On V-J Day in 1945, a massive celebration in a New York City nightclub is underway, music provided by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. While there, selfish and smooth-talking saxophone player Jimmy Doyle (De Niro) meets small-time USO singer Francine Evans (Minnelli), who, although lonely, still wants nothing to do with Jimmy, who keeps pestering her for her phone number.
The next morning, they end up sharing a cab, and, against her will, Francine accompanies Jimmy to an audition. There he gets into an argument with the club owner. Francine, to get the audition back on track, begins to sing the old standard, "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me"; Jimmy joins in on his sax. The club owner is impressed and, to Francine's astonishment, they are both offered a job — as a traveling boy-girl act. From that moment on, Jimmy and Francine's relationship deepens into a mix of obsession and love. But there are problems — mainly, Jimmy's tendency to fight with his co-workers, overly dramatic behavior, and his increasingly violent arguments with Francine, who becomes pregnant with his child. An especially bad shouting match between them results in Francine going into labor. Jimmy rushes her to the hospital, where she delivers a baby boy. But Jimmy is not ready to be a father, or a good husband, and he abandons his wife, declining even to see his newborn son as he leaves the hospital.
Several years later, in a recording studio, Francine records "But the World Goes Round," a powerful anthem which makes the charts and turns her into a popular entertainment figure. In the years that follow, Jimmy and Francine both find success in the music industry; he becomes a renowned jazz musician and club owner, while she becomes a successful singer and film actress.
Jimmy records a song of his on his saxophone which tops the jazz charts, and Francine cements her stardom after singing that same song, "New York, New York," for which she has provided the lyrics. Her performance, received by a wildly appreciative audience, takes place in the same nightclub where, years earlier, she and Jimmy had met. After the show, Jimmy telephones his ex-wife, suggesting they get together for dinner. Francine is tempted, heads toward the stage door exit, but at the last moment changes her mind. Jimmy, waiting on the sidewalk, realizes he has been stood up and heads off down the street, accompanied by the song he has written — the "Theme from New York, New York".
Irwin Winkler's purchase of the screenplay for New York, New York caught Martin Scorsese's attention before he began filming Taxi Driver.[2] Winkler and Robert Chartoff had agreed to a four-year contract with United Artists where they would release a minimum of 12 films, and New York, New York was the first film produced under the deal. They announced Scorsese as the director in April 1975 with a budget of $3.5 million.[3]Lynn Stalmaster was the casting director.[4] Filming began on June 14, 1976.[5]
Scorsese wanted to marry the movie musical of his parents' generation with a documentary style. He hoped the juxtaposition would emphasize the continuity between human relationships through history.[6] The actors would improvise on the script in front of the massive, unrealistic sets that fit the musical style. Having just won the Palme d'Or, he arrogantly felt he could improve the script during filming, but his excesses led to mistakes like the opening V-J Day sequence being an hour long. The initial cut of the film was four and a half hours.[2]
Scorsese's cocaine addiction made matters worse, and according to Peter Biskind, the director was also taking lithium to control his anger. Scorsese lamented, "I was just too drugged out to resolve the structure".[7] He even cut press interviews short one day because he explained he had run out of cocaine.[8] He concluded, "it's a miracle that the film makes any kind of sense."[2]
The director had an affair with Liza Minnelli during filming, and his second wife Julia Cameron was often on set trying to catch them. The improvisation of dialogue was an additional strain on Minnelli who was not used to method acting. The stress is sometimes visible in her scenes with De Niro.[8] Before their relationship ended, Scorsese directed Minnelli in The Act, a Kander & Ebb musical that some saw as a spin-off of the film.[9]
Robert De Niro studied the saxophone with Georgie Auld, a veteran of swing giants Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman's bands. Auld also played bandleader Frankie Hart in the film. De Niro was so demanding of Auld's time that the musician felt like a "slave", and his wife worried the actor would be joining them in bed with the instrument.[10] Auld recorded the saxophone parts in the film, and De Niro mimed to them on set. Auld stood off-camera and would make a slashing motion if De Niro made a fingering or breathing mistake.[11]
The film cost $9 million, which was $2 million over budget. George Lucas predicted that the gross would improve by $10 million if Scorsese would change the ending to a happy one.[2]
Releases
The film was released on June 21, 1977 with a running time of 155 minutes. The box-office failure of the film prompted United Artists to cut the film down to 136 minutes for Europe.
