Only 7 minutes of NYC classic ‘On the Town’ were actually filmed in the Big Apple
The 1949 film “On the Town” is famous as the first major Hollywood musical shot on location in New York City, but how much location footage is actually in the movie?
I decided to take a closer look in advance of Sunday’s free screening of this classic at the United Palace (Broadway and West 175th Street) in Washington Heights, which will be preceded at 4:30 p.m. by a conversation between me and Post theater columnist Michael Riedel — and followed by a miniconcert by cast members from the current Broadway revival.
I studied a beautiful new high-definition transfer of “On the Town,” which is making its Blu-ray video debut on May 5 as part of “Frank Sinatra: 5 Film Collection” from Warner Home Entertainment, which has already made the film available to stream in HD on various platforms.
The film opens and closes with sequences shot on location at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where stars Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin, as three sailors on leave, begin singing a slightly sanitized version of Leonard Bernstein’s “New York, New York.” (Lyricists-screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green were required to change “helluva town” to “wonderful town” to satisfy Hollywood censors.)
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Gene Kelly (from left), Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin in 1949’s “On the Town.”Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc.
Co-directors Kelly and Stanley Donen pushed for location shooting, but studio bosses reportedly limited them to just nine days in New York in March 1948. So it’s not entirely surprising that almost all of the location shooting with the stars is in the opening number — a montage that was apparently shot without sound, with the three male leads flawlessly lip syncing to a recording made back in Hollywood.
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A scene from “On the Town” in Little Italy.Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc.
There are location shots of the trio performing at the Brooklyn Bridge, outside the New York Stock Exchange; on streets in Little Italy, Chinatown and the Lower East Side; on a platform of the long-gone Third Avenue elevated subway line; in Washington Square Park; outside Grant’s Tomb; near the Cathedral of St. John the Divine; riding horses and bicycles through Central Park; atop a double-decker bus on Fifth Avenue; dancing and singing at what’s now known as Top of the Rock atop the GE Building (then the RCA Building) and, finally, in front of the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Plaza.
The genuine location footage abruptly stops around the movie’s five-minute mark. Hidden cameras were used to shoot in some of the other locations, but it was apparently too difficult for then-teen-idol Sinatra to perform in the middle of the real Times Square without causing a riot. So this sequence is played out on a Culver City, Calif., soundstage with a fake-looking newsstand and subway entrance.
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A Times Square subway scene was actually filmed in Culver City, Calif.Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc.
There is actual dialogue in this sequence and the subsequent scene in the way-too-tidy simulation of an underground subway station where Kelly’s character meets “Miss Turnstiles” Vera-Ellen — which would have also been difficult to record in such noisy environments.
The Museum of Natural History — the setting for Ann Miller’s big number “Prehistoric Man” — is a blatant studio fake, beginning with the nameplate outside. Extensive rear projection of second-unit footage is employed whenever there’s a ride in Betty Garrett’s cab, though there is a very nice exterior shot of the vehicle turning from West 50th Street onto Broadway, passing a Walgreen’s and the long-gone Capitol Theatre. When the stars alight from the cab on Central Park South, they’re on a soundstage with the background clearly projected behind them.
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A projected background in “On the Town.”Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc.
The film’s most artful fakery — it’s fooled the folks at IMDB — takes place on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, where strong winds would make it virtually impossible to stage two musical numbers. (Not to mention, in one scene Munshin hides from police by hanging off the side of the building.)
Sinatra sings the comic ballad “You’re Awful” to Garrett in front of what looks like an elaborate diorama of the city, complete with lots of blinking lights. Later, all six stars perform the title song, “On the Town,” on the observation deck, dancing their way into freight-size elevators together for a trip down to a Fifth Avenue with improbably pristine sidewalks.
A rare image shows the six stars on the soundstage before the background was added.
Aside from an establishing shot of Garrett’s cab being chased by a police cruiser across the Brooklyn Bridge, most of the rest of the film (dance studio, nightclubs, Coney Island) are shot on the backlot or on studio soundstages.
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The final scene of “On the Town” was actually filmed at Brooklyn Navy Yard.Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc.
Though we do return to the bona fide Brooklyn Navy Yard for the finale — the only shots where Vera-Ellen, Ann Miller and Garrett are photographed in an actual New York location.
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