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Street Crime: Ninety-Six New York Minutes in The Naked City
SteynonLine ^ | March 30, 2024 | Rick McGinnis

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 ...


TOPICS: History; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: filmnoir; newyork; thenakedcity

1 posted on 03/31/2024 7:14:26 AM PDT by Twotone
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To: Twotone

There are eight million stories in the naked city.


2 posted on 03/31/2024 7:37:15 AM PDT by citizen (Put all LBQTwhatever programming on a new subscription service: PERV-TThose look good)
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To: citizen

And 17 million in the naked greater metropolitan area.


3 posted on 03/31/2024 7:44:03 AM PDT by lambo
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To: lambo

Greatest city in the world. 20th century.


4 posted on 03/31/2024 8:19:36 AM PDT by nwrep
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To: lambo

Criminals were actually dealt with fairly but effectively back in those days.

Today, to many walk away free.


5 posted on 03/31/2024 8:20:15 AM PDT by citizen (Put all LBQTwhatever programming on a new subscription service: PERV-TThose look good)
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To: Twotone

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.


6 posted on 03/31/2024 8:21:50 AM PDT by citizen (Put all LBQTwhatever programming on a new subscription service: PERV-TThose look good)
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To: citizen

Better than eight million nakeds in the storied city.


7 posted on 03/31/2024 8:27:21 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: Twotone
But watch out now
I'm gonna get there
We'll be together
For just a little while

And then I'm gonna put you
Way down here
And you'll start cryin'
96 tears

8 posted on 03/31/2024 8:27:51 AM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (The Truth is like a lion. You don't need to defend it. Let it loose and it woill defend itself.)
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To: citizen

“Criminals were actually dealt with fairly but effectively back in those days.”

Prior to Earl Warren.


9 posted on 03/31/2024 8:33:49 AM PDT by Luke21
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts

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.


10 posted on 03/31/2024 8:52:41 AM PDT by citizen (Put all LBQTwhatever programming on a new subscription service: PERV-TThose look good)
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To: 9YearLurker
Better than eight million nakeds in the storied city.

San Fransisco?

11 posted on 03/31/2024 9:00:29 AM PDT by null and void (There’s only one thing that’s for sure. Everyone on all sides a conflict will be happy to lie to you)
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To: citizen

The movie was 96 minutes long.


12 posted on 03/31/2024 9:02:40 AM PDT by null and void (There’s only one thing that’s for sure. Everyone on all sides a conflict will be happy to lie to you)
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To: null and void

Closer, at least!


13 posted on 03/31/2024 9:03:23 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: Twotone

.


14 posted on 03/31/2024 9:32:29 AM PDT by sauropod (Ne supra crepidam.)
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To: null and void

Ah, very good. Thx


15 posted on 03/31/2024 9:53:19 AM PDT by citizen (Put all LBQTwhatever programming on a new subscription service: PERV-TThose look good)
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To: Twotone

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.


16 posted on 03/31/2024 10:39:05 AM PDT by AlaskaErik (There are three kinds of rats: Rats, Damned Rats, and DemocRats.)
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To: AlaskaErik
"Hey Norton!"

17 posted on 03/31/2024 10:54:32 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana
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To: Twotone

Ninety Six, South Carolina, is much safer...much less crime. But fewer stories.


18 posted on 03/31/2024 12:59:15 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Twotone

Thanks for the Steyn posts. Always worth reading.


19 posted on 03/31/2024 5:24:55 PM PDT by TChad
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To: citizen

Steyn didn’t write this column, unless Rick McGinnis is his new pen name.


20 posted on 04/01/2024 5:50:22 PM PDT by Moltke (Reasoning with a liberal is like watering a rock in the hope to grow a building.)
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