Cinematic City, Part One: City in Silence

As film historians have often pointed out, the first great home of motion pictures was a little Utopian village that seemed to have it all: idyllic vistas of bucolic country roads, stark urban landscapes, open fields, majestic bluffs, and charming 19th century facades. It was called Fort Lee, New Jersey. It also had the long arm of Thomas Edison and his intimidating Motion Picture Patents Trust, which continually strove to stifle the burgeoning talents of movie makers struggling to break free of its control. It was for this reason, as well as the unpredictable east coast weather, that pioneering filmmakers, like the American frontiersman before them, left the Hudson River Valley and traversed westward, eventually settling in the idyllic climate of Southern California. There, in a sleeply little hamlet of orange groves and chicken farms called "Hollywood", an industry was born.

By the time Edison's Trust was declared an illegal monopoly in 1915, the movies and Hollywood were irrevocably united. When the European film industry was decimated as a result of the First World War, the American film industry moved to the forefront of the world, and to the world, movies meant America, and America meant Hollywood. Though a few renegade filmmakers worked outside the Hollywood box, by and large  the most  films successful films  of the period  were those created and produced within the environs of Southern California.

At the same time, New York enjoyed its first halcyon period as the playground for the roaring hoards of revelers celebrating the heady times of the 1920s. The city saw an economic boom that redesigned both the cultural and urban skyline of Manhattan. By 1925, New York City became the most populous city in the world, overtaking London which had reigned for a century. This huge influx of divergent energies, cultures, and races created a metropolis that was itself a living, breathing entity. Ask anyone who has spent even the smallest amount of time traversing it's thoroughfares; unlike any other city, New York has rhythms, intentions, and motivations all its own.

This singular characteristic appealed to two filmmakers who were both reaching the apex of their careers in the late 1920s: Harold Lloyd and King Vidor. Today, Lloyd is most recognizable as the bespectacled young man dangling precariously from the hands of a clock on the side of a skyscraper; it is one of the great iconic images of American film. In the 1920s, however, he rivaled Chaplin and Keaton in popularity and acclaim. What distinguished Lloyd was that he was the most archetypal  "American" of the group; his aggressive, resilient, romantic character was perfectly in tune with the era. He was 1920s America. More specifically, he was 1920s New York City. His qualities, and the city's qualities, were a perfect mesh. While the majority of his films tapped into this unique and cosmopolitan (ie: New York) quality, ironically they were shot on the streets of Los Angeles, not New York. When the time came to film what would be his final silent film, Speedy (1928), Lloyd decided to rectify that.

"Speedy" was Harold Lloyd's real nickname, and there is no better adjective for this incredibly raucous, rollicking, roller-coaster ride of a film, or for the city that it joyously celebrates. From the elevated trains criss-crossing the canyons of Manhattan to the thrills of Coney Island, to a cameo appearance by Yankee legend Babe Ruth, Speedy is a Valentine to an era long gone -- and that was quickly disappearing as the film itself was being made. In Speedy, Lloyd portrays Harold "Speedy" Swift , the blindly optimistic young man in love with the young girl with a predicament: her grandfather's horse-drawn trolley is in danger of being swallowed up into a corporate monopoly. But these characters and their story are really secondary to the third character of the film: New York City. The immigrant neighborhoods, the impossibly crowded thoroughfares, the overwhelming urban spectacles are just as integral to the unfolding of the plot as any human character. They present obstacles, entice and seduce with their pleasures, threaten danger, create mishaps, but eventually bring our hero and heroine together at the end of the film.

Take for example, a Sunday afternoon spent at Coney Island. From the opening shots, when the boy and girl excitedly enter the subway station en route to Luna Park, the the atmosphere is charged with anticipation. Rather than construct a set, the sequence was shot at the actual Wall Street subway station - complete with animated crowds pushing and shoving each other into the waiting train - which lends the scene not only a palpable energy, but an added layer of authenticity. For many film goers, this was their first glimpse at the chaos of an subway ride, and the swift and startling physical proximity between strangers that it creates. This sudden and enforced physical intimacy naturally leads to closer emotional intimacy for the couple, and it continues to build with each subsequent "ride" once the couple arrives at Coney Island. This is "The City" bringing the couple together.

As in most of his films, Lloyd's character confronts one obstacle after another in an attempt to reach his goal. The difference in Speedy is that it is often "The City" throwing up the obstacle, and by turn, "The City" coming to his aid. Whether romancing his girl with the plebeian pleasures of Coney Island, taking "The Babe" on the taxi ride of his life to Yankee Stadium, or the final climax of the film, a breathtaking chase on the trolley car through the streets of Manhattan, Lloyd and his team were fearless in capturing as much of the city as they could . At various times their near "guerrilla filmmaking" techniques employed cameras hidden in milk wagons, on the back of trucks, and in one instance, on the top of a speeding ambulance. Their fearlessness resulted in the only Academy Award nomination a Lloyd film ever received, for director Ted Wilde in the short lived "Best Director of a Comedy " category.

Even at this point in the history of the city, the enormity of this achievement cannot be overstated. New York City, and it's huddled masses, had defeated more than one filmmaker in 1928 -- notably Buster Keaton. One of  cinema's great risk-takers, Keaton packed up after only a few weeks of frustrating New York filming and headed back to the controlled environment of Culver City to complete The Cameraman. And, though Lloyd did indeed film key scenes on his studio lot in West Los Angeles, what remains in the finished film is remarkable. The final race to the rescue, a hallmark of many of Lloyd's films, is especially noteworthy considering that  a real accident--Lloyd's trolley car collided with an elevated train column--threatened to derail filming. ("The City" literally throwing an obstacle in his path). Showing the same remarkable ingenuity for which his film character's were noted, Lloyd and his crew integrated the crash into the plot, resulting in an even more thrilling finale.  It remains one of the most exciting and daring sequences in film comedy.

