Summary
The scene shifts and Henry’s date is back at the table at the restaurant on Friday, looking miserable. She cries as we realize that Henry stood her up and humiliated her. She tells us in voiceover, “I made Tommy take me looking for him,” as we see their car driving towards the pizza parlor, where Henry is standing outside. The woman jumps out and immediately begins scolding Henry for standing her up, yelling at him in front of the other men. When he pleads with her to give him another chance, the woman, whose name we learn is Karen, begins to calm down and tells him, “I’ll think about it,” smirking seductively as he tries to charm her. The scene shifts to Henry arriving at Karen’s house to pick her up for their second date, with a cross necklace around his neck. Noticing the cross, Karen anxiously buttons up Henry’s shirt to cover it before he meets her mother. Karen’s mother introduces herself to Henry, saying, “My daughter says that you’re half Jewish,” clearly a lie that Karen made up to please her Jewish mother. Henry goes along with it and they leave for their date.
They arrive at a fancy-looking restaurant called Copacabana, and Henry leaves his car with a man he knows from the mob who will watch his car for him. They walk right past the line of people waiting to get into the restaurant, and Henry tells Karen, “I like going this way, it’s better than waiting in the line,” laughing a little anxiously. Henry tips a man as they walk through the basement of the Copacabana. As they walk through the halls, Henry knows everyone, clearly a beloved and respected member of the community. They walk through the bustling and steamy kitchen all the way to the dining room, where Henry greets the maitre’d who signals for a waiter to bring a table to the front of the restaurant for the couple. A number of waiters set it elegantly for Henry and Karen and they sit down after Henry has said his hellos to everyone. Karen is somewhat taken aback, “You gave them $20 each!” and Henry shrugs it off. When a man from a nearby table sends over some drinks, Karen turns to Henry and asks bluntly, “What do you do?” He tells her he’s in construction, which perplexes her even more, but he insists, “I’m a union delegate.”
The lights dim and a comedian is introduced onto the stage, an older gentleman holding a violin known as “the king of one-liners.” He begins to make jokes to warm laughter as the scene shifts to the airport, but we can still hear the comedian. Henry and Tommy walk towards a large warehouse space where a man in a booth passes them a key. They go into a room marked “Restricted Area” and emerge with suitcases as Henry says in voiceover, “Air France made me. We walked out with $420,000 without using a gun, and we did the right thing. We gave Paulie his tribute.” We see Jimmy, Tommy, Henry and some other man gathered around the suitcase, counting out stacks of money excitedly and handing it over to Paulie. “It going to be a good summer!” says Jimmy, putting his arm around Henry. Paulie kisses Henry’s cheeks and tells him he’s proud of him for getting so much money as such a young gangster, before advising Henry to say that he got the money in Vegas playing craps.
We then see Karen and Henry paying for lunch at a fancy beach resort. As Henry pulls out stacks of $50 bills, Karen anxiously tells him that he has to sign for it, not pay up front, and that he doesn’t have to tip. They are evidently at a beach club to which Karen’s family belongs. A young man named Bruce approaches Henry and Karen’s table and Karen introduces the two men. After Bruce leaves, smiling, Henry asks Karen how she knows Bruce and she tells him that Bruce lives across the street. We then see Henry and Karen at the Copacabana listening to a man sing onstage. Waiters pour champagne for the couple as they enjoy their romantic evening, Karen smiling over at Henry as they clink glasses. In voiceover, Karen tells us, “One night Bobby Vinton sent us champagne. There was nothing like it.” Continuing, she says, “I didn’t think there was anything strange in any of this. You know, a 21-year-old kid with such connections.” We see the couple in a convertible sipping champagne, kissing and talking.
Suddenly, we see a television commercial for a wig company that boasts selling wigs that never come off. The camera pans over to Jimmy who is watching the commercial with a serious expression, seemingly unamused. In another room, Henry is talking to the man who sells the wigs, Morrie, who explains to Henry, “There’s something unreasonable going on here. Jimmy’s being an unconscionable ball-breaker.” Morrie owes Jimmy interest on some money he borrowed from him awhile back and is refusing to pay. Henry pleads with him, anticipating Jimmy’s wrath. As Morrie speaks ill of Jimmy, Jimmy storms into the room and flings a rope around Morrie’s neck, knocking off Morrie’s wig. As Jimmy begins to strangle Morrie, Henry insists that Morrie is going to pay him. The phone rings and Morrie picks up—it’s for Henry, who takes the phone. Jimmy continues to strangle Morrie as Henry picks up the phone. Karen is on the other line, and Henry becomes suddenly agitated, tells her not to move, and runs out of the store.
