New York in movies

Something Wild captured the seedy side. My favorite part is when Carroll Baker rents a tiny hole in the wall apartment and her neighbor is Jean Stapleton, who sits out in the hallway in her slip painting her nails and fanning herself.

Midnight Cowboy

GLORIA

[quote] Something Wild captured the seedy side.

Yes I remember and liked that movie too. Also the subway scene was also very memorable and captured New York for me.

Another I can think of is Pick Up on South Street which captured a hot Summer day in the sticky subway too.

Great suggestions guys. I’ve seen them all so far and totally agree with your choices. You really get it!

After Hours and Desperately Seeking Susan make me nostalgic for old New York.

The Out-of-Towners

Down with Love (for a phony version)

Gloria

Across 110th Street

The French Connection

Big Business

Baby Boom

Death Wish

Coming to America

American Psycho (for a better nostalgic version)

The Clock

The Naked City (1948)

"There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."

Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976)

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

The Odd Couple (film and series)

R2 "Midnight Cowboy" is at Film Forum on Houston, beginning Friday, June 23.

Trailer for “The Prisoner of Second Avenue”

I love the factory scenes in Midnight Cowboy and Viva and the other warhol players.

The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)

Crossing Delancey (1988)

Winter's Tale - NYC looked like a place a magic story ought to take place. Also, Colin Farrell looked good in period clothes.

Not the era that OP is zeroing in on, but Margaret, the Kenneth Lonergan film with Anna Paquin and an impressive assembly of stars (then and future), is a favorite New York City movie of mine. It really captures the look and feel of the shortly-post-9/11 era in which it takes place. Photography was completed by 2006, although the release was held up until 2011. That movie had a notably troubled postproduction history and now exists at both the studio-mandated length and in a director-assembled longer version (which plays better, IMO).

It's notable for having Kieran Culkin, J. Smith-Cameron, AND Jeannie Berlin, long before there was a Succession.

Succession has that New York vibe I love

The 25th Hour was another good post-9/11 NYC movie.

NYC's Film Forum is currently doing a retrospective called "The City: Real and Imagined." More than 50 movies over 4 weeks.

Dressed To Kill. Not only the Met and the Subway scene, but the seedy, impersonal hotel.

Woody Allen's movie, Manhattan, shows the city in a great light. I love the opening....Gershwin's, Rhapsody in Blue...so perfect for all the scene clips shown of NYC. The raw power and bigness of the city. In fact, Allen seems to romanticize (sp) NYC in most of his movies. In spite of all it's problems now, it is a great city.

That Girl opening shows New York back in the 60s. Vibrant and very exciting...full of hope and dreams.

The poetic and overblown Great Gatsby by Baz Luhrmann still caught a bit of the jazzy horniness of young people in the summer in NYC.

I worked in Wall Street banking right out of college and Working Girl got the mis en scene correct.

The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley McLaine does it for me. Also on TV although the waterfront city is never named, Peter Gunn has that feeling, with wood-burning fireplaces in stylish apartments.

Trash with Holly and Joey is quite evocative. Jane Forth was good. Paris is Burning, of course.

Basket Case is one of the better Times Square sleaze movies. But there are so many. Bowie and Deneuve in The Hunger.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. The World of Henry Orient. Miracle on 34th Street.

An Unmarried Woman

Mean Streets and Household Saints are good about the Lower East Side, though to me Little Italy is smack in the centre of Manhattan down there. I don't care for early Spike Lee but Do the Right Thing does capture Brooklyn.

A Hatful Of Rain is an unromantic view of Manhattan just before my time.

First Wives Club

New Jack City

IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU, with Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon, was filmed extensively in NYC, particularly West 69th Street (which also inspired the set design for THE APARTMENT).

Madame Satan is insane. Like a Deco NY Fever Dream.

Regarding Sweet Smell of Success, does anyone know what theater was used for the scene with JJ Hunsecker, Falco, the sister and her boyfriend Martin Milner? It looks like a TV stage but I can't quite place it.

