City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Publications and Research Kingsborough Community College 2007 New York Placenames in Film Titles Jay H. Bernstein CUNY Kingsborough Community College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/kb_pubs/10 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact:
[email protected] New York Place Names in Film Titles Jay H. Bernstein Robert J. Kibbee Library Kingsborough Community College – CUNY 2001 Oriental Blvd. Brooklyn, NY 11235 Tel.: (718) 368-6548 Fax: (718) 368-5481 2 New York Place Names in Film Titles Abstract From 1914 to 2006, 396 feature films with titles containing New York place names were released. This pattern emerged during the silent era, peaked from the late 1920s to the early 1940s, and then dropped off steadily before rebounding in the 1970s. This article discusses the cinematic representation of cities and urban life in the movies and the special place of New York as an “imagined city” and a cultural icon. New York’s associations in the popular imagination help explain the frequent occurrence of themes of negativity, violence, nightlife, and grandiosity (royalty or divinity) in these titles. The use of New York place names in titles creates guideposts in a socio-cognitive map of the city. 3 The titles of theatrical films reveal certain patterns. Recent years have brought us New York Minute (2004), Brooklyn Bound (2004), Union Square (2004), Autumn in New York (2000), Maid in Manhattan (2002), Love at Times Square (2003), and many others containing New York place names.