Sean Burns
The film adaptation of Vincent Patrick’s 1979 novel The Pope of Greenwich Village was originally supposed to be directed by Michael Cimino, with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino sharing the screen for the first time in the tale of two loveable, lunkheaded wannabe wiseguys bumbling their way through New York City’s criminal underworld. But when it finally hit the screen in 1984, the film starred the next best thing – Bobby and Al’s heirs apparent, Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts. You probably had to be there at the time to understand the white hot excitement surrounding these two wild young thespians, the ‘80s equivalents of the previous decade’s sons of Marlon Brando, eccentric and impossibly cool.
Stardom is fleeting and often cruel, with those who shine the brightest usually burning out quickest. Within a few short years, Rourke and Roberts would both be punchlines, better known for their bizarre behavior than the strings of box office bombs in which they appeared. But in 1984 both were thrillingly ascendant. Rourke was so electrifying in Diner and Body Heat, it instantly became an urban legend that Toni Basil had written the hit song “Mickey” about how fine he was. (Doubtful, since the song was first called “Kitty,” but the story stuck because Rourke was indeed so fine he blew your mind.) Roberts had just delivered galvanizing, hyper-intense turns in King of the Gypsies and Bob Fosse’s Star 80, the latter so emotionally raw that in some scenes he’s almost impossible to watch.
The Pope of Greenwich Village is a time capsule of two strutting young actors who were about to take over Hollywood, right before it didn’t quite happen. The movie is a marvel of peacocking machismo, with two big, preening performances trying to top each other in every scene. Journeyman director Stuart Rosenberg stepped in for Cimino (speaking of stars who burned out quickly) and can barely contain these boisterous boys within the bounds of a pretty thin plot. The screenplay, which Patrick himself adapted from his novel, is a blatant Mean Streets ripoff, following Rourke’s responsible, level-headed restaurant manager (he’s even named Charlie, like Harvey Keitel in the Scorsese picture) being dragged down by his knucklehead cousin Johnny Boy – I mean Paulie, played by Roberts with a high-pitched trill and an indelible perm.
Like a lot of early Eric Roberts performances, Paulie is a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. He’s brayingly stupid and obnoxious, with a voice twice as loud as everyone else in the picture. Yet he’s also got this hilarious, high dudgeon, like a worm who carries himself with a completely unearned regality. His nose is always way up in the air. There’s something of the grande dame about Paulie, and one of the fascinating things about The Pope of Greenwich Village is how in this guys-y gangster picture, both of the leads lean into feminine characteristics. Rourke’s Charlie is a fussy clotheshorse, reminding us he’s in debt not just to the neighborhood shylocks, but also half a dozen department stores. The film spends considerable time surveying his closet, watching Charlie primp and groom himself, preparing that perfect, twin-peaked pompadour that Rourke made iconic in the ‘80s.
Given all the screen time devoted to Charlie’s costuming and shoes, it’s kind of funny that his aerobics instructor girlfriend, Diane – played by Daryl Hannah the same year she broke out in Reckless and Splash — is usually only wearing skimpy leotards. (Movies in the ‘80s loved having female characters be aerobics instructors because it was the next best thing to showing them naked. It also results in some very funny delight in Roberts’ eyes when Charlie and Paulie go to visit her at work.) But Diane is merely a distraction, one of those dishrag movie wives keeping Charlie from spending time with his true love, Paulie.
The film’s plot is at once too convoluted yet not quite complicated enough, with the boys bungling a breaking and entering job that results in a dead cop and a bag full of money belonging to the pricelessly named mob boss Bedbug Eddie. He’s played by Burt Young in a way that makes you long for the days when people in movies were allowed to look like Burt Young. The ever-reliable M. Emmet Walsh is on hand a crooked Irish police captain and Geraldine Page scored an Oscar nomination for her two hilarious scenes as the dead cop’s crafty mom. There’s a running gag that all the police are intensely Irish, with jaunty jigs accompanying their arrivals on the scene.
The Pope of Greenwich Village is such an ethnic burlesque that Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind” is heard not once or twice, but three times on the soundtrack during the film. It’s about guys playing stickball and shouting at each other in small social clubs, calling each other mamelukes and mooks. It used to play on HBO incessantly, and when I was growing up The Pope of Greenwich Village was everybody’s older brother’s favorite movie. There’s a swagger to it, a defiance with which Charlie and Paulie walk arm-in-arm down the street. Seeing the film today, their youthful braggadocio is now tempered with a touch of melancholy — watching these two crazily talented actors who almost had it made.
“The Pope of Greenwich Village” is streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, PlutoTV, Hoopla, and MGM+.
