The award-winning director Martin Scorsese has directed many things including music videos, TV specials, concert films, television shows, documentaries (television and feature length), and – of course – movies. If you’re a fan of his work you probably know that one of the movies he directed was a sequel (“The Color of Money” was a sequel to “The Hustler”), one movie was a remake of an American movie (“Cape Fear” was a remake of the 1962 movie with the same name), and one movie was a remake of a foreign movie (“The Departed” was based on the Hong Kong movie “Mou gaan dou” also known as “Infernal Affairs”). However, you may not know that one of the movies he directed was what people call a “prequel”. “Goodfellas” is actually a prequel to the movie “My Blue Heaven”.
You may be thinking that those two movies have a lot of differences. They’re written and directed by different people. One is a crime drama which is based on a true story while the other is a comedy. However, there are a few facts that show how similar the movies are.
FACT #1 – “My Blue Heaven” is the 2nd part of the story but was released first. Both movies were released by Warner Bros in 1990. “My Blue Heaven” was released on Aug 17 and “Goodfellas” was released just 5 weeks later on Sept 21. That’s why “Goodfellas” is a prequel.
In fact, it’s one of the first movies in the current prequel craze. Although there have been movies that you could call a prequel – film historians say the first was the 1920 horror movie “The Golem: How He Came Into the World” and there were others such as “Escape from the Planet of the Apes”, “Butch and Sundance: The Early Days”, half of “Godfather Part 2”, and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (did you know that chronologically that movie happens before “Raiders of the Lost Ark”) – the modern prequel movie craze started with “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace” which was released in 1999 and then went crazy with movies like “Prometheus” (“Alien” prequel), “Fantastic Beasts” movies Where to Find Them” (Harry Potter prequel), “X-Men First Class” movies (X-Men prequel), “Monsters University” (“Monsters Inc” prequel), “The Hobbit” (“The Lord of the Rings” prequel”), and the upcoming “The Hunger Games” prequel movie.
FACT #2 – The storylines of the two movies connect. “Goodfellas” is the story of mobster Henry Hill from when he was a boy who started working for the mafia to when he when gets arrested and goes into witness protection. “My Blue Heaven” is about former mobster Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Antonelli who is trying to get accustomed to his new life in the witness protection program. If you watch both movies back-to-back – starting with “Goodfellas” – it’s almost a smooth transition from one movie to the other except that the actors are different and one is a crime drama while the other is a comedy.
FACT #3 – The writers of both movies were married. Nicholas Pileggi wrote the book “Wiseguys” (which was renamed once the “Goodfellas” movie was released) and then went on to co-write the script for the “Goodfellas” movie. Around the same time, his wife Nora Ephron was writing the script for “My Blue Heaven”.
Fact #4 – Henry Hill said he assisted with BOTH movies. The “Goodfellas” book and movie were based on the life of Henry Hill. Later, Henry wrote another book called “Gangsters and Goodfellas: The Mob, Witness Protection, and Life on the Run”. If you are a fan of “Goodfellas” movie or book, I highly recommend reading this book. It gives a lot of information that wasn’t mentioned previously.
In the book, there is literally a chapter called “Nick and Nora”. In that chapter of the book, Henry says that Nora Ephron would speak to him occasionally if Nick was asleep when Henry called late at night. He says that he later realized Nora was picking his brain for a script she was writing that was made into the movie “My Blue Heaven”.
Later in the book, he talks about all the similarities of “My Blue Heaven” and his real life.
- The characters real name in “My Blue Heaven” is different but his new name is similar. The new name in the movie is “Todd” and his new name was “Martin Todd”.
- In the movie, the witness protection case officer was often bailing him out of trouble. He says that the case officer did this in real life.
- There are a few scenes in the movie where people complain that they can’t find authentic marinara sauce and can’t buy arugula in the city that he now lives in. Henry said that is one of the things he was always complaining about.
- The biggest similarity is that there’s one scene in the movie which really happened to him. In the movie, Todd gets a quickie marriage in Reno. The case agent tells him that he’s already married so he committed bigamy, but Todd says he married with his witness protection name. In real life, Henry got married under his witness protection name and the agent tried to talk him out of it because it was bigamy. Even the woman’s name is similar – “Shaldene” in the movie and “Sherry” in real life.
In the book, Henry says that if he didn’t love Nick so much, he would have sued Nora because he didn’t get a penny for “My Blue Heaven”. He also says that Steve Martin is terrific in the movie.
So, if you look over all the facts it definitely looks like “Goodfellas” was a prequel. However, it doesn’t matter in the long run. These days, most people only remember “Goodfellas”. It’s an Academy Award caliber movie (Joe Pesci won for Best Support Actor and the movie was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress). A lot of people say it’s Ray Liotta’s best movie and some people say it’s Martin Scorsese’s best movie. “My Blue Heaven” is not an Academy Award caliber movie and, although I thought Steve Martin was funny in it, I don’t think anyone would say it’s his best movie. Unlike many other prequel movies, “Goodfellas” will be remembered long after “My Blue Heaven” is forgotten.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 