Henry pulls into a parking lot where he finds Karen standing in a phone booth sobbing. When Henry asks Karen what happened, she tells him that she was assaulted by Bruce, the guy who lives across the street from her who Henry met at the beach club, as Henry speeds away. We see Henry pulling the car into Karen’s driveway, and he tells her to go inside her house and pull herself together. Outside his house, Bruce is working on his car, and Henry glares at him in the rearview mirror. Henry pulls out a small handgun, puts it in the waistband of his pants, and storms across the street towards Bruce. “What do you want, fucker?” asks Bruce, and Henry begins brutally beating Bruce, hitting him repeatedly in the face with the handle of the gun to the shock of Bruce’s friends. “If you touch her again, you’re dead!” Henry threatens. Henry holds the gun up to Bruce’s friends who cower and beg him not to shoot, then goes back over to Karen’s house. As Karen comes out of the house, Henry hands her the gun, tells her to hide it, and asks if she’s alright. She looks at the blood all over the gun, shocked. In voiceover, we hear Karen say, “I know there are women, like my best friends, who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn’t. I got to admit the truth: it turned me on.” She hides the gun in a small box.
The scene abruptly shifts and we see a wine glass being rolled up in a nice napkin, then stomped. The camera pans up and we see that Henry and Karen are being married in a Jewish ceremony. They kiss as their families look on proudly. Their wedding reception takes place in a giant ballroom with an exaggeratedly ornate design scheme. Paulie sits at a table whispering with Jimmy and some others. The camera pans and we see Tommy sitting with his mother, who grills him about not being more like Henry, settling down with a nice girl. Then we pass Morrie the wig salesman and Frankie. We hear Karen in voiceover: “It was like he had two families. The first time I was introduced to all of them, it was crazy.” We see Karen meeting all of Paulie’s extended family, all of whom she says are named Peter or Paul. All of the women are named Marie. We then see a stream of people handing Karen wedding gifts, check after check. As Karen looks over at the line of people walking over to give her wedding money, she becomes momentarily overwhelmed. She and Henry dance in each other’s arms.
The scene shifts to Karen at home, where her mother is upset that Henry hasn’t called. When Karen insists that he’s an adult and can do what he wants, her mother questions why he hasn’t gotten them an apartment and why they are living at her house. Her mother goes on a tirade, asking what kind of people Henry runs with, and insisting that the reason Henry is such a renegade is because he’s Italian and not Jewish. Karen becomes very angry and screams at her mother to stay out of it, before storming out of the room. The scene shifts to the early hours of the next morning. Karen sits on the couch beside her mother and father. When Henry approaches the door, Karen goes to answer it, but her mother comes too and immediately starts scolding Henry. “A married man does not stay out like this!” yells Karen’s mother, and Henry walks away chuckling at the situation. Karen is mortified and Henry goes to get back in the car with Tommy, who makes fun of him about his mother-in-law.
We hear Karen say in voiceover that she didn’t realize how different her marriage was from other women’s “until Mickey’s hostess party.” We see a group of women, mob wives, gathered in a suburban living room. A woman asks Karen where she’s from—Lawrence—and tells her that she’s from Miami—“it’s okay, but it’s like you died and woke up in Jew heaven.” The women at the party all apply facial masks and makeup, gossiping about the men in their lives and eventually making reference to the fact that their husbands are killers. One woman tells a story about a woman whose mother died and whose two sons are in jail. Karen puts her head in her hand for a moment, feeling alienated by the gathering. In voiceover she says of the women, “They had bad skin and wore too much makeup. I mean, they didn’t look very good. They looked beat-up. And the stuff they wore was thrown together and cheap…and they talked about how rotten their kids were and about beating them with broom handles and leather belts.” The camera zooms around the room at the different women and Karen, looking somewhat bewildered.
In their bedroom, Karen confronts Henry about his life in the mob. “What would happen if you had to go to prison!” she says to him, but he insists, “Nobody goes to jail unless they want to.” He tells her to stop worrying so much and lays her down, kissing her. As he touches her, Karen narrates, “After a while it got to be all normal. None of it seemed like crime. It's more like Henry was enterprising and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling.” Abruptly we see Tommy and Henry intimidating a truck driver at gunpoint and asking him to hand over a strongbox. They throw the truck driver in a car with Frankie, then get in the truck laughing. As they drive, Tommy shoots a gun into the air. Karen narrates, “We were all so very close…and being together all the time made everything seem all the more normal.” Two detectives approach Karen’s house and ask her to sign a search warrant. She agrees and invites them in, offering them coffee before letting them search the house. In voiceover, Karen tells us that while there were usually men coming to search the house, all they needed was a handout to keep them quiet, even if they found something incriminating. Karen sits down in front of the television, holding a baby, as the men search the house.
