Architecture of: The Naked City [1948]

One of the first movies to be shot on location, this classic crime drama shows Manhattan in all its gritty and glamorous glory, in ways no later, set-piece version has ever quite matched.  Like an animated exhibit of photographer Andreas Feininger, every shot is worthy of framing. And though the narrative ostensibly follows a police procedural format, the real plot is an amalgam of the "eight million stories" ... and the chief character exposed truly is ...  The Naked City.

 

Architecture of..."The Best of Everything" [1959]

In the opening credits to THE archetypal working-girl-in-the-big-city movie, as the empty midtown streets of a Manhattan morning fill with office workers, jaunty diagonal views accentuate the animated hubub of 1959. A polarized color palette renders every shot with the iconic quality of a Life Magazine layout, and a central cast of character-types covers everyone's mis-remembered fantasy of the glamorous Big City: grey-flanneled business men & white gloved secretaries; ladies-who-lunch & shoppers who shop; taxis, buses & subways thrust the teeming throngs of workers to their appointed destinations.  And while Johnny Mathis croons about the promise of romance, the pictures tell a different story: it's in the glass and steel and concrete City that you'll find your dreams and realize your aspirations for.... The Best of Everything.