NEW YORK, NEW YORK

This 1977 Scorsese flop is described in Wikipedia as a 'romantic comedy musical'.  

I must have been watching a different film.

The only attempts at comedy come in the early scenes in which saxophone player Jimmy (De Niro) is pestering singer Francine (Liza Minnelli) because he wants to get her into bed (or failing that the back of a cab), or is trying to get out of paying his hotel bills.  

If De Niro possessed the comic timing and charm of Cary Grant maybe these scenes wouldn't seem so laboured and maybe I wouldn't be thinking she should give him a good slap, a thought that persisted throughout the next two hours.

There's no romance, or chemistry, between the two but I'm not sure that Scorsese is even trying for this.  But then again what was he aiming for?

I think I read somewhere that he wanted it in part to be a tribute to old MGM musicals, but there's scarcely any of that as far as I could see, save for a musical-within-a-musical near the end, which anyway was cut from the original theatrical release before being restored later.  Since this 12-minute sequence is the best thing in the film it was a pity that the original release, coming in at a mere 155 minutes (!), couldn't accommodate it.

Most of the running time consists of a depressing series of scenes in which Francine has to continually tip-toe around Jimmy's violent mood swings and his boorish behaviour.  She has a thoroughly miserable time of it, and it seems that Minnelli herself didn't enjoy the making of the film either, unaccustomed as she was to method acting or improvisation.  

In his documentary "A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies" Scorsese says that this film was intended to show how difficult it is for two creative talents to be happy together.  I would argue that instead it merely shows how difficult it is to be happy if you are living with a complete jerk, which is what Jimmy is. 

It's a sign of perhaps the progress that has been made in gender relations that if this film was made today Jimmy's behaviour would be called out for the toxic masculinity it is.  That was not the case back in the 1970s, so that as perceptive a critic as Roger Ebert could say "but if we forgive the film its confusions it's because we're left with a good time".  Really!?

Towards the end when Francine has become a big star Jimmy turns up to smugly tell her he's proud of her, as if her success was down to him rather than being solely down to her talent and despite his lack of interest.

Thankfully though, at the very end of the film when for the umpteenth time he demands she drop everything at his behest she at last decides that enough is enough.

This confused mess is only worth watching for Minnelli who gives a touching and believable performance, and who lights up the screen whenever she sings, especially in two numbers towards the end, 'But The World Goes 'Round' and 'New York, New York'. 

RATING: x Curb Your Enthusiasm