cult film freak: AL PACINO AND KITTY WINN WEATHER 'THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK'

Al Pacino in THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK Year: 1971 Rating: ****

There are four minutes left of independent director Jerry Schatzberg's heroin-addict expose THE PANIC AT NEEDLE PARK when Al Pacino does the kind of screaming tantrum that would become legendary...

Yet before he was the gruff-voiced screamer, Pacino had a nasally, higher-pitched tone... and his Bobby seems like the cooler, girl-getting brother of Dustin Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo from MIDNIGHT COWBOY (same cinematographer), which would have a similar opposites-pairing vibe in Schatzberg's subsequent indie SCARECROW starring Gene Hackman and Pacino: right after becoming famous thanks to this movie's kickstart that convinced THE GODFATHER auteur Francis Ford Coppola to gamble on the comparably normal-looking, pint-sized, scruffy-haired, method acting no-name...

Al Pacino and Kitty Winn in THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK

Who looks, walks and talks the streets but with a raggedly-poetic and rhythmic penchant for the seemingly docile, middle-class-born Helen played by plainly-beautiful Kitty Winn, who'd also progress into a groundbreaking followup as Ellen Burstyn's mousy assistant in THE EXORCIST...

From the titular park to shabby apartment rooms to darkened alleyways, Pacino had the jumpy street-smart thief down pat... sometimes even making what's an otherwise depressing New York City druggie-drama feel jovially optimistic... yet Winn takes all the genuinely weathered risks with a tangible character-arc, and is really the central character that Pacino follows around while the connected pair (surrounded by trashy oddballs Warren Finnerty, Kiel Martin, Richard Bright, Raul Julia and token cop Allen Vint) are perfectly suited within this severely imperfect, ultra-realistic purgatory.