Dirty Old New York aka Fun City, Part V

This is the conclusion of the Dirty Old New York Subway / aka Fun City series that I started working on nearly two years ago.  I think I've got the obsession--at least in this format--out of my system.

Barbara Streisand ventures out to Fun City in Irvin Kershner's Up the Sandbox.

The video begins with a Rocky-style recap of the previous segments, with new footage inserted to represent some of the motifs explored in the earlier videos.  The effectiveness of this recap is dependent on viewers having seen and remembered Parts I - IV.

In this latest edition, viewers will note my continued pre-occupation with now-obsolete, antiquated, and/or analog technologies--tube televisions (and static), vinyl records and turntables, 3/4" video cassettes, top loading VCRs, etc.

There is some nudity in Part V so it may be NSFW depending on where you work.

Master playlist from Subway thru Fun City I, II, III, IV, & V: 

A Fine Madness

Aaron Loves Angela

Across 110th Street

After Hours

All That Jazz

American Pop

An Unmarried Woman

The Angel Levine

Arthur

Author! Author!

Bad Timing

Badge 373

Bananas

Basket Case

Beat Street

Blank Generation

Bloodbrothers

Born to Win

The Boys in the Band

The Brother From Another Planet

Bye Bye Braverman

Bye Bye Monkey
C.H.U.D.

Contract on Cherry Street

Coogan’s Bluff

Coonskin

Cops and Robbers

Cotton Comes to Harlem

Crazy Joe

Cruising

David Holzman’s Diary

Death Wish

Defiance

Desperate Characters

Devil’s Express

Dog Day Afternoon

The Dogs of War

Downtown ‘81

Dressed to Kill

The Driller Killer

Dutchman

The Education of Sonny Carson

Emanuelle Around the World

Emanuelle in America

Exorcist II: The Heretic

The Exorcist

The Exterminator

Eyes of Laura Mars

Eyewitness

Fame

The Fan

Fatso

Fear City

Fingers

The First Deadly Sin

Fort Apache The Bronx

The French Connection

Fritz the Cat

From Corleone to Brooklyn

The Gambler

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight

Girlfriends

Gloria

God Told Me To

Going in Style

The Goodbye Girl

Greetings

Hair

Hanky Panky

Harry and Tonto

Heavy Metal

Heavy Traffic

Hell Up in Harlem

Heroes

Hey Good Lookin’

Hi Mom!

The Hot Rock

The Hunger

Husbands

I, the Jury

The Incident

Jeremy

Joe

John and Mary

King Kong

The King of Comedy

King of the Gypsies

Kiss Me Goodbye

Klute

Kramer vs. Kramer

The Landlord

The Last Detail

The Last Horror Film

Law and Disorder

Liquid Sky

Little Murders

Loving

Loving

Maniac

Marathon Man

Massage Parlor Murders

Mean Streets

Midnight Cowboy

Ms. 45

Network

New Order's "Confusion" video

New York Ripper

Night Shift

Nighthawks

Nightmare

The Odd Couple

One Trick Pony

Oriental Blue

The Panic in Needle Park

The Possession of Joel Delaney

Prince of the City

Putney Swope

Q: The Winged Serpent

Report to the Commissioner

Rich Kids

Rosemary’s Baby

Saturday Night Fever

Scarface

The Sentinel

Serpico

The Seven-Ups

Shaft

Shamus

Sisters

Smithereens

So Fine

Splash

Staying Alive

The Stone Killer

The Super Cops

Superbitch

Superfly

Superman

Superman II

The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3

Taking Off

Taxi Driver

The Telephone Book

They All Laughed

Three Days of the Condor

Three the Hard Way

Times Square

To Find a Man

Tootsie

Trash

Up the Down Staircase

Up the Sandbox

Variety

Vigilante

The Wanderers

The Warriors

Where's Poppa

Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?

Who’s That Knocking at My Door? 

Wild Style

Willie and Phil

Windows

Winter Kills

Wolfen

You’re a Big Boy Now

Zombie

New York-Style

In memory of Erland Van Lidth  de Jeude, immortalized as Terror, leader of the Baldies, and owner of the most impressive onscreen display of rapid pizza ingestion.

I spent a few years in Chicago and there's probably nothing I missed more about the New York Tri-State Area than (good, easily obtainable) thin crust, New York-style pizza.

If you know of other similar moments (i.e. people chowing on slices) in NY-set movies of the era, please send 'em my way so that I may add them to this video.

I've a feeling Lenny's wasn't selling that Philly Cheesesteak when Travolta was prowling 86th St.