I love the mid-century modern energy of Bell, Book & Candle: the underground jazz club, Kim Novak’s African sculpture gallery shop, ie.

Up The Down Staircase, about an innocent and new teacher teaching in a gritty NYC public high school.

Filmed on location as WW2 was nearing its end…watch it for the old El trains above the east side of Manhattan; stay for Jane Wyman’s co-dependence.

Barefoot In The Park

Can’t stand barefoot in the park. Corie was so annoying.

Maniac and Basket Case from the early 80's have a great, seedy NYC feel.

This xmas movie could have been filmed on sound stages but it does have a New York feel.

NYC almost at its nadir..but an Oscar-winning screenplay (and DL fave “Emma Peel”).

Shaft. Eldergays would definitely recognize the old New York of their youth.

Fame

One thing a movie can't do justice to. The faint smell of urine after a brief summer rain.

panic in needle park is a seedy side of NY

^^^ Shows a seedy side of NYC

I agree with R9! Oddly enough I think it’s the B & W films that seem to best show New York as a “character,” if you will. Oddly, I find Allen’s films to mostly having a sensibility rather than showing New York the way that noirs do.

Carolyn Jones got an Oscar nomination as a beatnik in this film, a real relic of American attempts to import gritty dramas being made in Europe and Japan.

Who Killed Teddy Bear, if only to look at Sal Mineo.

The Little Fugitive was filmed in Coney Island in 1953 with Steeplechase Amusement Park as a backdrop.

Though its a very simple, largely amateur acted, childhood adventure, It’s an excellent time capsule that could yield 100 artistic stills. One of its 3 directors was notable photographer Ruth Orkin, who documented Hollywood royalty and created the indelible photograph An American Girl in Italy (1951). .

Gurls, gurls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Breakfast at Tiffany's" owns this thread.

Hon. mention: "The World of Henry Orient"

Annie Hall

Dead End

City for Conquest

On the Waterfront (filmed on the NY side but I believe was supposed to be Hoboken

R54 no, it doesn’t …it’s a bastardo Ayón of the novella, location shots notwithstanding. A DL movie—yes…ta significant filmed version of Manhattan—NO.

*bastardization 😵‍💫

R55 Hoboken was Hoboken in the movie—those Jersey scenes where filmed there.

R40

The Lost Weekend is about a man battling alcoholism. The book it was based on was about a man uncertain about sexuality, but the Code forbade movies about homosexuality, at least, in any overt manner.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Jersey ;)

I liked a lot of the films of the late 60s/early 70s that showed how gritty and unlovely New York had become. One of my all time favorite films is J.T., the story of a shy kid in Harlem who adopts a cat. A paper-thin story told with heart and great warmth. Just beautiful and the Harlem that you see is completely different from the crime and drugs storylines that were prevalent then.

R53 Little Fugitive is easily one of my top ten films of all time.

François Truffaut was so impressed with Little Fugitive it inspired him to write and direct Les Quatre Cents Coups (400 Blows), which begat the French New Wave movement.

The French Connection. Friedkiin really knew how to film the city...incl. the NYC locations on Boys In The Band.

Has no one mentioned Annie Hall? For goodness sake!

Rich Kids.

[bold]An Unmarried Woman[/bold]

Middle of the Night from 1959, especially the scenes shot in the Garment District during a dreary cold and rainy NYC winter.

Saturday Night Fever. Death Wish.

The opening of Manhattan is probably one of the most perfect love letters to NYC. And of the time that I most mythologize.

Another vote for Dead End and for Little Fugitive. Lots of great titles on this thread. Oh, and Lost Weekend, a travelogue of 3rd Ave.

Superfly

Arthur

An Al Pacino movie, he’s in love and has a tiny apartment. I only saw a snippet, but I liked the vibe.

The Love Statue

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Unlike other recent shows set in old New York, they actually go out into the streets. Don Draper was only ever in his office or an apartment.

Try a huge swatch of the Sidney Lumet filmography: Dog Day Afternoon, Daniel, Prince of the City, Serpico, The Pawnbroker, The Anderson Tapes, etc., etc. He didn't "glamorize" the city so his movies always have that gritty, authentic, time-capsule feel.

