EMMETT Of The Unblinking Eye

TOP 10 NEW YORK CITY MOVIES OF ALL TIME!!!

September 3, 2004

Now that the 2004 Republican National Convention has escaped from New York, little the worse for wear, and Mr. Hewitt and his sidekick, Generalissimo, are once again safe within the California borders, we can explore the Top 10 New York Movies of All Time:

	10.	On the Town (1949):  Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin -- Jules Munshin!?!? -- find themselves on shore leave in the Big Apple, where they wind up with Ann Miller, Vera-Ellen and Betty Garrett.  Great music and some good shots of post-WWII New York.
	9.	West Side Story (1961):  Couldn't possibly be left off the list.  Great play, good movie, fine music.
	8	When Harry Met Sally... (1989):  Worth seeing if only for the delicatessen scene.
	7	Escape from New York (1981):  A personal guilty pleasure.  Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken ("I thought you were dead!") tries to rescue the President of the United States (Donald Pleasance) from the escape-proof prison that New York has become.
	6	An Affair to Remember (1957):  Cary Grant promises to meet Deborah Kerr at the Empire State Building.  A great weepy chick flick.
	5	Annie Hall (1977):  You can't have a New York movie list without a Woody Allen movie, and this is the quintessential New York movie.  But if that's really true, why isn't it No. 1?
	4	Midnight Cowboy (1969):  One of the first X-rated movies (which would now earn a soft R rating, if that) stars Jon Voigt as a would-be male hustler who finds his true friend in Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman)
	3	Taxi Driver (1976):  Robert DeNiro plays the taxi driver, Travis Bickle, one of the true scary characters in movie history.  The seamy side of New York City.
	2	The Godfather: Part II (1974):  One of the two greatest movies ever made has some of the best scenes of an immigrant's life in New York City at the turn of the century.
	1	King Kong (1933):  The movie that made the Empire State Building famous.  Although only a little bit of the movie shows New York, it's the most memorable part, and it formed the basis for my earliest impression of the greatest city in the world.

One bum short of a Bowery: