Goodfellas is considered by some viewers as a violent movie due to the graphic nature of some scenes, and the studio initially thought the same and wanted Martin Scorsese to cut one important scene: Spider’s death. Over the course of more than five decades, Martin Scorsese has explored a variety of genres in his career as a filmmaker, but he continues to be best remembered for his gangster movies – and the one that is still regarded as his best is the 1990 movie Goodfellas.
Based on the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, Goodfellas tells the story of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), a mob associate of the Lucchese crime family, from his days as a teenager running errands for Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) and his crew to his full involvement with them a couple of years later. During his time in the mob, Henry met many big names as were Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) and Jimmy “The Gent” Conway (Robert De Niro), and he committed a variety of crimes. Even though the story is all about Henry, Goodfellas takes its time to explore the personalities of other characters, especially that of Tommy, who was one of the most dangerous members of the crew, and the protagonist of one of the most brutal death scenes in the movie.
Tommy was known for having a really bad temper and for being extremely impulsive, which was what ultimately led to his death. A key scene in Tommy’s arc in Goodfellas was when he killed Spider (Michael Imperioli), a young man who made a brief but unforgettable appearance in the movie. Spider served the crew drinks during card games and only appeared twice in Goodfellas, but that was enough as he was used to show what Tommy was capable of doing. During one of those nights bartending for the crew, Spider forgot to bring Tommy’s drink, which the latter obviously didn’t like. Tommy began to argue with Spider, and angered by the laughter of the rest of the crew, he ended up shooting the young man in the foot. Sometime later, Spider returned and served them drinks again, but Tommy started teasing him about the cast on his foot, with Spider telling him to “go f*** himself”. Jimmy praised Spider, angering Tommy who shot Spider multiple times and killed him.
The scene is as graphic as it sounds, and Warner Bros. reportedly wasn’t fully on board with how violent Spider’s death ended up being. The studio is said to have asked for the scene to be removed due to its graphic nature and because it made Tommy “too unlikeable”, but that was the whole point of the scene. It’s thanks to that moment that Henry realized how dangerous and violent Tommy really was, even describing him as “a total psychopath”, so it was a very important scene for Tommy’s character development and to explain events taking place later on in the movie. Cutting Spider’s death scene out of Goodfellas would have slowed down Tommy’s development and wouldn’t have allowed the audience to truly know what he was like and how much he was led by his emotions.
Martin Scorsese reportedly convinced the studio that Spider’s death scene was key to Goodfellas and that’s how he was able to keep the scene, though one that had to be toned down was Billy Batt’s murder, as test audiences didn’t react well to it and started leaving after the first two stabs. Goodfellas is not a happy nor shy movie when it comes to violence, which is justified as it’s a story about gangsters, and as graphic as Spider’s death scene was, it’s one that had to be kept no matter what.