New York, New York is a 1977 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Earl Mac Rauch and Mardik Martin, based on a story by Rauch. John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote several songs for the film, including "New York, New York", which became a worldwide hit and standard. A tribute to Scorsese's hometown of New York City, the film stars Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro as a pair of musicians and lovers.

Plot On V-J Day in 1945, a celebration in a New York City nightclub is underway, with music provided by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Selfish and smooth-talking saxophone player Jimmy Doyle pesters small-time USO singer Francine Evans for her phone number, but she wants nothing to do with him.

The next morning, Francine and Jimmy end up sharing a cab and, against her will, Francine accompanies Jimmy to an audition, at which he argues with the club owner. In an attempt to get the audition back on track, Francine begins to sing the old standard "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me". Jimmy joins in on his sax. The club owner is impressed and, to Francine's astonishment, they are both offered a job as a boy–girl act in a club.

But the next morning Jimmy receives a message from Francine telling him that she's left to join a traveling orchestra. He catches up with her and joins the orchestra as well, which he eventually takes over as his own when the conductor retires.

From that moment, Jimmy and Francine's relationship deepens into a mix of obsession and love. But there are problems—mainly, Jimmy's tendency to fight with his co-workers, his overly dramatic behavior, and his increasingly violent arguments with Francine, who becomes pregnant with their child. An especially harsh shouting match between them results in Francine going into labor. Jimmy rushes her to the hospital, where she delivers a boy. However, Jimmy is not ready to be a father or a good husband, so he abandons his wife and declines to see his newborn son as he leaves the hospital.

Several years later, in a recording studio, Francine records "But the World Goes Round," a powerful anthem that makes the charts and helps her become a popular entertainment figure. In the years that follow, Jimmy and Francine both find success in the music industry; he becomes a renowned jazz musician and club owner, while she becomes a successful singer and film actress.

Jimmy records a saxophone version of a self-written song, "New York, New York," and it tops the jazz charts. One night, he goes to see Francine perform in the nightclub where they had first met, years earlier; Francine's performance of "New York, New York," for which she has provided lyrics, is received by a wildly appreciative audience. After the show, Jimmy and Francine have a brief, awkward reunion, and then Jimmy leaves, spending a few moments with his and Francine's young son on the way out of the club. Shortly thereafter Jimmy telephones his ex-wife from a pay phone in the street, suggesting she join him for dinner. Francine says yes, but as she heads toward the stage-door exit, she changes her mind and leaves the club via another route. Jimmy, waiting on the sidewalk, realizes that he has been stood up and walks down the street.

Cast Liza Minnelli as Francine Evans Robert De Niro as Jimmy Doyle Lionel Stander as Tony Harwell Barry Primus as Paul Wilson Mary Kay Place as Bernice Bennett Frank Sivero as Eddie DiMuzio Georgie Auld as Frankie Harte George Memmoli as Nicky Harry Northup as Alabama Dick Miller as Palm Club Owner Clarence Clemons as Cecil Powell Casey Kasem as DJ aka Midnight Bird Jack Haley as Master Of Ceremonies Adam David Winkler as Jimmy Doyle Jr.

Production Irwin Winkler's purchase of the screenplay for New York, New York caught Martin Scorsese's attention before he began filming Taxi Driver. Winkler and Robert Chartoff had agreed to a four-year contract with United Artists, at which they would release a minimum of 12 films, and New York, New York was the first that was produced under the deal. They announced Scorsese as the director in April 1975, with a budget of $3.5 million.Tusher, Will. "Exclusive UA Contract Lands Chartoff, Winkler", The Hollywood Reporter. April 23, 1975. 1. Lynn Stalmaster was the casting director."Stallmaster Casting On 'New York' Film", The Hollywood Reporter. April 30, 1976. 23. Filming began on June 14, 1976."Film Production." The Hollywood Reporter vol. 243, no. 40. October 29, 1976. 10.

Scorsese wanted to marry the movie musical of his parents' generation with a documentary style. He hoped that the juxtaposition would emphasize the continuity between human relationships through history.Flatley, Guy. "At the Movies", New York Times. June 24, 1977. The actors would improvise on the script in front of the massive, unrealistic sets that fit the musical style. Having recently won the Palme d'Or, Scorsese felt that he could improve the script during filming, but his excesses led to mistakes, such as the opening V-J Day sequence being overly long. The initial cut of the film was four and a half hours.Scorses, Martin. Scorsese on Scorsese. Faber, 1996. 68–73.

Scorsese's cocaine addiction made matters worse, and according to Peter Biskind, the director was also taking lithium to control his anger. Scorsese lamented, "I was just too drugged out to resolve the structure."Biskind, Peter. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. Bloomsbury, 1999. 339. He stopped press interviews one day short because, as he explained, he had run out of cocaine.Power, Ed. "A Cocaine-Fuelled Folly: Why New York, New York almost Killed Martin Scorsese." Telegraph.co.uk. May 8, 2023. He concluded, "It's a miracle that the film makes any kind of sense."

