Handlung

A young man can't accept the girl he likes because of her bitter past.

J.R. is a typical Italian-American on the streets of New York. When he gets involved with a local girl, he decides to get married and settle down, but when he learns that she was once raped, he cannot handle it. More explicitly linked with Catholic guilt than Scorsese's later work, we see what happens to J.R. when his religious guilt catches up with him.—David Gibson <djg@ukc.ac.uk>

J.R. likes to say that he is "between jobs" as he hangs out and carouses with his friends on the streets of New York City, he not truly looking for anything else to do. He grew up Catholic, with those Catholic beliefs still what he likes to believe drives him. His focus changes from his friends when he meets a young woman on the Staten Island Ferry, she who rides the ferry just for something to do. His friends can tell and don't like that she is now preoccupying his thoughts. The two of them end up falling in love with each other. Although he wants to, he decides not to have sex with her until after they're married, as he only considers virgins to be wife material. Conversely, he negatively refers to unmarried women who have had sex "broads", with who he nonetheless has previously hooked up. Ultimately, she tells him of an incident from her past that was outside of her control. Not only the information of the story but his reaction to it leads to the question whether love is enough on either side for them to enter into a truly committed relationship that both truly want under the circumstances.—Huggo

Martin Scorsese's mother, Catherine, appears briefly as J.R.'s mother cooking at the beginning of the film and serving food near the end. Mrs. Scorsese would continue to appear in many of her son's films until her death in 1997. Scorsese himself appears uncredited as one of the gangsters. To this day, he still makes cameo appearances in many of his films.

J.R. is a typical Catholic Italian-American young man on the streets of New York City. Even as an adult, he stays close to home with a core group of friends with whom he drinks and carouses around. He gets involved with a local girl he meets on the Staten Island Ferry, and decides he wants to get married and settle down. As their relationship deepens, he declines her offer to have sex because he thinks she is a virgin and he wants to wait rather than "spoil" her.

One day, his girlfriend tells him that she was once raped by a former boyfriend. This crushes J.R., and he rejects her and attempts to return to his old life of drinking with his friends. However, after a particularly wild party with friends, he realizes he still loves her and returns to her apartment one early morning. He awkwardly tells her that he forgives her and says that he will "marry her anyway." Upon hearing this, the girl tells him marriage would never work if her past weighs on him so much. J.R. becomes enraged and calls her a whore, but quickly recants and says he is confused by the whole situation. She tells him to go home, and he returns to the Catholic church, but finds no solace.