The American City in the Cinema

371 Pages·2013·6.053 MB·English

by  James A. Clapp

First published 2013 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2012045367
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clapp, James A.
The American city in the cinema / James A. Clapp.
pages cm
1. City and town life in motion pictures. 2. Cities and towns in motion
pictures. 3. Motion pictures--United States--History and criticism.
I.Title.
PN1995.9.C513C53 2013
791.43’6556--dc23
2012045367
ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-5148-0 (hbk)
For Denis Sanders
1929–1987
He dreamed movies

Contents
Preface ix
1 The American City in the Cinema: An Introduction 1
2 The Urban Medium 13
3 Streets of Gold: Immigrants in the City and the Cinema 33
4 The Small Town in a Metropolitan World 59
5 How Ya Gonna Keep ‘em Down on the Farm? 79
6 Suburbia and the American Dream 91
7 Growing Up Urban: The City, the Cinema,
and American Youth 107
8 Family Values, City Ways 135
9 Politics, the City, and the Cinema 153
10 Mean Streets and Cities of Night 179
11 “Are You Talking to Me?”: New York and the Cinema
of Urban Alienation 201
12 Class, Race, and Ethnicity in the City and the Cinema 217
13 The Urban Woman: Labor, Liberation,
and Love in the Cinematic City 239
14 City Work 257
15 Nature, Technophobia, and the Cinema
of the Urban Future 273
16 The City as Cinema 293
References 301
Film List 311
Name Index 349
Subject Index 351
All movie stills and posters supplied by Photofest.
Preface
Over forty years ago, when I arrived in California for the first time,
I took my late wife, Patricia, and our two young daughters, Laura and
Lisa, to The Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. As we ascended
the steps toward the entrance, some images began to flash out of my
memory with a rising sense of déjà vu. Although I had never been in
this place before, the tantalizing familiarity of the images begged for
a connection.
As we approached the entrance doors, they, too, seemed oddly
familiar. I stopped to look back over the stairs, across the garden, to
the panorama of the city beyond.
“What are you waiting for?” Patty asked, holding open the heavy
glass door with its wrought iron decorations.
“I know this place,” I said, half-questioning, still straining my
memory for a connection. “I think I’ve been here.”
She gave me her skeptical look. “How could you, you just got to
California a couple of days ago.”
“I know, but . . .”
Just then it came to me with a sudden and startling flood of im-
ages: a body lying on the landing at the top of the steps, illuminated
by bright headlights from police cars at the foot of the steps. I pointed
to the spot. “There, right there,” I said a trifle too loudly, “That’s where
Sal Mineo died!”
“Who?” Patty said. Now Laura and Lisa were looking at me with a
worried curiosity.
“Sal Mineo. You know, the actor who played ‘Plato’ in Rebel Without
a Cause,” I explained as if they would immediately understand. Now
the images were pouring into my mind. I realized that I was standing
right where James Dean had stood when he screamed to the police
that he had taken the bullets out of Sal Mineo’s gun. This particular
ix