced by I Viteloni by Fellini - so if you are interested in Scorsese's work, and how it came to be, watch that film.

If you are a Scorsese fan, you must see this - as it helps you understand his later works. Also recommended : Italianamerica/Big Shave/what's a nice girl like you doing in...

See some Truffaut to - for technique.

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.

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.

This cute, inventive student film is Scorsese's second time in the director's chair, and this film is the beginning of his fascination with crime and double-crosses. Like with his brilliant debut, What's A Nice Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?, his techniques in generally unfolding the story and his clever cinematographic eye...you know what? I praise too much. I think I'm boring when I praise. I praise Martin Scorsese all the time. Everything he makes turns to gold in my eyes because I think he makes movies the precise way I think they should be made. I love the guy, that's all. There's nothing specific to say pertaining to why I like even his early student short films such as this one. I just think he's the man. If you think he is the man, I would check this one out just to say you saw it and to see the foundations of his ingenious later work.

This movie is a successful short film, which belongs to Martin Scorsese's early Director career.

The movie use the way of comedy to describe a rise of a gangster in underground world.

The final part of the movie shows a similarity to ending of Frederico Fellini's "8½" .