In 1981, the film was re-released with a runtime of 163 minutes. Scorsese had spent $350,000 of the budget on filming a musical-within-a-musical called "Happy Endings" which depicts Francine Evans as a movie star. The twelve-minute sequence was choreographed by Ron Field.[12] The scene was restored in the 1981 version, and the expanded film earned praise for its ironic look at Hollywood musicals.[2]
Music
Theme Song
Fred Ebb and John Kander's initial submission for the theme song was so bad that Robert De Niro rejected it outright. The lyrics began, "They always say it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here," and the melody is completely different.[13]: 310–1 The eventual song, "Theme from New York, New York", begins with one of Kander's famous vamps, this one derived from the ragtime practice of putting the melody underneath a repeated note.[13]: 25–6
The film underperformed at the box-office. Its budget ballooned to $9 million, much larger than Scorsese's previous work. It grossed only $16.4 million at the box office. The disappointment depressed Scorsese and worsened his drug addiction.[19] United Artists was sure that New York, New York was going to be a hit. The studio structured the film's box office as a bulwark against the flop they expected in Rocky. The two productions pooled their profits, but it was Rocky that ended up covering the losses of Scorsese's movie.[20]
In his introduction to the film's DVD, Scorsese explains that he intended the film as a break from the gritty realism for which he had become famous. He saw it as an homage to musicals of Classical Hollywood cinema. That's why the sets and storyline are deliberately artificial. He acknowledges the experiment did not please everyone.[21]
Critical response
Christopher Porterfield wrote in Time, "If this movie were a big-band arrangement, it would be a duet for a sax man and a girl singer, but with the soloists in a different key from the band."[22]Vincent Canby wondered, "Why should a man of Mr. Scorsese's talent be giving us what amounts to no more than a film buff's essay on a pop-film form that was never, at any point in film history, of the first freshness?"[23]Roger Ebert lamented, "Scorsese's New York, New York never pulls itself together into a coherent whole, but if we forgive the movie its confusions we're left with a good time."[24] In the Chicago Reader Dave Kehr concluded, "Scorsese created a very handsome and dynamic film, but the spectacular set pieces don't add up to much."[25]
Variety raved, "a final burst from Old Hollywood, Minnelli tears into the title song and it's a wowser."[26]Time Out's Geoff Andrew enthused, "Scorsese's tribute/parody/critique of the MGM musical is a razor-sharp dissection of the conventions of both meeting-cute romances and rags-to-riches biopics.[27]Gene Shalit said that the argument between Francine and Jimmy in the parked car was the most realistic he had ever seen on film.[28]
In Cinéaste, Leonard & Barbara Quart called the film "an interesting and at sometimes exciting failure..." They pointed out the self-conscious parallels with the work of Liza's mother in A Star Is Born and praised Scorsese's "stylized settings (gold tinsel snowfalls, claustrophobic reddish interiors, and spotlit, dream-like musical solos)" but felt they were "too calculated and without purpose".[29] William Harding heaped blame on De Niro's performance, "[He] zooms in on the role as if he were playing Hamlet. His hard work backfires...The character of Jimmy Doyle is completely obscured by the spectacle of DeNiro attempting to come to grips with an impossibly one-note role."[30]
The film was adapted into a stage musical in Brazil. It premiered on April 14, 2011, in Teatro Bradesco in São Paulo, with direction by José Possi Neto. The songs were not translated, instead featuring subtitles projected on a digital panel.[36]
The film was adapted into a stage musical in the United States. It opened on Broadway on April 26, 2023 at the St. James Theater, following previews that began on March 24.[37][38] The production received mixed reviews with Entertainment Weekly saying the musical was "...deeply flawed, but deeply entertaining..." and Elisabeth Vincentelli of The New York Times saying the show was "The Big Apple, Without Bite"[39][40] The Los Angeles Times said "the film is not good. The new Broadway musical is worse."[41] Due to the poor reviews, lack of Tony Award wins, and high production costs, producers posted a hasty announcement on July 23, 2023 stating that the musical would close on July 30.[42]
^Tait, R. Colin. “Robert De Niro’s ‘Raging Bull’: The History Of A Performance And A Performance Of History.” Revue Canadienne d’Études Cinématographiques/Canadian Journal of Film Studies, vol. 20, no. 1, 2011. 38.
^Rathbun, Keith. "'New York, New York' See it! See it!", Scene. July 26-August 3, 1977. 11.
^ abLeve, James. Kander and Ebb. Yale University Press, 2009.
^Chartoff, Robert, Irwin Winkler, Martin Scorsese, Earl Mac Rauch, Mardik Martin, Liza Minnelli, Robert De Niro, et al., dirs. 2007. New York, New York. Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