In retrospect, Speedy can be viewed as a comic metaphor for the breakneck pace at which New York (and therefore, America) was hurling itself through the dizzying decade of the 1920s, as well as the inevitable crash that was to come. Whereas Lloyd's Speedy assumes a lighthearted and satiric slant , King Vidor's masterpiece, The Crowd, made the same year, shows the other side of this desperate race - and its dangerous and devastating toll on the human psyche. And once again, New York City  is at the forefront  of it all.


To be continued...

Cinematic City

So, here I find myself waking up in the city that never sleeps. The best of everything in the world is here -- fashion, finance, food -- but what is it that lights the corners of my mind as I walk the sidewalks of New York?

Films.
 

More  specifically, films about New York. It is not that surprising, considering that  this most cinematic of cities has inspired filmmakers since film was a one reel wonder. After all,  motion pictures were born here -- or just across the Hudson River  at the Edison Laboratory in  New Jersey. The earliest productions were shot on these very streets, and the first American motion picture studios, such as  Vitagraph, Biograph, and Kalem were founded here. This is where D.W. Griffith,  Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Blanche Sweet, and Douglas Fairbanks all began their careers in cinema.

Even though the center of  production eventually moved three thousand miles away to a little hamlet called Hollywood, movies never forgot where they started.  The silent era saw many films utilize the Great Gotham, including two of my favorites from 1928, The Crowd  and Harold Lloyd's last silent feature, Speedy.  Movies  have always had a love affair with Manhattan, but the advent of sound made location filming prohibitive,  and what was once a film maker's playground was relegated to replicated sets on studio back lots. Thus, "naughty, bawdy, gaudy" 42nd Street was in reality a sound stage  in the San Fernando Valley, and the "lights of Fourteenth Street" were florescent bulbs strung on an outdoor set in Century City, California.

With rare exception (such as 1945's The Lost Weekend) New York filming was limited to quick  background shots to establish location, and then production quickly headed back to the controlled atmosphere of the sound stage.  It wasn't until On the Town (1949), when Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen  convinced a skeptical MGM  to allow them to film the opening number, "New York, New York" entirely on Manhattan locations, rather than on the back lot, that the singular joys of the city's character were re-discovered. After that, film steadily began to dip its toe into the rich New York waters, and  through the 1950s  films  such as How to Marry a Millionaire (1953),  It Should Happen To You (1954), The Marrying Kind (1955),  The Seven Year Itch  (1955), The Sweet Smell of Success (1957) and North by Northwest (1959) captured the particular joys, romance, and chaos of post-war Manhattan. These films, though shot primarily in studio, featured key scenes filmed on the streets of the city, thus providing added dimension to the finished product.Some brave film makers, however, jumped into the  New York waters feet first -- literally. Elia Kazan filmed On the Waterfront (1954) in and around the docks of  Hoboken, New Jersey, and the film won the 1954 Best Picture Oscar in the process.  The following year, director Delbert Mann repeated the feat, filming  1955's Best Picture winner, Marty, in and  around the area that New Yorker's refer to as  "uptown and to the right":  the Bronx.

Hollywood's love affair with New York hit its zenith in 1961 with the release of what is considered  by  many to be the ultimate New York romance, Breakfast At Tiffany's. That year  saw the release of another New York story, this one centered on the city's chaotic and often violent West Side.   While the former  remains a classic in escapist romance, the latter, West Side Story, suggested  that not all was huckleberries and rainbows; there were  some pretty turbulent times "waitin' round the bend".  Indeed, as the decade wore on, what was post-war euphoria turned into a cosmopolitan nightmare for many,  and film began to reflect the growing sense of urban paranoia.   In Rosemary's Baby (1968), Midnight Cowboy (1969), The Out of Towners (1970),   Mean Streets (1973),  Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Taxi Driver (1976) and Cruising (1980), the city was often cast as an adversary - in both comic and tragic vein.

But, as in all fairy tales,  the hero arrives in the nick of time to save his damsel in distress. In this instance,  Manhattan's Prince Charming  was the ultimate New Yorker himself, Woody Allen.    Beginning with Annie Hall (1977), and especially the lyrical Manhattan (1979), Allen began creating cinematic valentines that reflected his romantic vision of his battered but  beautiful lady.  Set to the strains of Gershwin and  Rogers and Hart, it was impossible not to be moved by the cinematic splendor of the tarnished cityscape, and Manhattan began a cinematic renaissance. This renewed passion for the magnificence of the city dovetailed with its economic resurgence, and throughout the next two decades films such as Arthur (1981), Tootsie (1983), Moonstruck (1987), When Harry Met Sally (1989), The Prince of Tides (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), As Good As it Gets (1997) and   You've Got Mail (1998) depicted a veritable wonderland. With the sudden influx of millions of dollars   into the urban renewal of the 1990s, the city rose to even greater heights.  By the end of the twentieth century, New York was second only to Paris as the most romantic city in the world.

So, this summer, I will be taking a trip to classic Hollywood in New York, and highlighting some of my  favorite New York stories.  I hope you'll come on along,  and we'll take a look at how  filmmakers from Griffith to Ephron have turned Manhattan into a cinematic isle of  joy.