Not to mention the bold and sneaky 40 dollar upsell on the holster...and if ya upsell, it's gotta make sense, and it made sense here, with no hesitation from the buyer whatsoever.
i love how he didn't even flinch though - showing the slightest sign of surprise like "oh, really?" would be quite a slip-up : ) he doesn't skip a beat, immediately offers *more* purchase on the top of it. that's a pro if i've ever seen one
I love how all the mystique and finesse Easy Andy had throughout the whole gun selling process is completely lost the second he starts offering drugs for sale, in Travis' eyes he was the holy iron monger providing him with the weapons he needed to embark in his crusade, but after getting the guns from him he transforms into just another scumbag dealing poison.
But when he shaves his head and is at the plaza during Palentine's rally, he takes some pills. So as stated by Betsy, he's a walking contradiction of his own view of the world.
Nice observation. When he was talking guns he had finesse, just slowly and calmly taking Travis through his wares. Soon as he starts talking drugs he became pushy and irritating, even directly ignoring Travis saying he wasn't interested.
When you work nights and have literally nothing to do in the day, your wages build up pretty quick. I used to work night shifts while having no friends for years and I always had thousands left over every year which I sent back home. I'm alright now though.
@@zedsdeadbabyWhy didn't you just hangout with your friends in the day? Or does the night shift literally mean the whole fucking night? I don't know about this so I'm curious
I always wondered if Easy Andy was the real thing and I just found out that the actor was Scorsese bodyguard, driver, and cocaine connection during the 70's. So I think it's fair to say that Easy Andy was the real thing.
@@anthonypiccirilli1385 Exactly. He literally returns to his apartment to down more drugs in between his failed assassination attempt on Palantine and the final shootout-it reinforces that on some level he knows what he is doing is sick, but he doesn’t care beyond his knowing that he just wasn’t drugged up enough at the rally to divorce himself from his morality.
THEIR lives. Do you hear me all the way over THERE?.....It'S "THEIR" lives. You know the "grammar nazis"? THEY'RE going to appreciate you writing in proper English, THEY'RE going to walk all over you if you don't.
I used to deal sometimes with a guy similar to Easy Andy down in Sacramento years ago. He could get anything you wanted , the stuff just somehow fell off a truck somewhere. I told him I wanted some 4x8 sheets of aluminum diamond plate , he said give me a week , I'll call you. Sure enough, a week later he had it , the stuff was still banded to a pallet that said U.S. ARMY on it . Just fell off a truck somewhere ............
Wtf? That is the most random criminal request I've ever heard off. "Hey bro, You got some 4x8 sheets of Aluminum diamond plate... Well when you gonna have the shit?! I NEED IT!!!!!"
@@joearnold5836 Well i also used to know gypsy guy that could get his hands on anything. I never made deals with him, but some people i knew did. The guys i knew never asked anything illegal from him kinda like construction supplies, and that kinda stuff. He then took little time shoved up to the guys the stuff in his van with cheap prize. I can only imagine how he always got what someone needed, and what kinda deals he also might do that were bit more criminal, but in such i think both the customers, and him were very quiet. I heard only rumors he at least dealt drugs at least i know his nephews for certain do. Honestly though lot of the black market stuff i imagine is just random normal items people get more cheaply if they just know some guy
Easy Andy is an awesome salesman. Makes the customer feel important and at ease "I just deal high quality goods to the right people".enthusiastic but not pushy, calm but knowledgeable, shifty but still seems trustworthy, totally in control but the customer still makes the final decisions.
48 years later...and that salesman is STILL telling DeNiro what he is capable of getting him. "You want Klondikes? Got a truck full of Klondikes, all flavors, unmelted, it's beautiful!"
After all these years, I still find watching this scene extremely relaxing to watch. The sounds of the guns clicking mixed with the outside sounds if the city and easy Andy's description of each firearm is oddly very soothing.
Relaxing. YES!!! Thats EXACTLY HOW I FELT TOOO,, , ! The children noises especially!! And. He says : "isn't that a honey" . ...¿? So funny,!,,,,!,!,!!! Haha!
Brilliant line indeed. Yeah, the PPK is a "little hunny" alright, except for its insanely heavy trigger pull! 😆 And that's actually not a PPK, but infact a Spanish clone, the Astra Constable.
When I was a district sales manager I could have used 3 salesmen like Easy Andy. Smooth delivery, no rush. Knows his merchandise, sells to the need and desire of the buying customer. Doesn't give up the sale ... ever. Offers other expensive wares, Keeps selling all the way out the door. It's nice to see and hear a good salesman's smooth pitch. Sales people are the highest earners in America. 🤑 Fact.