The director had an affair with Liza Minnelli during filming, and his second wife Julia Cameron was often on set in an attempt to catch them. The improvisation of dialogue was an additional strain on Minnelli, who was not used to method acting. The stress is sometimes visible in her scenes with De Niro. Before their relationship ended, Scorsese directed Minnelli in The Act, a Kander and Ebb musical that some saw as a spinoff of this film.Kroll, Jack. "At Long Last, Liza", Newsweek. November 14, 1977. 99.

Robert De Niro studied the saxophone with Georgie Auld, a veteran of swing giants Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman's bands. Auld also played bandleader Frankie Hart in the film. De Niro was so demanding of Auld's time that the musician felt like a "slave", and his wife worried that the actor would be joining them in bed with the instrument.Kroll, Jack. "De Niro: A Star for the '70s", Newsweek. May 16, 1977. 80–6. Auld recorded the saxophone parts in the film, and De Niro mimed to them on set. Auld stood off-camera and would make a slashing motion if De Niro made a fingering or breathing mistake.Tait, R. Colin. "Robert De Niro's 'Raging Bull': The History Of A Performance And A Performance Of History." Revue Canadienne d'Études Cinématographiques/Canadian Journal of Film Studies, vol. 20, no. 1, 2011. 38.

The film cost $9 million, which was $2 million over the original budget, and was a much larger amount than the budgets for Scorsese's previous films. George Lucas predicted that the gross would improve by $10 million if Scorsese would change the ending to a happy one.

Scorsese considered having a cameo appearance in the film, but declined because he would have had to shave his beard.

Releases The film was released on June 21, 1977, with a running time of 155 minutes. The box-office failure of the film prompted United Artists to shorten the film to 136 minutes for Europe.

In 1981, the film was re-released with a runtime of 163 minutes. Scorsese had spent $350,000 of the budget on filming a musical-within-a-musical called "Happy Endings", which depicts Francine Evans as a movie star. The twelve-minute sequence was choreographed by Ron Field.Rathbun, Keith. "'New York, New York' See it! See it!", Scene. July 26-August 3, 1977. 11. The scene was restored in the 1981 version, and the expanded film earned praise for its ironic look at Hollywood musicals.

Music Theme song Fred Ebb and John Kander's initial submission for the theme song was deemed so bad that Robert De Niro rejected it outright. The lyrics began, "They always say it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here", and the melody was completely different.Leve, James. Kander and Ebb. Yale University Press, 2009. The eventual song, "Theme from New York, New York", begins with one of Kander's famous vamps, derived from the ragtime practice of putting the melody underneath a repeated note.

The song was released as a single from the soundtrack album, and peaked at #104 on the Billboard chart. Two years later, Frank Sinatra recorded a cover version for his triple album Trilogy: Past Present Future. On June 14, 1980, the single reached #32 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was Sinatra's last Top 40 hit. Both Sinatra's and Minnelli's versions have become closely associated with Manhattan in New York City. Sinatra performed the number at nearly all of his concerts until his retirement in 1995, and Minnelli continues to perform it at nearly all of hers.

Soundtrack

The LP soundtrack for New York, New York is a double album. It is produced, conducted and arranged by Ralph Burns.

"Happy Endings" was recorded for the film but edited out of the theatrical release.New York, New York, Original Motion Picture Score. United Artists Records, 1977.

Personnel Abe Most – Clarinet Bob Tricarico, Jerome Richardson – Saxophone Chauncy Welsh, Jim Cleveland – Trombone Conte Condoli, Snooky Young, Warren Luening – Trumpet Russ Freeman – Piano Jim Hughart – Bass Bill LaVorgna, Sol Gubin – Drums John Neal – Engineer

Charts Chart (1977)PeakpositionAustralia (Kent Music Report)92United States (Billboard 200)50

Reception Box office The film underperformed to expectations at the box office, grossing $16.4 million against a $9 million budget. The disappointment depressed Scorsese and worsened his drug addiction. Certain that New York, New York would be a hit, United Artists structured the film's box office as a bulwark against the flop that they had expected in Rocky. The two productions pooled their profits, but Rocky ended up covering the losses of Scorsese's movie.

In his introduction to the film's DVD release, Scorsese explains that he intended for the film, which he saw as an homage to the musicals of Classical Hollywood cinema, to break from the gritty realism for which he had become famous, hence the deliberately artificial sets and storyline. He acknowledges that the experiment did not please everyone.Chartoff, Robert, Irwin Winkler, Martin Scorsese, Earl Mac Rauch, Mardik Martin, Liza Minnelli, Robert De Niro, et al., dirs. 2007. New York, New York. Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Critical response

The film has an overall critical score of 57% with a mean of 6.8 of a possible 10 on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 54 reviews; the site's consensus explains, "Martin Scorsese's technical virtuosity and Liza Minnelli's magnetic presence are on full display in New York, New York, although this ambitious musical's blend of swooning style and hard-bitten realism makes for a queasy mixture."

Christopher Porterfield wrote in Time, "If this movie were a big-band arrangement, it would be a duet for a sax man and a girl singer, but with the soloists in a different key from the band."

Vincent Canby of The New York Times wondered, "Why should a man of Mr. Scorsese's talent be giving us what amounts to no more than a film buff's essay on a pop-film form that was never, at any point in film history, of the first freshness?"

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times lamented, "Scorsese's New York, New York never pulls itself together into a coherent whole, but if we forgive the movie its confusions we're left with a good time."