Not So Obscure TV Spot, But Still MIA on DVD: King of the Mountain (1981, Noel Nosseck)

This is one of those quintessential late-night films...by that, I mean the kind one would discover on television back in the days when the network affiliates would play movies in overnight time-slots rather than informercials and reruns of Friends, Seinfeld, or That '70s Show.  It's an odd little film that faded from public consciousness soon after its middling theatrical run, takes place mostly at night in the hills above L.A., is set in a cool milieu (illegal drag racing), and has a cast of interesting, though second-tier stars.  Since its leading man, the titular "King," Harry Hamlin found fame in the '80s on L.A. Law, even "winning" People's "Sexiest Man Alive" crown in '87, I'm sure this one found plenty of "late show" airplay in the '80s.  Later, in college, Rupe and I would watch this sort of thing via ex-rental VHS tapes, but still Noel Nosseck's King of the Mountain eluded me until now.

I caught a VHS rip of the film, which has been completely absent from DVD, possibly due to the inclusion of some popular source tracks by artists such as the Police, Styx, and Robert Palmer, and watched it late at night, thereby somewhat replicating the experience I might have had seeing it on the CBS Late Movie, ABC Late Night, WPIX 11, or WWOR 9.  In my head, I can the hear that authoritative network v.o. saying something like, "We now return to King of the Mountain starring Harry Hamlin."  Made in 1981, this is a hard PG, reminiscent of the many '70s films that packed in much rough stuff, but still maintained that kid-friendly PG rating.  There is plenty of smoking, drinking (including some slugs of Jack Daniels while behind the wheel), some sex (though no nudity), violence, and some nasty language.  In short, another film mostly made for adults, but without the requisite amount of "fucks" and nipples to earn an R.  The film was produced by mini-major Polygram and distributed by Universal; I believe Universal still retains distribution rights.  Its home video in the U.S., in the '80s, was handled by Embassy.

Taking a page from the Saturday Night Fever school of development, H.R. Christian and Leigh Chapman's script is based on a magazine article about a real emerging, local subculture.  In the case of King of the Mountain, the article was "Thunder Road" and the magazine was New West (the West Coast sister magazine to New York, where "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night" was published).  The article told of the exploits of a couple of racers in the illicit car racing scene that developed along Mulholland Drive in the '60s and '70s.  Harry Hamlin's Steve seems to be an amalgamation of two young drivers profiled in the article (Chris Banning and John Hall) and is the "Tony Manero" of the film.  He's the baddest driver on the scene--"the King"--appropriately handsome and cocky, who boasts of being able to drive the 1.8 mile course "blind-folded."  Hamlin just isn't as dynamic as Travolta and his inner struggle isn't fully explored enough to make his character arc / transformation all that moving or dramatic, as I'm sure the filmmakers intended.  Dennis Hopper is the grizzled vet and former "King," who was driven mad after nearly killing himself on the course 15 years earlier.  This is Hopper several years before his career revival (Blue Velvet and Hoosiers) so the story that he took a six-pack and finished it while doing some dangerous driving for pick-up shots is not surprising.  In spite of the tolerance of the shaky Hopper's presence on the production, original lead Brad Davis was reportedly fired for his drug problem.

The filmmakers apparently felt the need to flesh out the script by adding in a secondary plot about Steve's roommates and former racing compadres (Joseph Bottoms and Richard Cox) who are now trying to break into the music scene, writing and producing songs for singer Deborah Van Valkenburgh (who sings her own songs in the film, which are produced by Jack Nitzsche!).  Seymour Cassel is a high-powered producer angling to buy Bottoms' songs and get Van Valkenburgh into his stable of talent, without the participation of Bottoms and Cox.  There is tension between the artistic and idealistic Bottoms and the more business-minded Cox (who casually tickles the ivories at one point, just as he did a year earlier in Cruising).  The music is reminiscent of a lot of the '70s California soft rock popularized by the likes of Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, and many others, and I like to imagine that the recording scenes (which I like) are a somewhat authentic re-creation of that milieu and its creative process.  The rock-based score is by the late Mike Melvoin a composer and studio musician with a very impressive list of credits going back to the '60s.  I don't know L.A. topography and geography enough to say for sure, but I assume the boys' pad is somewhere in Laurel Canyon, where much of the aforementioned music and artists were based.

So, the film becomes a sort of fusion of Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, Saturday Night Fever, Rocky, Spetters, Breaking Away, The Idolmaker, Dreamer (also directed by Nosseck), and surely others that I'm not thinking of right now.  It's not entirely successful, by any means, but it's an entertaining diversion and certainly not deserving of its current no-DVD obscurity / limbo status.  However, reading the New West article, it's clear that the film would have been much better off following its streamlined approach: that is, focusing solely on the racers and their obsessions...their cars, speed, and the road...their environment, and the cops trying to take them down.

