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Cinematic CitySo, here I find myself waking up in the city thatnever 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 filmmakerssince 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 Americanmotion picture studios, such as Vitagraph,

Biograph, and Kalem were founded here. This iswhere 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 manyfilms 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 theTown (1949), when Gene Kelly and Stanley

Donen convinced a skeptical MGM to allow themto 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

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(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 isconsidered 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 escapistromance, the latter, West Side Story,

suggested that not all was huckleberries andrainbows; there were some pretty turbulent

times "waitin' round the bend". Indeed, asthe 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 tragicvein.

But, as in all fairy tales, the hero arrives in the nick of time tosave his damsel in distress. In this instance, Manhattan's

Prince Charming was the ultimate New Yorker himself,

Woody Allen. Beginning with   Annie Hall  (1977), andespecially 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 andRogers 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 economicresurgence, 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.

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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 howfilmmakers from Griffith to Ephron have turned Manhattan into a cinematic isle of joy.