The Movie Love We've Come to Expect

This poster features a dead body in a pose similar to the one seen on the Goodfellas one-sheet.  The body on this poster was cut and pasted onto the cover of a German Blu-ray of Mean Streets that I wrote about here.  Not sure whose face they stuck in there to represent Johnny Boy, but it ain't De Niro.

Was looking at Mean Streets for the first time in a long while and took note of some in-movie film references that I hadn't recalled.  In addition, to the clips from The Searchers, The Big Heat, and Tomb of Ligeia seen at various points on various screens during the course of the film, there's also a cool shot of the Waverly from the vantage point of a cab.  The marquee boasts Sylvia Miles in Warhol's Heat.  No love for Joe...or, no room on the marquee?

When Charlie goes to The Searchers with Michael and Tony, we see the below shot of marquees on 42nd Street.  Some of the movies that can be made out are: Rage, Borsalino, Rider on the Rain, Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?, And Hope to Die, Rosebud (Roberta Findlay's, not the Preminger film of the same name), Eighteen Carat Virgin (aka Without a Stitch), and The Arrangement.  

In an inspired bit of programming, Rene Clement's Rider on the Rain and And Hope to Die are on the same marquee.  Rider was Avco Embassy from '70 and And Hope to Die was Fox from '72.  He made The Deadly Trap (for National General) in between those two.

Later, Johnny Boy and Charlie are in a theater lobby after seeing Tomb of Ligeia, where we can see posters for Tomb, The Man With the X-Ray Eyes, Point Blank, and Husbands.

I like that in this one film we get such a cross section of contemporary and classic films references, including Scorsese favorite Kazan, albeit probably incidentally.

For the others that get bothered about these things, the WB Blu-ray of Mean Streets removes the original Saul Bass-designed Warner Communications logo in favor of the current WB logo.  Adding further insult, Charlie's opening v.o. begins while the new logo is still onscreen.  Previously, the logo went to black and then Charlie's voice was heard.  The previous WB DVD retained the original logo...so, it stays on my shelf even though space is at a premium.

Hexenkessel

Here's a head-scratcher by way of Germany:

 

Aside from the dead body, which doesn't look like anything that actually appears in Mean Streets, we have the main imagery from the American one-sheet for Once Upon a Time in America essentially lifted wholesale for this German Blu-ray of Mean Streets aka Hexenkessel.  Does Mean Streets ever venture anywhere near Dumbo, or Brooklyn in general, for that matter?  Not that I recall.  The body at the bottom recalls the artwork from Goodfellas.  So, the German cover for Mean Streets evokes two other movies with De Niro, but not the one it is supposed to be representing.

 

US Blu-ray cover

French Blu-ray cover