Top 5 New York, New York Movies

This week I've been busily showing my visiting sister and niece the Big Apple. Sure they get to see tourist sites like Times Square, One World Trade, Central Park, and Rockefeller Center- but they also get to experience those little spots that make New York unique- like Penelope, Marie's Crisis, and even a drag restaurant where Joan Rivers is still alive.

I'm in a New York state of mind, and I can't help but remember all those movies that have used New York City locations so effectively- essentially making me fall in love with a real city by watching celluloid fantasies. And coincidentally, the new Ghostbusters movie comes out today with lots of shots of Manhattan. Don't believe the haters. It's fun. Trust me.

So here they are- my Top 5 New York, New York movies!:

Sweet Charity (1969)

Charity (the one and only Shirley MacLaine) is a dancehall gal whose romantic life is as confused as she is. If she isn't getting thrown off a bridge in Central Park, she's being abandoned in a movie star's bedroom (with a bedspread made of three kinds of fur!), or dumped by her fiance (the recently RIP John McMartin) because her job is a little too risque for his taste. But through it all Charity's pluck endures and insures there is always another musical number right around the corner.

The plot is based on the Fellini classic Nights of Cabiria (1957) and tends to wander around town. But MacLaine's goofy screen persona and the fantastic songs like the opening number, "My Personal Property" really make Sweet Charity a pleasant trip. The biggest hit from the show, "Hey Big Spender" is a cabaret bar mainstay- and the West Side Story-esque visuals of "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This" make you want to leap around on your rooftop like MacLaine, Chita Rivera, and Paula Kelly.

MacLaine croons the sweet "It's a Nice Face" to a passed out stranger in an elevator and "Rich Man's Frug" gives the mini-dress and the pony-step a real meltdown at The "God I wish this place actually existed" Pompeii Club. Charity isn't very deep- it's just plain old fun.

Much of director Bob Fosse's creative use of song and site benefits from being shot on location in New York City with Central Park, the Top of the Rock, Yankees Stadium, and Wall Street setting the stage for Charity's romance and dance numbers. It might be said that Charity's real love affair is with New York. Look for a brief cameo by future Harold and Maude (1971) star Bud Cort at the end.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

A sweetly titled movie that is not so sweet, Sweet Smell is the acid-toned story of young press agent, Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), who is willing to do anything to get in good with Walter Winchell-esque Broadway columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster- who co-produced as well as starred). But as always happens to these ambitious young thangs, Sidney gets much more than he bargained for when he waltzes with the devil.

The film is legendary for its dialogue- a verbal dance with tongues made of barbed wire. Ernest Lehman who wrote the short-story the piece is based on worked up the film script initially, but became deathly ill so famed playwright Clifford Odets finished the job. Lehman would later admit that the working environment with Lancaster & Co. was toxic, and nearly killed him. But with lines like, "The cat's in the bag, and the bag's in the river," it would seem the script's birth by fire was worth it. The Vanity Fair expose on the making of the film is well worth a read.

Lancaster and Curtis are terrific with both screen idols dropping their "good guy" images to play two of the slimiest characters ever teamed-up on the screen. The darkness of these two characters is mirrored by James Wong Howe's stunning chiaroscuro lighting scheme that makes the inside of popular bars and nightclubs look like depraved opium dens- all to the strains of a jazzy Elmer Bernstein score.

1950's Times Square is on full display here with the legendary intersection and real life locations like the Brill Building, 21 Club, and Toots Shor Restaurant providing the frenetic energy that drives the film (even though the interior of 21 was recreated on a Hollywood set). The director found it hard to get some of those shots as the screaming Tony Curtis fans frequently broke through barricades to get a piece of their matinee idol. Don't bite too hard girls. He tastes like "a cookie full of arsenic."

The King of Comedy (1982)

Director Martin Scorsese is a New Yorker born and bred- so it's easy to see why The City That Never Sleeps is a main character in many of his early films. While Taxi Driver (1976) is legendary for its NYC locations, I'm also fond of Scorsese's use of the city in his stab at the entertainment biz, The King of Comedy.

Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro before he stopped trying) is an aspiring comic. He's done the work. He's crafted his jokes. He's followed the careers of successful comics. Heck, he's even created a talkshow set in his apartment complete with cardboard cutouts for guests and a wallpaper audience. What more does he need to do to get a gig? In Rupert's mind, kidnap the most successful talkshow host in America (Jerry Lewis playing himself?) and make him put Rupert on his show.

