J. R., the troubled hero of Martin Scorsese's first feature film, "Who's That Knocking at My Door?", is the sort of young man who, in a total confusion of values, can one minute offer to "forgive" the girl he loves for having been forcibly raped, and the next minute accuse her of being a whore. Puritan Roman Catholicism, the kind that bedeviled Stephen Dedalus and Studs Lonigan, is alive and ill and in the movies….

[Scorsese] has composed a fluid, technically proficient movie, more intense and sincere than most commercial releases.

It is apparent that the Italian-American milieu is a first-hand experience, but the vision Scorsese has made from it is detailed in the kind of self-limiting drama and dialogue that Paddy Cheyefsky abandoned some time ago, and in images that look very much like film school poetry…. I must say that I like Scorsese's enthusiasm even while wincing at some of the results…. (p. 71)

Scorsese is effective in isolating the moments of "Marty"-like boredom that J. R. accepts as concomitants to life…. However, the director … hasn't succeeded in making a drama that is really much more aware than the characters themselves. The result is a movie that is as precise—and as small—as a contact print. (pp. 71-2)