TAXI DRIVER--the NYC in this movie is like Woodie Allen's NYC and Death Wish combined.

Ms. 45. It's even rawer than Taxi Driver.

hawt

Thanks to all re the Hoboken/NY correx re "On the Waterfront".

R60

All my life I thought that On the Waterfront was filmed in Brooklyn.

Yes...Working Girl opening with Carly Simon's, Let The River Run....fabulous R26!

R76 came here just to post this. That opening scene is just amazing. From the Statue of Liberty to the pan of lower Manhattan and the WTC 😪 with the Staten Island Ferry approaching and with that soaring chorus of Let the River Run. Could not be bettered.

Love The French Connection for the late 60s/early 70s feel of NYC. Also The Detective, smarmy Sinatra cop show with plenty of gay bashing. Although it’s current, Can You Ever Forgive Me captures the period it was set in well. Also Boys In the Band (original) and remake. For a sleazy side try to find Fleshpot on 42nd Street (1972) about hustler bars on 42nd street before it was Disneyfied. A featured role by Harry Reems (credited at Bob Walters). TCM ran it a few years ago during their TCM Underground series.

And second all the posts about Working Girl!

The Goodbye Girl is another one that is very New York.

Next Stop, Greenwich Village

R80

Already suggested.

R81

Stick it up your ass.

r82

Let's face it. New York City is a great backdrop, with many great stories.

R53 thanks for that. I had never heard of it.

[quote]Let's face it. New York City is a great backdrop, with many great stories.

There are eight million stories in the naked city

R85

I included a link to the 1948 movie at R9.

The World of Henry Orient - Shows an early 60’s NYC from the point of view of upper class preppies, which is what I was back then.

Moonstruck - Nostalgic for me, because of its depiction of the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood, where I lived for 12 years, including when it was filmed.

Portrait of Jennie - The use of a lot of actual Manhattan locations, filmed with various filters and effects, created an eerie quality, showing that even a contemporary city can have a fantastic edge.

Hannah And Her Sisters. Woody Allen did some great New York movies. After watching them, you want to move there.

West Side Story

Slaves of New York

Coogan's Bluff and The Pope of Greenwich Village

The title of the thread isn't films made about New York, but films in which New York was a strong cultural element and, looking back, records a New York that no longer exists.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's", with its opening scene of Hepburn at dawn looking longingly into the windows of what is just possibly one of the most iconic names on an iconic corner (57th Street and Fifth Avenue) absolutely belongs on this thread. Remember toward the end, when Hepburn still thinks she's bagged the Brazilian aristo, and looks around at Sixth Avenue and tells Peppard that someday she will bring her nine Brazilian brats to "see this", because it's like nothing else in the world?

Not to mention those beautiful townhouse flats in the East Sixties just off Park or Madison . . .

You have to be kidding. That opening alone stamps the film as a bona fide paean to NYC.

R91 keep trying

Probably already mentioned, but Dog Day Afternoon. The opening music and scenes were perfect 1970s NYC. Great throwback..

Times Square. After Hours. Cruising. Taxi Driver. Uncut Gems. Desperately Seeking Susan. Klute. Another Woman. Fame.

Side Street (1950)

Poor Cathy —by her looks she was perfect for her role in BYofOL, by her acting she was plain as the worst Jane off the street.

Here's a really old silent one (1928), The Crowd. The scenes of old Coney Island and the amusements, plus how life was back then...the styles and buildings.

R95 that Side Street trailer is gorgeous…the car flipping over right in front of Federal Hall (kitty corner to the NYSE) could have been filmed yesterday.

I watched After Hours not that long ago and it captures what I remember as a glamorous emptiness and seediness in 1980’s Soho.

There were still dive bars, weird basement clubs, bare bones lofts with sketchy plumbing and electricity.

It was lots of fun.

R91

Breakfast at Tiffany's was suggested at R54.

R99

After Hours was already mentioned.

