Daily Dialogue — January 5, 2013
JOHNNY BOY: Lower the fuckin music–I can’t hear nothin’.
JOEY: The girls like it loud.
JOHNNY BOY: Girls? You call those skanks girls?!
JOEY, his friends, and the girls all look up. JOEY’S attitude changes.
JOEY (to CHARLIE): What’s the matter with this kid?
JOHNNY BOY: I feel fine–nothing wrong with me.
CHARLIE: Keep your mouth shut.
JOHNNY BOY: You tell me that in front of these creeps?
JOEY: We won’t pay…
JIMMY: Why? We just said…
JOEY (interrupting): We won’t pay…because this guy (pointing to JIMMY) is a…mook.
JIMMY: But I didn’t say nothin.
The fellows look at each other bewildered.
JOEY (to JIMMY): We don’t pay mooks!
Nobody knows what a mook is. JIMMY’S attitude now changes.
JIMMY (angrily): A mook…I’m a mook… (pauses) What’s a mook?
CHARLIE can no longer control the situation as tempers rise.
JIMMY: You can’t call me a mook!
JIMMY swings at JOEY. A fight breaks out. JIMMY, CHARLIE, TONY and JOHNNY BOY are beaten. CHARLIE, not badly hurt manages to calm everything down. The police arrive to breakup the fight. People look in as the two cops walk into the bar. The boys stop fighting immediately as they see the cops.
In fact, they treat CHARLIE and the others as friends–helping them up off the floor, dusting off the clothes, etc.The police search everyone. When they ask who started it–what happened, etc. everybody including CHARLIE and theothers cover for everyone else. “It was a joke officer” “He’s my cousin” “We were just kidding,” etc.
The cops nod. “Play nice now” and leave.
— Mean Streets (1973), screenplay by Martin Scorsese and Mardik Martin, story by Martin Scorsese
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is bar fights, suggested by Dean Scott. Today’s suggestion by Teddy Pasternak.
Trivia: While many consider this to be the quintessential New York film, very little of it was actually shot there. Many scenes, including the famous pool hall sequence, were shot in Los Angeles.
Dialogue On Dialogue: The entire brouhaha inspired by the use of the word “mook”.