Suddenly we see a birthday party for a young boy, where everyone is singing. Karen tells us, “We were always in the same crowd…anniversaries, christenings. We only went to each other’s houses.” She also tells us that she and Henry became close with Jimmy and his wife Mickey, and that whenever a new kid was born, Mickey and Jimmy were always the first at the hospital. We see photographs of the couples at the births of each other’s children, and going on vacation with one another. We see Karen’s closet, filled with expensive clothes, as she nags Henry about something and he counts stacks of bills that he pulls out of his waistband. The scene shifts to their living room, as Henry rushes off to go somewhere. Before he leaves, Karen asks for some shopping money, which he gives her. They kiss and she convinces him to stay at home a little longer by lowering herself down to the ground to perform oral sex.
The scene shifts and we see a bar called the “Suite Lounge” where some men drink at the bar, including Jimmy and Henry. Tommy comes in with a girl on his arm named Lisa, who he introduces to his friends. A man at the end of the bar from a rival gang, named Billy, greets Tommy, and Tommy is annoyed to have to say hello to him. Billy has known Tommy since he was a kid, and keeps referencing Tommy’s past, including the fact that Tommy used to shine shoes. Tommy gets very serious and informs Billy, “I don’t shine shoes anymore.” Billy is confused about why Tommy is so offended, but apologizes and the two men shrug it off. Turning back to the bar, however, Billy says once again, “Now go home and get your fucking shine box.” Almost instantaneously, Tommy becomes enraged, throwing his glass and bursting into furious expletives. Henry holds him back as Billy mockingly eggs him on to get angrier. Henry eventually gets Tommy to leave with Lisa, before going back to the bar where Billy is still baiting Tommy, enraged at Tommy’s disrespect.
Henry tries to apologize on Tommy’s behalf, but Billy doesn’t want to hear it, telling him to teach Tommy some manners. Jimmy chimes in, telling Billy that he insulted Tommy a little bit, which is probably why Tommy got so upset. They try and cool down, but Billy is furious. After everyone has left, Tommy comes back into the bar and approaches Billy from behind, bludgeoning him over the head in a bloody mess on the floor. “Get the door!” Jimmy instructs Henry, who runs to make sure the coast is clear as Tommy pummels Billy to death. Tommy then takes the white tablecloths off the tables to wrap up Billy’s dead body. “His whole crew’s gonna be looking for him,” says Henry, worried that Tommy’s misstep will get them all killed by Billy’s crew. Jimmy knows a place to dispose of the body, as an out-of-breath Tommy apologizes to Henry for getting blood on the floor. Henry looks dumbstruck. They load Billy’s body into the trunk of a car—this is the body from the beginning of the movie—and go to Tommy’s mother’s house to get a shovel. They go into Tommy’s mother’s kitchen looking for the shovel, and are met by Tommy’s mother who wants to know what happened, noticing the blood all over Tommy. She kisses each of them affectionately as they try to deflect her away from questioning them.
Tommy’s mother insists that they eat something and in no time they are sitting down at her dining table eating, and she is questioning Tommy about why he never calls. Tommy lies to her and tells her that they were driving out in the country and hit a deer. Picking up a large butcher’s knife, he asks his mother if he can borrow it. She tells him he can as long as he brings it back. He explains that he needs to hack off the deer’s hoof, but that he’ll bring it back. After grilling Tommy about not being married yet, Tommy’s mother questions Henry about how quiet he’s being, and tells a joke that makes all the men laugh. She then pulls out a painting she did of a man sitting in a boat with two dogs. The men admire the painting, when Jimmy notes that the man looks like Billy. Tommy begins to laugh about the resemblance as the camera pans over to the car outside, as we hear the sound of Billy pounding from inside the trunk.
Analysis
The introduction of Karen into the film takes it in a new direction. While the film has been unapologetically violent, scrappy, and celebratory of male virtues, Henry now finds himself with an inconvenient crush. Interestingly enough, this portion not only introduces Karen into the action, but also gives her her own voiceover. Hitherto, Henry has been the only voice in our ear, leading us through the action of the film, but now, we hear Karen’s perspective as well. The introduction of Karen’s narration is an abrupt shift, and serves to transport us from the world of macho mobster lawlessness into the personal considerations of this community. Yes, Henry is a mobster, and he has fallen in with a rough crowd, but he is still prone to fall in love, and his violent corrupt ways have repercussions on the people around him who are not entrenched in the mafia. Not only that, but Karen is a sharp and exterminating date. When Henry stands her up, she doesn’t simply shrug it off, she enlists Tommy to drive her to Henry, where she feistily confronts him. Karen’s presence in the film not only introduces a feminine perspective into the film, but also starts to hold our protagonist Henry accountable in new ways.