Koyaanisqatsi

And you know what, r100? R91's description of the movie was so much more complete and interesting than r54's mere mention of the title.

What drives you to be such a complete waste of time and space, r100 r101?

The 1st shots of a desserted dawn stricken 5th avenue in Breakfast at Tiffany's nearly makes me tear up on nostalgia (of a time I never lived in, mind you). The wistful "Moon River" playing in the background just adds to it.

No mention of The Owl and The Pussycat (1970) starring DL fave Barbra Streisand in fabulous padded push-up bras? Very New York!

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

R106, just seeing the title to the film "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" makes me tear-up... I just love Peggy Ann Garner. Her scenes with James Dunn are heartbreaking and lovely.

^my father was a 60s-70s version of Francine’s Pa.

He did not die in the street in winter cold. But, honest to God, we had more than one holiday where the tree showed up very late on Christmas Eve! It wasn’t til much later that I fully understood why those “special” trees were so late…

Kazan’s first picture.

James Dunn’s Oscar (and Peggy Ann’s “special” juvenile Oscar).

Does anyone else think that Dorothy McGuire, as an actress, was actually quite good? She has a rather thankless role in the film and the screenwriter, director and actress do not shy away from making her tough character.

Oh! and of course, McGuire is the "other woman" in "A Summer Place" with DL-fave, Constance Ford! Dorothy's character enjoyed Rickard Egan's hirsute manliness! woof

R110

Dorothy McGuire was very good. It was a tough role, She plays another firm mother in Friendly Persuasion, although she's more loving.

R107 I know what you mean. Especially when she goes to collect his shaving cup.

R110 and R111 Gentlemen, I’m in agreement.

[quote]I watched After Hours not that long ago and it captures what I remember as a glamorous emptiness and seediness in 1980’s Soho [...] It was lots of fun.

It is. Scorsese has made "greater" films, but After Hours is one of the most fun to watch. That's not something I often say about his filmography, and I do love Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and other obvious choices.

Scorsese's direction was nicely in sync with the humor of the screenplay by Joseph Minion, who later wrote the cult favorite Vampire's Kiss, starring Nicolas Cage at his most unhinged. Come to think of it, that movie is another time capsule of the funkier side of '80s New York.

After Hours is coming out on 4k!

Gremlins 2.

After Hours.

[quote] Does anyone else think that Dorothy McGuire, as an actress, was actually quite good?

When Dorothy McGuire died, she was not included in the Oscar “In Memoriam” segment. When her family asked why, they were told there were only a fixed number of slots.

I just saw "Sweet Smell of Success" for the first time at Film Forum. What a great film! I am largely unfamiliar with Burt Lancaster and want to dive into his filmography now.

"Uncut Gems" is a great recent entry.

"The King Of Comedy" is another great New York Scorsese film.

Saturday Night Fever and All That Jazz.

Agreed R121, no one has seen it. I saw it at the movies.

NETWORK (1976) a New York TV news satire. A must see, it even has gay icon Faye Dunaway in it.

R119, Burt was very hot and very supportive of gay men.

CRUISING.

The Warriors

OP, Thanks for starting this thread. I watched Sweet Smell of Success last night and Something Wild today, and really enjoyed both. I started a list of movies mentioned here and I'm going to go through as many as I can this week and next while I'm on vacation. Some I've already seen, but are old favorites that I want to watch again, like World of Henry Orient.

Great thread!

New York in TV was great in the TV series Naked City.

Do the Right Thing

[quote] Dead End

That slum is now the multibillion dollar neighborhood of the UN

[quote] I love the aesthetic of Sweet Smell of Success

A city without air conditioning other than theaters. The well to do put fans in their open windows and the rich simply abandoned the city in the sweltering summer. And the poor just sweated on their stoops. That was the real sweet smell.

I love and highly recommend the noir Sorry Wrong Number (1948) with Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster and Ed Begley (Sr). An invalid woman who overhears two men plotting her murder. It's melodrama, but New York is a character in the movie. Most of you already know this one.

