Kitty Winn

(On Cable TV, April 2020) If you put it in a historical context, The Panic in Needle Park comes at an unsettling time in American history: fresh off the idealism of the 1960s, and yet confronting the scourges of rising violence, urban blight and increasing drug addiction. The film focuses on that last issue (with the others being not too far away), with Al Pacino in his first leading role, Kitty Winn, and a supporting role for Raul Julia in his screen debut. The story is simple and sordid, following two self-destructive drug addicts as they fight with the world and themselves. Typical of the early 1970s New Hollywood (even if entirely shot in New York City), it’s an incredibly gritty film, wallowing in the despair of Upper West Side poverty. Addiction soon turns to prostitution, violence, arrest and other problems, and the film doesn’t sugarcoat the consequences, nor does it offer much of an optimistic conclusion. It’s dated to the point of being a time capsule in terms of cinema and topic matter—almost a documentary, which is helped along by the film’s cinema-verité approach. Some of the scenes of drug injection were so shocking at the time that they earned the film an X rating not solely based on nudity or violence. Accordingly, The Panic in Needle Park is not fun at all to watch, but it’s generally less exploitative and more interesting than many of the more outlandish urban violence movies of the time.