The gun dealer in this scene was a real life drug dealer. An incident from his life was covered in a short documentary made by Scorsese when he was a student. Tarantino then adapted that incident into the scene in Pulp Fiction where they have to stab Uma Thurman with adrenaline because of a heroin overdose.
Is eric stoltz easy andy? I can see the connection straight away when Vincent is buying the heroin also Tarantino cited taxi driver as one of his favourite movies
I watched Breaking Bad before I watched Taxi Driver, and the character that Walt ends up buying a piece from, the whole setting, tone and depiction of the scene, a very neat and sincere homage to this moment in the film.
Every gun buying scene in every movie since has been an homage to this scene. Every "spy regains consciousness, goes on revenge spree against those who done him dirty" movie has the obligatory "gotta buy me some guns" scene and, no matter where in the world he is, he's always able to find THIS GUY!
I think people misunderstand Eddys quick offering of additional items. Hes not desperate to sell more in the moment, hes just planting it in Travis' mind that he can get him ANYTHING he may want so if Travis ever was interested hed think of eddy first
I enjoyed Rocky & got the great soundtrack album for my 15th birthday. Found Network very unsettling but consider it superior. Didn't see the other two in theatres but later on TV; incredible year for film!
@Kevin Malone best picture often takes popularity and cultural significance into account. Taxi driver is amazing but rocky was a way more popular and culturally significant movie.
Travis doesn't look particularly smart or confident, and just blew nearly a thousand bucks on guns without question or haggling, Andy got greedy just thinking what else he could sell him.
Such a great scene on so many levels. Scorsese at his very finest. The movie, and Travis, are escalating here and the viewer really sits up and takes notice. A few things: 1) The workaday way that Andy handles the gun sale is super fascinating to watch. Even though he is selling firearms he treats it like any widget. He knows his products and is detail oriented. 2) His youthful appearance and haircut belie the criminal nature and severity of what he is doing 3) The banal sounds coming trough the window serve as a counterpoint of the seriousness of the gun transaction. The shot of the gun pointing at the two women under the umbrellas is really chilling and amplifies this effect. 4) The way he has the holster ready (to sell, not to give, to Travis) shows how much he orchestrated everything on his end 5) When he has the gun sale closed, the effortless manner in which he switches to drug dealer gives the scene an entirely deeper sense of menace. Andy will sell anything to anyone, no matter how dangerous or harmful.
Beautifully stated. It also must be noted how Travis’ approach to the transaction turns truly transactional as soon as Andy begins offering other illicit goods. A common degree of indecency led them to that room, but their psyches diverged when he brought up drugs and illegal cars. Travis maintains some sort of sick code in the face of luxury commodities.
Andy is a good man. He simply recognizes valuable commodities and respects people's rights to freedom. It's not the sellers problem what you use the shit for, that's all on the customer. Andy is simply a businessman who treats this stuff like any other product. He is a smart businessman that values personal freedoms.
Look at this, that's the M41A pulse rifle. It's a 10mm caseless, holds 99 rounds in a clip with an underslung grenade launcher and shotgun, a real beauty. Look at this, rests right in your shoulder, ain't that a honey? This is a great gun. This is what they give the colonial marines to blast the colonists bunnies who get too rowdy. You could take out a tank with this thing. I could sell it to some scavenger scum for about $800, but I like to make sure it gets to someone respectable.
I'm much more impressed by fully semi automatic ghost guns with 30 heat seeking exploding bullet rounds a second high availability extended clip magazine with the shoulder thing that goes up and a barrel shroud that im not really sure what it does but its what most crimes are committed with, aka.. kevin de leon mccarthy "these guns belong on the battlefield not our streets" special, now that, would be bad ass
How about this, Cobra Assault Cannon. State of the art bang bang. You can go out and hammer railway spikes with it all day, come back and it will blow up shop fronts every time. Got a nice action and a heck of a wallop. They use it in Detroit for hunting cyborgs.
I always loved this scene, and was glad to find a documentary made by Martin Scorsese about Easy Andy, called American Boy. Steven Prince is just as interesting as his character in Taxi Driver. Fame, violence, justifiable homicide, drug use, Neil Diamond, it has it all.
@@charlesvan13 oh really? Nitrous oxide is legal? You mean the stuff they give you at the dentist and that you can buy at headshops is legal? Like not illegal? I had no fucking idea, thank you so much for clarifying that for me sherlock. Because it's not like he's referring to medical grade 20 pound tanks which are incredibly hard to come by without a connect. No you're right, Easy Andy is probably just offering Travis a pack of whip its he bought at the head shop up the street.
