So This Is New York (1948)

Background: So This Is New York is a comedy from 1948, though inexplicably set during prohibition. It follows the story of Ernie Finch, played by radio star and frequent I’ve Got A Secret panelist Henry Morgan, bringing with him his signature cantankerous sarcasm. Morgan was an established star of radio and television at this point, but this was his only leading role on the big screen. The movie was to be the big break for director Richard Fleischer who went on to be a legend, directing Fantastic Voyage, Tora! Tora! Tora! and the most spoiled movie of all time, Soylent Green (it’s people). Among the writing credits is another future legend, Carl Foreman who went on to write High Noon, The Guns Of Navarone and The Bridge On The River Kwai. With that much talent, how was this movie forgotten?

 

Plot: Ernie Finch, our star and narrator, is a humble cigar salesman from the sleepy town of South Bend, Indiana, known for Notre Dame football and not a lot else. He’s got a nice life for himself there and his beautiful wife Ella has just come into some money. She quickly becomes dissatisfied with small town living and insist that she and her sister, Kate, move to New York to find her a man with money. Kate, even though she already has a nice relationship going with the town butcher, agrees. The butcher, Willis, may be great and all, but the only bacon he brings home is actual bacon and not the metaphorical, green kind. Ernie doesn’t like the idea, saying that New York will eat through their money too fast and they argue about it while fiddling with the lights for some reason. Ernie makes a point and turns the light off, Ella makes a counterpoint and turns it back on. This repeats for several lamps. Finally, Ernie acquiesces and rolls his eyes all the way to NYC.

Kate makes short work of finding some gold to dig. In fact, she doesn’t even wait to get to New York, falling for a stock trader on the train. It quickly turns out he’s a con man, but that doesn’t slow her down one bit. In fact, over the course of this fairly short movie, she falls for an eccentric, world travelling old man, a race horse owner, his alcoholic jockey, back to the race horse owner (who may have been gunned down by the mob, but that’s another story) and a comedian, all before landing back with the butcher. As Ernie expected would happen, they quickly blow through all their money and end up right back where they were in the same house (oddly, because Ernie mentions them not owning that house anymore on more than one occasion) in South Bend.

Why Was It Forgotten? If I could narrow this movie’s legion of problems down to one word, it’d be focus. This movie shifts gears violently and often. It starts as a hateful screed against New York City, where everyone is rude and wants to take your money. One voiceover says “All you see is helping hands. Helping themselves.” You can almost hear his eyes rolling with a big exaggerated sigh off screen. After a stroll through a few of Kate’s more eccentric paramours, she meets the horse owner and they spend the middle third of the movie away from the city entirely, relaxing at a horse track instead.

There are also scenes that could have easily been lifted from other movies. One scene where Ernie send a telegram back home is very funny, but carries none of the “Ain’t the big city weird?” aesthetic that was in full swing all around it. Another particularly puzzling scene saw Kate getting proposed too in a hotel lobby while a random man shoots increasing amounts of water at his girlfriend. Yes, as the plot races forward, a man fires first a water pistol, then a seltzer bottle and finally a fire extinguisher in the middle of a hotel lobby. These people are never seen before or after this scene.

In any movie though, these characters are awful. All the women want is money, all Ernie wants is South Bend and all any of the New Yorkers want is to be as mean as possible. Ernie is supposed to be the sympathetic everyman, but instead comes off as mean spirited towards anything but small town livin’. He hurls insults at his wife with reckless abandon, he keeps a ledger of their expenses and has more one liners than Groucho Marx. And this is the nice guy. The only person spared the vicious barbs of this movie is the nobel butcher left at home.

What Went Right? Plenty. For all its hatefulness, there is plenty to laugh at in here. The scene with the telegram boy is really funny and some of Ernie’s bon mots are great. Towards the end of the movie, Kate’s final beau, a comedian named Jimmy Ralston produces a play he wrote. Tired of being ever the funny man, he puts on a drama about a soldier and his family during World War I. As to be expected, it’s almost as bad as Spring Time For Hitler. The acting is terrible, the one set “looks like you got it second hand” as Ernie quips, and heckles rain down from the audience.

Verdict: If you hate New York City, you’ll love this movie.

Score: 55%