Karen is different from Henry not only in that she is a woman, but also because she is Jewish and middle class. The ethnic, religious, and class distinction between them is slight, but it is important within the micro-communities of Brooklyn. Karen comes from a comfortable and proper middle-class Jewish background, her mother greets Henry at the door of her home, and she belongs to a nice beach club where she knows not to pay in cash. Contrastingly, Henry is a son of working-class immigrants who has fallen in deep with the Italian mafia, steals regularly, carries around massive amounts money, and is accustomed to using the forcefulness of his status in the mob to open doors. We see the contrast between their backgrounds as it coincides with their growing love for one another. At first, Karen is somewhat confused by Henry’s V.I.P. treatment at the Copacabana, but she goes along with it and accepts his love. Similarly, Henry seems ill at ease in Karen’s world, but is willing to broach the boundaries between them because of his love for her.
Indeed, not only does the love between Karen and Henry transcend the differences of their demographics, but Karen makes an active choice to stay with and follow Henry into his world of organized crime and vigilante-style violence. While at first she doesn’t quite understand why such a young man would have so much influence in her community, she gradually begins to understand that Henry has a violent and intricate web of protection. When he beats up Bruce on her behalf, Karen knows that she ought to feel more repelled, as she stares down at the bloodied handle of the gun he just told her to hide, but she can’t help feeling turned on. The things that separate the two lovers are also what create the dynamic between them, and what convinces Karen to stay. This further complicates the already-murky ethics of the film. True, Henry is beating up Bruce in a brutal and ruthless way—seemingly devoid of compassion—but he is doing it on Karen’s behalf. Bruce assaulted Karen, a horrible offense, and Henry isn’t going to let him off easy. While Henry’s retributive act is not necessarily the ethical response to Karen’s assault, it serves the purpose of scaring Bruce off and making Karen feel more protected. Henry’s act, like the mob itself, is one of blunt force and intimidation, which serves to protect and bolster those on the inside. Thus Karen, in choosing to stay with Henry, is joining the mob in her own way, choosing the perverse protection that it offers.
The camerawork and editing in the film are quick, shifting often and zooming in on exactly what the viewer is meant to be looking at at any given moment. As much as Henry or Karen are our narrators, the camera is its own narrator and character altogether. The perspective shifts from the beach club, to the Copacabana, to the back of Henry’s car, to the wig commercial, are all edited with such a brisk ease that it sometimes takes the viewer a moment to understand where exactly we are. This has the effect of keeping the action moving and keeping our attention, but it also has a narrative effect. In keeping such a brisk pace, and shifting between such different settings and moods, Scorcese aligns the viewer even more with the characters, as we barely have time to question or analyze the inevitable forward momentum of their plights. As Karen stares at the bloodied gun that Henry hands her on her doorstep, we see her in close-up, her concerned and slightly titillated expression, before the camera shows us the gun in her hand. In only a few brief moments, she has decided to go along with Henry’s urging, and we see her quickly stash the gun in a small box near her house. In the next blink of an eye, we see an elegant wine glass being rolled up in a white napkin to be stomped at Henry and Karen’s wedding. Thus, the casual violence with which Henry is able to hurt Bruce is placed alongside Karen’s act of loyalty to him, which is then shown alongside his wedding to Karen. Indeed, shown in close-up immediately after the shock of Henry’s assault of Bruce, the stomping of the wine glass at the Jewish wedding—a strictly symbolic ritual—strikes the viewer as its own kind of decisive violence. Scorcese re-contextualizes this recognizable tradition and disorients the viewer. These kinds of jumps and juxtapositions abound in Goodfellas, leaving the viewer hardly any time to question or step back from the narrative. The relentless flow carries us along through a strange and contradictory story, inviting us in to all of it. In Henry and Karen’s world, expensive champagne, bloodied handguns, and joyful weddings coexist. The tremor of brutal violence lurks beneath the seemingly respectable.
Indeed, Karen gets pulled in to the sense of belonging that the mob offers just as much as Henry did. She has a moment of extreme doubt when she attends the party at Mickey’s house, judging the women for their tacky lifestyles and worrying that she will be fated with a tragic home life, but soon enough Henry convinces her that she’s safe with him, and she commits to her role as a mob wife. She discusses how insular the world of the mafia is, and how the more she spent time with other people who were connected to the mafia, the more normal it began to seem and the more she was able to accept it. The insularity and exclusivity is key to her description of the situation. Having as few outsiders as possible kept her in the fantasy of the protection that the mob offered. Karen even goes so far as to say that she was proud of Henry and the fact that he was able to bring in so much money for her family, that he was willing to stick his neck out. In the closed world of the mafia, Karen becomes convinced that her husband’s crimes aren’t crimes at all, but virtues.