King of Comedy is so great because while it winkingly highlights the impossibility of making it in the entertainment industry, it also shines a blacklight on the obsessed uber-fans that provide the fuel for our stars. Pupkin isn't just crazy for stalking Jerry Langford, he's crazy for wanting to be like him in the first place. De Niro does oddly-intriguing crazy well, and Rupert, while clearly insane, feels as sad as he does threatening.

The same cannot be said of his friend Masha. In the hands of Sandra Bernhard, this obsessed fan is every star's worst nightmare- a sex-crazed lunatic who has no regard for personal space or volume. Lewis as Langford plays the role of a lifetime as the world-weary, nasty comic- sick of fame, sick of fans, and sick of himself.

'80's Midtown Manhattan is on full display here with lots of West Side and Times Square grittiness to take the shine off the television talkshow. My favorite location is the former Paramount Building at 1633 Broadway- where I have worked for the last 16 years.

Manhattan (1979)

Woody Allen is the quintessential New York filmmaker. No other director (except for perhaps Scorsese) has had a bigger role in depicting New York City on the big screen. So it should come as no surprise that Allen's movie Manhattan is a visual loveletter to his favorite town.

The film opens with a black and white montage of New York underscored by Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue": The Manhattan skyline, Staten Island Ferry, 5th Avenue, Washington Square Park, Fulton Fish Market, Guggenheim Museum, Central Park. Allen narrates, "New York is my town- and it always will be." He has a confidence about this place- a confidence in its joys, letdowns, hypocrisies, and human truths.

Allen plays Isaac Mortimer Davis, a twice-divorced, 42-year-old TV comedy writer who is hopelessly entangled with a 17 year-old girl (Mariel Hemingway). It's creepy even without the events that would unfold later in Allen's personal life.

But Isaac also finds himself attracted to the woman that his best friend is having an affair with- the much more grown-up Mary (Allen's then muse, Diane Keaton). The two talk as the sun comes up over the Queensborough bridge- and one of the most iconic shots of New York City is born. The romantic entanglements ensue with the sort of hopeless optimism that has become Allen's trademark.

Allen skillfully uses New York City as a sort of picture frame for the film's various scenes. Whether it's the aforementioned dawn-breaking conversation in Sutton Place, or Allen and Keaton getting to know each other in the shadows of the Hayden Planetarium, or the final scene where Allen confronts his young paramour in the lobby of a New York apartment building, the city is more than a setting. It accents and reflects the internal desires of Allen's characters, drawing us into their city and their lives.

Allen has set some of his films in other towns, but there is an ease and a comfort to his New York work that sets it apart. You can tell Woody Allen loves New York- and he passes that love on to the audience.

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

I love a good feminist horror film. Some may scold me for using the term 'feminist' in relation to a thriller movie about a fashion photographer and a serial killer- but trust me Laura Mars is all about critiquing the male gaze. Laura (the uber fashionable Faye Dunaway) is a famous photographer along the lines of Helmut Lang who likes to take pictures of models in gruesome murder poses. The girls are scantily clad and are usually being killed. Laura assumes these "visions" are just her creative intuition, but when she begins experiencing spells where she sees through the eyes of an actual serial killer, and that she is the next target, she seeks help from skeptical New York detective John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones).

The conceit of a woman who loses her sight to see what a man sees, then duplicates that vision in her own art is a clever way of addressing the relationship between women, men, and media. So many of us are swept up by the images we see- without thinking that the source of these images (even if they are created by women) is often from a male perspective.

The makeup, the hair, the clothing, the advertising of these products- it's all created to please men. In Laura Mars, director Irvin Kershner hints that this image is destructive, and women can be complicit in how they are viewed by men and themselves. After all, Laura sees herself from her stalker's perspective.

All that deep-dive analysis aside, the film is a really fun thriller with Dunaway throwing herself into the role of terrified victim with wide-eyed relish. The fashion shoots are a scream as is Rene Auberjonois' performance as a flamboyantly gay manager. His Lloyd Bridges impersonation is to die for.

The film was shot in several New York locations including the apocalyptic fashion shoot in Columbus Circle, the warehouse photography studio along the Chelsea waterfront, Dunaway's slit-skirt trot along Canal and Greene Streets, and the model funeral at Westchester's own Ferncliff Cemetery- the final resting place for such luminaries as Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. If you're going to be pursued by a crazy psycopath, there's no place chic-er than New York City.

