“The City as a Character: Andrew J. Rausch’s The Taking of New York City” by Brian Greene

A comprehensive catalogue of NYC-centric crime movies from the 1970s….

Employing New York City as a character is a device that’s often been effectively utilized by filmmakers, authors, and others engaging in creative pursuits. One immediately thinks of Martin Scorsese’s movies in this light. Jason Starr, my personal favorite contemporary noir writer, has also made the city’s atmosphere and energy an evocative aspect of his adrenaline-heavy, gritty suspense novels.

In The Taking of New York City: Crime on the Screen and in the Streets of the Big Apple in the 1970s (Applause Books), film historian Andrew J. Rausch looks at how the sights, smells, sounds, and people of New York figured into crime-related cinematic works over one heady decade. Additionally, the author explores actual illegal activity in the metropolis through the 1970s, giving rundowns of the rates and types of unlawful acts in the place at the time, while singling out the more notable anecdotes from the era involving phenomena such as mafia exploits, police corruption, sex offenses, robberies, etc.

The information is presented chronologically. Each chapter covers a particular year from the decade (plus 1980). The segments begin with Rausch’s overviews of criminal activities in NYC in each annum, then provide capsule analyses of a smattering of New York-based films released over those 12 months.

The breadth of the motion pictures that come under discussion is vast. Rausch didn’t limit himself to expounding upon ‘70s big screen fare that he sees as high in artistic achievement. Rather, he covers titles that he views as being great, so-so, and even dreadfully bad. The features discussed in the book range from ones most everybody’s familiar with and that you just knew would be there – the two Godfather titles, Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver, etc. – to more obscure examples that even dedicated movie buffs may not have seen. Likewise, the types of New York crime movies considered over the 229 pages comprise a wide spectrum of types: cop stories, neo-noir, mob sagas, Blaxploitation blockbusters, and more.

The most enjoyable facets of the read are the backstories of the movies. It’s interesting to learn things like how the different features got developed, who wrote the novels and screenplays behind them, how the different directors were hired, how casting decisions were made, and so forth. These pieces of the book take you inside the making of the films in ways that expand your understanding of how the works were initially conceptualized and ultimately realized, and everything that happened in between. It’s also nice that Rausch includes details like how much the movies cost to make and how much revenue they garnered. And it’s enlightening to read about the notable critical reactions to the releases.

The biggest drawback with the book is occasional clumsiness of the writing. Overuse of words is a big problem. I’d hate to count how many times “film” appears in the pages; it’s often used more than once in the same sentence and multiple times within a single paragraph. Also, whether these are typos or errors, there are misuses like getting its vs. it’s wrong. These flaws in the word-for-word text distract from the topic and disrupt the flow and can cause a reader to momentarily lose interest in the discussion. The work just needed a good going-over by a crack editor, as well as help from a thesaurus.

Also, while there are plenty of quotes from producers, directors, writers and actors involved in the making of the movies, most of these comments seem to come from secondhand sources and sometimes it’s unclear whether they’re that or products of interviews the author personally conducted with the subjects. In any case, direct statements from relevant heavy hitters like Scorsese, Coppola, De Niro, Pacino, et al would have gone a long way toward adding substantive content to the book.

Those critiques notwithstanding, The Taking of New York City has its value. It can serve as a comprehensive catalogue of NYC-centric crime movies from the 1970s. And readers can learn plenty about how those motion picture titles came to exist.

Brian Greene writes short stories, personal essays and critical pieces on books, music, film and visual art. His features on noir fiction and films have been published online by Criminal Element, Crime Reads, Literary Hub, The Strand, Crime Time, Crimeculture, Mulholland Books, and others, and in print by Stark House Press, PM Press and Paperback Parade. He lives in Durham, North Carolina. briangreenewriter.blogspot.com/Twitter: greenes_circles