Many of the film's actors later reached national prominence as part of the HBO cable television series The Sopranos, including Michael Rispoli, Kathrine Narducci, Matt Servitto, Vincent Pastore, Joseph R. Gannascoli, Sharon Angela and Michele Santopietro (Jackie Aprile Sr., Charmaine Bucco, Agent Harris, Big Pussy, Vito Spatafore, Rosalie Aprile and JoJo Palmice, respectively, in The Sopranos).

An unseen narrator looks back to the year 1956, in the Elm Park neighborhood of Staten Island, New York, to one Buddy Visalo, an Italian guy with "Ralph Kramdenesque" dreams.

He discovers, to his dismay and her horror, that the upstairs Irish tenants, drunken, violent Jim O'Neary and his very pregnant young wife Mary, refuse to move and won't pay rent.

When the baby is born, it's clear his father is black – and the much older, drunken Irish husband immediately skulks off, knowing it's not his child.

"[4] In a review that awarded an A− grade, Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum said, De Felitta "bathes a very specific time, place, class, and ethnic experience — that of working-class Italian-American New Yorkers on Staten Island in 1956 — with a warm, clear light.