Another, Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) with Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan and Ed Begley again. About a heist gone wrong. City and upstate scenes. Belafonte is HOT.

Little Murders (1971) with Elliott Gould (before he self-destructed), Marcia Rodd, Alan Arkin, Doris Roberts, Vincent Gardenia, and Donald Sutherland in a cameo role. A satirical Jules Feiffer play about a man apathetic to all the New York crime around him and the woman who tries to wake him up. Very dark 1970 comedy.

Peter Bogdanovic’s They All Laughed. Great views, the Algonquin Hotel, and the fad of country music bars.

Terrific Stanwyck voiceover - opening scene of a 1949 soap called East Side West Side.

Yes we know, Barb…it was posted above—please read before you think out loud.

R136 Sometimes people just want to share the bit that they know about the title thread and don't want to read through all the posts.

And sometimes make fools of themselves…if you can’t be bother to a quick tour if the thread (with links and pictures)…don’t bother to post a ‘new’ one. It’s quite basically the cool, calm &!preferred way to post on DL.

White Collar

“Fatal Attraction”

R136, R135's clip was not posted before, dear.

R137 > R138.

The only one making a fool of himself is you, r138, with your out-of-control control issues.

And it's "If you can't be bother[bold]ed[/bold]," dear. We won't bother getting into your ellipses issue at this time.

I had never heard of "Little Murders" before catching it a few years ago at Film Forum, R133, and I had forgotten all about it until your post brought it rushing back. What a strange film, wonderful in its peculiar way. It would make a good double feature with "The Long Goodbye"—Elliot Gould estranged on both coasts.

I stand corrected, oh grammarian of the gods! Ye gads.

R142 was that TA / proctor in Typing class who walked up and down the aisle making faces at the students.

Love the shots of the Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan. The Gershwin soundtrack helps, too.

I'm four movies in on this thread. Tonight I watched A Tree Grows In Brooklyn and I cried my eyes out. I literally sobbed. I am bookish like the main character and had a drunk father with a winning personality, so this really got n amongst me.

I don't know what's next but I just keep scrolling up and down this thread looking for direction.

Two perfect New York films which none of you clowns mentioned and captured NY beautifully in great moments of time were How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying a (Mary Blair) brightly colored satiric view of NY right before the widespread fall into filth and grit and A Double Life a depressing film noir filmed by of all people George Cukor and starring of all people Ronald Coleman showing a very dark side of Broadway success featuring fabulous shots of the theater district in the mid 40s. This is what OP was talking about dumbo R92.

You may be correct, but holy run-on sentence, r148.

A Double Life is an interesting film, but all I remember regarding theater district places is Sardi's. The other memorable thing is Coleman playing Othello in blackface. Interesting work from Shelly Winters.

You also see Coleman running through dark NY streets late at night and Times Square at 45th and Broadway featuring the long gone Astor Hotel and Morosco theater. Also what I believe is the Empire theater once a great playhouse.

Those run on sentences come from studying Italian where they never end.

It's been a long time since I actually watched A Double Life, r150. It is an interesting artifact on many levels. I guess I kinda wondered why you addressed us as "you clowns" for not knowing of this fairly obscure film, and why you used the phrase "of all people" twice in the same post.

Kramer vs Kramer

Pillow Talk

Holiday

Bachelor Mother

Holiday Affair

The Desk Set

R152/153, most of those movies were done on sound stages and do not have the New York vibe or feel.

Kramer v. Kramer had at least one real NYC interior, the lobby at Della Femina, Travisano, and Partners ad agency.

A Double life on DL should not be an obscure film. The great Ronald Colman won an Oscar for it, it was directed by George Cukor and it was written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin and is about Broadway. And it features DL icon Shelly Winters in one of her first roles where she's her usual blowsy self.

The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951) with scenes that are supposed to take place in the Flatiron Building, plus street locations. Scott Brady, Zero Mostel, Michael O'Shea, Jeanne Crain, Frank Fontaine, and most importantly, THELMA RITTER in the lead. Directed by Cukor, on Youtube:

Godspell