Black people


New York City in the the 1940s had none.

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Really? Then who was living up in Harlem at the time? Certainly not white yuppies.

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Weren't the original Harlem Globetrotters all white guys?

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There have been black people in New York City since the dutch were there. Maybe even sooner.

Read a book.



No two persons ever watch the same movie.

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I see your point. Of course there were black people, and Asian and Hispanic people . . . but unless they played criminals or servants, Hollywood didn't often put them in films.

Typical of the times.

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Gee, who was that black guy singing italian folk songs under my window back then? Hispanics were very rare at that time, they were just starting to 'invade' the city around that time, wearing multicolored clothes that made them a standout by dress alone...red pants, yellow shirts and multicolored flower shirts...a strange sight to us then...we had to wear white shirts and red ties for elementary school then...no slobs like today...T shirts and torn Levi's and long hair. We were called sissy then if we wore loafers, Bermuda shorts ( that is what they were called then ) and God forbid you as a man wore Earrings.

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I think the OP is making a comment on the movie. There does seem to be an unusually low number of blacks in this movie given it is supposed to represent the citizens of New York.

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NYC was mostly white through the 1960's, and so was the USA.

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I was a kid in Jersey City in the early 1960s and remember the large amount of Blacks and Puerto Ricans kids in the school, alongside the Italian kids, the Jewish kids and the Irish kids. And sitting all together in the same classrooms.

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What about the rich lady at 478 Park Avenue? She had a black maid. (Of course in 1947 the word "black" was a pejorative....the correct term was "negro".)

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True. When this noir film was made into a tv cops' show in the early 1960s, it showed African American folks as NYPD police officers and in other businesses and jobs.

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My parents are Puerto Ricans, and rarely you see one in red pants! Damn!

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There were! And plenty. Movie industry just kept them away. That will change in a decade.

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no asians either

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Actually they did show two Chinese guys when they were asking around to find the suspect. They didn't really have any lines, but they were there.

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My understanding is that they were all on 52nd street

"Enough of that technical talk, Foo!"

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I did not know that. This was the beginning of the time when black people were not given some stereotype role, and portrayed as ordinary people. It would be a long time before shows that starred blacks, but this was the start towards that.

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I may be missing the point entirely but I think the original comment was meant as a sarcastic question due to the fact that there were few blacks visible in this movie. At the time this film was made New York was approaching 10% blacks overall but filmmakers tended to make "black" movies and "white" movies. During the 30's and 40's hundreds of "Race Movies" were made and the inclusion of white actors in them was rare. IMO neither reflected real life but that was movies of that time. For some additional information on black or "Race Movies" check out the following site. http://www.amoeba.com/blog/2010/02/eric-s-blog/black-cinema-part-ii-race-movies-the-hollywood-studio-era.html

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I don't think the filmmakers intentionally kept blacks out of scenes in The Naked City. This was 1947 and the city was not integrated, there were just very few blacks mingling in the population. Most were living in areas like Harlem and led their lives there or were in some jobs which would not have been observed by Dassin as he filmed in the city. Even a progressive city like New York was still a divided, segregated city in 1947.

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