Movie making, much like music, has become a lost art. All the real good stuff, the defining moments stuff, the world changing stuff, has already been done. You could never get a scene like this today.
@@lesscobrandeau2451 exactly. I normally don't advertise my content in the comments like this, but I highly recommend you watch my movie "Fullmetal Alchemist Lament of Dreams " on my other channel. It's free on RU-vid, an art house fan film. First ever of ita kind, came out late 2020. There is still hope
This is my favorite scene in Taxi Driver, because of the pacing, and the intonation of the dealer's whiny but soothing voice. It's both sleazy and soothing at the same time. I feel both a desire to get out of this hotel room, and perfectly at ease listening to the patter. He's charismatic and repulsive at all at once.
Andy moving out of the way as Travis carelessly whips the muzzle of the .38 around is a little detail that shows that this guy actually knows something about guns.
One of the things that always got me about his movies, is the direction towards the little things. Right around 0:59 easy Andy had already made sure the weapons were clear, and no ammunition was ever seen. But when Travis handled the weapons Andy treated them as loaded, even moved his body. Good stuff.
Michael Olin, that because of Travis Bickle character is an ex-marine Vietnam war vet, you trained to treat unload weapons has loaded, clean and maintain properly, Easy Andy maybe a vet too, besides firearms safety dictate treat all firearms if there load weapons and who knows if Travis Bickle, may have put a rounded in the chamber explaining Easy Andy movements.
@@billybrand9976 Vast majority of vets I ve known from that era call them clips, its what they were taught. Honestly I call them that frequently too because its a lot easier to say. Not sure why so many gun tubers care about a technicality like that
Revolvers are just too beautiful to go out of fashion. There is something about them. A beautiful man-made tool that happens to be a piece of art also. I love theam ❤
Yeah old Andy was showing his racism there. Back then, a lot of black people (hence his racist remark) didn't know a whole hell of a lot about guns or their worth. So he could get away with selling a .44 Magnum to them for $500.00 instead of a reasonable price like he did for Travis. And being that this movie was released in 1976, racist remarks like "Jungle Bunny" were casually thrown in just about every movie you saw. Good thing times have changed huh 😉
We had 1 shooting two decades ago, banned guns and guess what? Not a single shooting ever since. The USA is so mentally fucked and brainwashed, it's like stockholm syndrome and mass hysteria rolled up into a neat little taco.
Scorcese made a documentary about this actor in the late 70s. His name is Steven Prince, and in the documentary Prince tells a story about giving an adrenaline shot to an ODing woman using a medical dictionary and a felt pen. Quentin Tarantino used that story for Pulp Fiction.
Believe it or not my favorite scene in the movie , loved this actor Steven Prince who did a masterpiece of selling here. Lots of psychology in his selling. Great tough descriptive language while you salivate over those classic guns. I saw Mr Prince on a 2009 video story telling, I could listen to him all day. Glad to know he's still here 👍
"You could go out and hammer nails with it all day, come back, and it'll cut dead center on target every time." I kind of feel the same way about this movie. The gritty unapologetic dialog compliments Scorsese's dark visuals. It one of those movies you either love or hate. I've never meant anybody who, after watching this film, kind of shrugs and says, "eh! It was OK." Most are either fascinated or repulsed.
Easy Andy's sales pitch for the .38 didn't prove to be true when in real life the real Tommy De Simone pistol whipped Billy Batts unconscious using a .38, it fell apart 😂
Damn you got everything. You want a dog I got a border collie for 125 need fish I got koi,goldfish,tuna,snapper and talapia anything you need let me know
@Valami Izé Unless the client is also buying ammunition. But I agree, the 1st and most important rule of gun-running is, Never Get Shot With Your Own Merchandise.
I like how they handle guns like gun owners do. Always checking to see if it is loaded even after seeing someone check if it is loaded just before handing it to them. Is Alec Baldwin taking notes here?
You might like Andy/ Steven Prince tell stories from around them in Scorsese’s documentary about him: American Boy. Some stories he’s loud but some he’s slow and relaxed, with an even more throaty voice. Calm about childhood before the storm of him killing a guy defending himself, but even in that story it’s told in an eerily calm and soothing way. Great story teller
In the theater, its dead quiet when Travis takes aim at the two chatting umbrella ladies, like we dunno who this guy is all of a sudden. Then the brilliant little comedic drug touch at the ending had us laughing.
Currently (Jan ‘21) on the Criterion app there’s a short doc called “American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince” which is about 50 minutes of this guy telling stories to Martin Scorsese.
