The seductive hands of addiction role up the sleeves of Bobby (Al Pacino) and Helen (Kitty Winn), in director Jerry Schatzberg’s uncompromising trip through heroin hell in The Panic in Needle Park, a film that still stands today as one of the greatest anti-drug films ever made. After Helen experiences a traumatic abortion, and returns to her boyfriend Marco (Raul Julia), she catches the eye of his friend Bobby – a small time thief and junkie. After Bobby wins her over with his tenderness and charisma, the two move in together, and Bobby’s world of hustling and trying to score heroin, so too becomes Helen’s life. In what was only the second big screen efforts of Schatzberg, Pacino and Winn, the triumvirate create a love story that is engrossing and heartbreaking, as the young couple tries to reconcile the love for each other, and the heroin that is destroying them – with all the disappointments and betrayals that their addiction injects.
“The movie lives and moves. It is not filled with quick cutting or gimmicky editing, but Jerry Schatzberg’s direction is so confident that we cover the ground effortlessly. We meet the characters, we get to know the world.” – Roger Ebert
“Schatzberg moves with considerable force over the urban territory of Midnight Cowboy, using hand-held cameras and a sustained editing rhythm to convey the couple’s gradual descent into hell as mercilessly as he shows the needles entering his characters’ veins” – Time Out
Howard S. Berger writes about director Jerry Schatzberg on the New Beverly blog.
Kim Morgan discusses The Panic in Needle Park on the New Beverly blog.
