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.