What movies make you think of the Big Apple?

Top 5 Marilyn Monroe Movies

I find it hard to be objective about Marilyn Monroe. In the mid- '80's when I was an impressionable teengayger, the Marilyn re-resurgence was in full swing. Madonna hommaged/ripped-off "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in her "Material Girl" video. The sensationalist best-seller Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe was published, asserting that Marilyn was murdered due to her romantic entanglements with the Kennedys.

Marilyn's face and figure appeared on everything from posters to coffee mugs at Spencer's Gifts. I was swept up in this heady '50's nostalgia wave and could not get enough of the world's most famous blonde. I rented her movies on VHS and was captivated. Soon my bedroom resembled a Marilyn shrine, that face gazing at me from every conceivable surface on my walls.

Before Marilyn, the only classic movies I watched were Disney cartoons or kitschy old horror movies that showed late Saturday nights on Creature Feature with Crenatia Mortem on  KSHB TV out of Kansas City. So in a way, Marilyn was my classic film gateway drug. I started watching for her unique charisma and film image, but then reveled in the aesthetics, style, and writing of older movies- ultimately falling in love with them as well.

Marilyn introduced me to Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, and Thelma Ritter. From there, the endless world of classic movies was open to me.
I will always be grateful to Marilyn for leading me into that very special world.

On what would have been her 90th birthday, here are my Top 5 Marilyn Movies:



Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) 

It's apropos that the first Marilyn film I saw was the one that made Marilyn a star. Howard Hawks directed this classic musical about a couple of showgirls who know how to turn heads to make ends meet. Marilyn is Lorelei Lee the diamond-digger with a heart of a gold. Lorelei loves millionaire Gus Edmonds, Jr., but when Gus won't propose, Lorelei gets on a boat to Europe, knowing absence makes the heart grow fonder- and in this case jealous. It's not long before Lorelei has stirred-up shipboard trouble for her and gal-pal Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell in full cross-your-heart bra mode) by chasing a diamond tiara ("I just love finding new places to wear diamonds") and the pudgy Sir who owns it. Gentlemen was a big smash and made Marilyn a bankable star, cementing her "dumb blonde" character in popular culture.

Marilyn didn't play the first dumb blonde- Jean Harlow and Betty Grable created versions of the character before. But something about Marilyn's take was different. Marilyn added a sense of vulnerability and innocence, that made her feel more available to her audience. Her overt sexuality was not ambitious or manipulative, it was welcoming- almost natural so that it didn't come off as "dirty." Men believed this angel could fall in love with them, and women wanted to throw their arms around her and protect her from wolves in men's clothing. It was a hugely successful character- so successful that unfortunately, the public believed Marilyn wasn't acting- that she was the childlike sex object she portrayed. Marilyn fought the rest of her career to prove she wasn't Lorelei- a fight in many respects, she lost.

The Seven Year Itch (1955)

If Gentlemen made Marilyn a star, Seven Year Itch made her a supernova. Marilyn played The Girl Upstairs, an actress who is staying in the apartment above overly imaginative pulp novel editor, Richard Sherman (the goofy Tom Ewell). Richard's family is shipped-off to the country for the summer so he is left alone in the sweaty city, just him and his cinematic fantasies. When The Girl surprisingly accepts his clumsy invitation to have a drink in his air-conditioned apartment, poor Dickie realizes that after seven years of marriage, he has an itch he wants to scratch.

Marilyn's performance sparkles. Under the direction of Billy Wilder, she finds levels of sensitivity that make her so much more than a ditzy sex bomb. This girl feels sorry for the Creature from the Black Lagoon because "maybe he just craved a little affection"- and when Richard proclaims that he knows what girls like her want- she re-educates him. The scene is beautifully tender- and legend has it that she did it in the first take. Marilyn also has the opportunity to play against type in a couple of Richard's fantasies, showing that she was capable of much more than the giggle and the wiggle.

The subway grate scene is so much a part of our culture, it's hard to imagine what that image of Marilyn tittering as her skirt billows up around her must have been like when it first appeared on the screen. Well... the funny thing is that what was shown in the movie was never as much as what was shown on billboards and newsreel footage. That full shot of Monroe's body from the heels all the way to her cherubic face that we are so familiar with does not appear in the movie. But the image, shot on-location in front of thousands of cheering New Yorkers was aggressively sold before the movie came out to pack the houses- and it did. So even if it wasn't in the film itself, the idea of it alone was enough to give the audience an imagined voyeuristic thrill. And it gave us a good Snickers ad.

