When Francis Coppola’s The Godfather opened in 1972, many were immediately impressed by the young New York actor playing Michael Corleone, but nearly as many wondered who was Al Pacino? The hidden movie gem that would have provided that answer was The Panic in Needle Park, made just a year earlier, directed by Jerry Schatzberg with a screenplay by novelist/essayist Joan Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne.

Without excessive moralizing and romanticism, The Panic in Needle Park tells an offbeat love story between two young heroin addicts, Bobby and Helen, who frequent an area around New York City’s Sherman Square on Broadway and 72nd St. Pacino’s Bobby (his first starring role) is a kinetic, chain smoking petty thief who meets up with Helen (Kitty Winn) after she’s dumped by her boyfriend and experiences a complicated pre-Roe vs. Wade abortion.

The film’s rambling episodic narrative first details a rather tender optimistic nature of two streetwise addicts with plans of commitment to a better life. Soon though, their destructive behaviors lead to somewhat typically grim, but not completely predictable, legal predicaments. Schatzberg, whose films include the Cannes 1973 Golden Palm winner Scarecrow and 1987’s Street Smart, shot the film in a compelling documentary style, frequently using hand held, frenzied movements that capture the natural uneasiness of the characters’ lives. The 31 year old Pacino is always interesting and oddly sympathetic even though his character’s lifestyle and values aren’t very attractive. It was the beginning of a remarkable decade of acting achievement that would garner him five Oscar nominations and make him an A-list character actor.