Posted on 03/31/2024 7:14:26 AM PDT by Twotone
In all the decades I've been going to New York City I've never been mugged once. I had a friend who was mugged within five minutes of getting off the bus his first time in the city. The thing is, I'm sure it never ruined his experience of New York. Quite the opposite – I think being the victim of a crime scarcely a block from Times Square added to his sense of the place, both as reality and myth.
I wouldn't be surprised if he felt sorry for me, missing out on New York crime in the perfect location.
It's hard to imagine a show like Law & Order and all of its spin-offs lasting as long as it has if it was set in, say, Tampa or Duluth or San Jose. It isn't that crime doesn't happen in these places; it's that crime in a smaller city is bigger news; criminals in New York have to compete to get attention, and given the city's size and density, you can be unaware of each week's headline malefaction – especially now that newsstands have effectively disappeared from the streets. Crime happens in New York, but depending on who you are and where you live, a new restaurant or a museum opening will seem more important.
When producer Mark Hellinger and director Jules Dassin made The Naked City (1948), there was no hiding their intent on making a New York crime film, going out of their way to make the city – and not a backlot recreation – more than merely a setting. The film begins with the camera flying over Manhattan while Hellinger himself narrates in voiceover in lieu of opening credits, telling us that what we're about to see was filmed in the city itself...
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
There are eight million stories in the naked city.
And 17 million in the naked greater metropolitan area.
Greatest city in the world. 20th century.
Criminals were actually dealt with fairly but effectively back in those days.
Today, to many walk away free.
The Naked City (1948) is a headline frontrunner of the police procedural subset of noirs and crime dramas.
Steyn’s column is is one long spoiler but worth the read anyway unless you’ve never yet seen The Naked City. Your call. Steyn covers in detail the movie’s cast, crew, the origin and production and of course the real star of the movie, New York City.
Better than eight million nakeds in the storied city.
And then I'm gonna put you
Way down here
And you'll start cryin'
96 tears
“Criminals were actually dealt with fairly but effectively back in those days.”
Prior to Earl Warren.
Yes...and does anyone know who was ?
I do not get why Steyn included ninety-six minutes in the title of the column. “In a New York minute” is a familiar term but why add the 96? The timeline of the movie is over several days, so perhaps Steyn substituted ninety-six minutes for ninety-six hours.
San Fransisco?
The movie was 96 minutes long.
Closer, at least!
.
Ah, very good. Thx
I once heard that this captured life in NYC when windows were all open and people yelled out of them to their neighbors. But then A/C came along and now everyone cocooned themselves in their apartments.
Ninety Six, South Carolina, is much safer...much less crime. But fewer stories.
Thanks for the Steyn posts. Always worth reading.
Steyn didn’t write this column, unless Rick McGinnis is his new pen name.
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