Bus Stop (1956)

As 1955 came to a close Marilyn was at a turning point in her career. She had just divorced baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, and was anxious to get away from the image that Hollywood seemed determined to keep her trapped in. Marilyn used her considerable box-office muscle to defy the studio and demanded a new contract with better pay, director approval, and her own production company. It is a testament to her star power that the studios acceded to each of those demands.

She also had become a star pupil of Lee and Paula Strasberg of Actor's Studio fame, so she was anxious to leave the dumb blonde behind her, and have the world see her as a serious actress. Joshua Logan's production of Bus Stop was tailor-made to introduce the new Marilyn.

Marilyn is Cherie, a chanteuse in a cruddy Phoenix bar. But Cherie has bigger dreams. Bo (the too-much Don Murray) is a cowboy who also has big dreams- of taking Cherie to his Montana farm where he will marry her and live home on the range ever after. Cherie would rather head for Hollywood and Vine, so a battle of wills (and lassos) begins.

The film suffers from the inaction that can plague stage-to-screen adaptations, and Don Murray makes your teeth grit when he's on the screen- except when he's doing topless sit-ups. Maybe his abs are the reason Murray was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

But watching Marilyn spread her acting wings is a joy. She inhabits Cherie, using her vulnerability and innocence to inform a character who is dreaming of something better- of a life where she's not taken advantage of and can be respected. Unfortunately, the film did not do well at the box office, and Marilyn was not nominated for the Oscar. Hollywood essentially rejected Marilyn's attempt at serious acting.

Some Like it Hot (1959)

Marilyn teamed with Wilder a second time, and the result is what many consider the greatest film comedy of the Golden Era. Marilyn is Sugar Kane, a ukulele player on a train to Florida, playing in an all-girls band to try and get away from men. So it's ironic that two of her new pals in Sweet Sue's Society Syncopators are men dressed up as women to escape the mob. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are superb as Joe and Jerry and as Josephine and Daphne, two guys on the run in heels. Lemmon in particular is so wonderful that you can't help but wish he would stay as Daphne the rest of his life. The writing and the direction on this film are so whipsmart that I defy any viewer not to fall in love with it. It is one of the great achievements of film- and in my opinion- has not and will not show its age.

By the time Marilyn made Some Like it Hot, she was in a very different position than she had been when she worked with Wilder on Seven Year Itch. Her dependence on pills had become a daily concern. Her ability to show up ready to work was horribly compromised- and not helping issues was the fact that Paula Strasberg coddled her star and openly challenged Wilder's authority on the set. Wilder wound-up embittered against his star and according to him, much of the cast and crew were in the same boat. Tony Curtis remarked in a screening room, "Kissing Marilyn is like kissing Hitler." The comment got back to Marilyn- and it only exacerbated her serious emotional issues.

But through all of the offscreen drama, Marilyn turns in a luminous performance. Gone is the dopey blonde. Sugar is a sad sex siren, wanting so much to be loved, and tired of being used up like an old tube of toothpaste- all squeezed out. Marilyn exposes the heart of this character instead of making it a joke. It is the finest comedy performance of her career.




Don't Bother to Knock (1952)

I left this movie for last- because even though it is the earliest film of the five, I think it shows a performance that Marilyn had always strived for- but because of her success, was prevented from doing later in her career.

Marilyn plays Nell, a young woman babysitting Bunny (Donna Corcoran) in a hotel room while Bunny's parents attend a banquet downstairs. When the man across the way (Richard Widmark) shows Nell some attention, it doesn't take much time for her to invite him over. Now what to do with Bunny...? It becomes apparent that Nell is missing some cards in her deck, and what starts out as a flirtation veers suddenly into unhinged infatuation, and full-blown psychosis.

The movie is a slight thriller with laconic work by Widmark and an early appearance by Anne Bancroft as a lounge singer. But again, the focus is on Marilyn- and this time her soft voice is not used as a seductive tool. It is the voice of a young woman who is mentally disturbed, unable to grasp reality, who doesn't see things the way they are.

It is utterly unlike anything Marilyn would portray later in her career- and I think it's safe to say that the only thing that kept Marilyn from being offered serious roles like Nell was the success she would find a year later playing comic roles like Lorelei Lee. Don't Bother is a tantalizing what-if movie that hints at the actress inside this unforgettable Hollywood icon.