The Martin Scorsese Collection

In a freshly minted commentary track for Mean Streets, Martin Scorsese says he based Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel?s contentious relationship partly on Abbott and Costello. Then, for anyone upset with his crime-ridden portrayals, the director recommends positive takes on Italian-Americans like ”Marty” and — who knew? — the Anne Bancroft-directed ”Fatso.” But until the next Borgnine or DeLuise film festival, we?ll have to make do with five Scorsese pics getting a special-edition treatment from Warner, not all of which involve made men. There?s an unraveling woman at the center of Alice Doesn?t Live Here Anymore, which may be the director?s one bona fide chick flick but still boasts action-flick-worthy camera moves. Scorsese admits that ”Alice”’s studio-mandated happy ending posed a problem — not unlike the obstacles to finding a non-defeatist wrap-up for After Hours, a too rare turn at black comedy. These ended up classics anyway, unlike his Cassavetes-indebted debut feature, Who?s That Knocking at My Door?, a film Scorsese admits is best seen as as a dry run at ”Streets,” which more ably addressed Catholic and familial guilt. For most consumers, anyway, these will all be mere opening acts for a new double-disc treatment of GoodFellas, less remarkable for yet another mile-a-minute Scorsese monologue than for a separate ”cop and crook commentary,” wherein the real Henry Hill and his prosecutor enthuse over the verisimilitude of each whack job. By equal turns, Hill?s brushes with death and Scorsese?s viscera-fests will make you glad to be alive. ”Mean Streets,” ”Alice,” ”After Hours,” ”GoodFellas”:A ”Who?s That Knocking”: B?