After world premiering at the third Chicago International Film Festival under the title I CALL FIRST, Roger Ebert called the film “a great moment in American movies.” The 25-year-old Italian-American Scorsese’s raw debut offers a potent introduction to a lifelong obsession with conflicted masculinity. New York tough guy J.R. (Harvey Keitel, also his debut) meets-cute a beautiful blonde college student, but his purist projections are shattered when he learns of a dark secret from her past, sending him into a downward spiral.