"I'll never stop for the police in my car," Chris says. "Not if they're after me with the militia. There are people out there who work for the city who want to get me, but there's no way anybody can catch me in this car. I wouldn't stop if they set up a barricade. If they caught me, they'd impound the car and mess it up. I'd kill myself if anything happened to this car. I love it more than anything."

Manero / Balboa

It's by no means unusual for a successful film to spawn imitations, along with the inevitable official sequels, prequels, remakes, and re-imaginings...happens all the time.  So it was that the phenomenon that was Rocky inspired music impresario Robert Stigwood to quickly develop and produce his own urban, working class fable, optioning Nik Cohn's New York article "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night" and enlisting Serpico scribe Norman Wexler to write the screenplay version of what would eventually be called Saturday Night Fever.  It's fitting that Rocky director John G. Avildsen was the original helmer of Saturday Night Fever before having "creative differences" with Stigwood and star John Travolta, leading to his being replaced by John Badham during pre-production.  I can only assume that the Rocky poster on Tony Manero's wall is a remnant of the production design overseen by Avildsen (additionally, there's a Serpico poster in Manero's bedroom; incidentally, Serpico is another film that Avildsen was attached to at one point).  Prior to their near-collaboration on Serpico, Wexler and Avildsen teamed on Joe, another blue collar cinematic icon of the '70s, which J. Hoberman wrote about here on its 30th anniversary.

Even with that not so unusual production history in mind, it is interesting to see the mythos and cultural impact of a film, right down to the Rocky poster prominently displayed on Tony Manero's wall, so quickly and openly acknowledged and absorbed, in part, by another film; to put this in perspective Saturday Night Fever was being produced while Rocky was still in theatrical release.  It's this relationship between Rocky and Saturday Night Fever, Rocky Balboa and Tony Manero, that I play with a bit in this short video essay:



Continuing this Balboa - Manero strand, Rocky writer and star and Sylvester Stallone would direct Saturday Night Fever's inferior sequel Staying Alive (complete with theme song by Stallone frere Frank). 

 

Completing this circle, over thirty years later, Saturday Night Fever would inspire the fascinating Chilean film Tony Manero, darker and more disturbing than anything on screen in either Rocky or Saturday Night Fever.

Trailer Not on the DVD: Saturday Night Fever (1977, John Badham)

Paramount has been pretty bad about putting original theatrical trailers on their DVD and Blu-ray releases.  I've heard that music in trailers also needs to be cleared for home video and this may be why so many vintage Paramount trailers remain absent from DVD.  Still, I find it doubtful that all the other studios are clearing music rights for the original trailers on their disc.  An interesting example of this sort of thing is the Last American Virgin DVD, which is missing Human League's "Love Action" (replaced by another go round of "Whip It") because the band refused to re-license it for the film.  However, the DVD also contains the original theatrical trailer, which includes a portion of "Love Action."  I'm guessing no one was paying too much attention to the content of the trailer.

This trailer, which probably came from an old VHS, runs fairly long and has a promo for the soundtrack album at the tail end. 

"That's our train. We gotta make it!"

One of the first things I recall about Pauline Kael's rave review of The Warriors, which may have been the first Kael piece I ever read, was her allusion to the then-recent Saturday Night Fever at the start of the article. I don't have a copy and it's not available online so far as I can tell, but the gist of Kael's review was that the working class young protagonists of Saturday Night Fever seemed quite rough-edged and downtrodden at the time of its release in 1977, but that The Warriors was eye-opening because its characters were even lower on the socioeconomic scale.

Watching Saturday Night Fever again for the first time in several years, I most enjoyed the invaluable mid-'70s Brooklyn footage contained throughout the film. Here's a New York movie that mostly stays out of Manhattan, although it does have several iconic shots of the lower Manhattan skyline, and shows audiences a part of the city rarely depicted on film. This focus on the outer boroughs is one of the things I also love about The Warriors, which confuses things somewhat by substituting Brooklyn and Manhattan locations in some scenes that are supposed to take place in the Bronx.

Two of my favorite moments from Saturday Night Fever and The Warriors are the long subway journeys that come near the end of each film. In each film, the subway serves as a venue for the characters to rest after a long, arduous evening and also reflect upon what came before.

I'm sure it was coincidental, but I was struck by the visual similarities between John Travolta's Tony and the surviving Warriors on the graffiti-filled subway, from their weary expressions to the eye bruises that Travolta and Michael Beck's Swan share.

Check out Jeremy's tribute to the opening credits of Saturday Night Fever at Moon in the Gutter, which inspired me to pull out my DVD.