The Panic In Needle Park -1971- !!hot!! -

Upon its release in 1971, The Panic in Needle Park received an X rating (for its frank depiction of drug use and the abortion scene). This limited its distribution and relegated it to grindhouse theaters and late-night TV. While critics like Roger Ebert praised its "almost unbearable honesty," the film was a commercial failure. It was too raw for mainstream audiences expecting a Easy Rider style tragedy, and too sympathetic for conservatives who wanted to see addicts punished.

The Panic in Needle Park (1971) is a landmark of American New Realism, delivering an unvarnished and haunting look at heroin addiction in New York City. Directed by Jerry Schatzberg and featuring a screenplay by the legendary Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, the film is often remembered as the breakout performance that convinced Francis Ford Coppola to cast Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather . The Core Premise The Panic in Needle Park -1971-

"Needle Park" was not a metaphor. In the late 1960s and early 70s, the intersection of Broadway and 72nd Street—specifically the benches around the Sherman Square subway kiosk—became an open-air drug supermarket. Junkies called it "the bank." You could buy anything: heroin, cocaine, amphetamines. Users shot up in broad daylight while mothers pushed strollers past. The police were either corrupt, overwhelmed, or both. Upon its release in 1971, The Panic in