I enjoyed the segment towards the end about the commie in NY.
I can't think of too many movies that have scenes in the old Yankee Stadium, before it was renovated in 1975. It was also pretty cool to get some subway scenes on what would be considered the 4 Train these days. Especially the shot of the subway coming out of the tunnel near the Stadium which as become infamous.
That segment was my least favorite.
I can see why you enjoyed it though. The nostalgic trip must have felt endearing.
However, the segment was much too long for me with too little dialogue. It drove me crazy.
Actually, I liked them best in the order they appeared.
I liked the stagey sets, the politicaly incorrect portrail of latinos, the over-melodramatic music, the family problems, and that beautiful WarnerColor.
I just wish the last segment were tightened up a bit.
To this day, whenever my brother and I bring up this film, we yell "Mariooooo!!! "
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I won't get involved in a dispute about what's "politically incorrect", except to point out that there are NO "wetbacks" depicted in THE FBI STORY. The Hispanics in the film are all shown in the segment set in South America. None are shown within the borders of the good ol' US of A. Hence, the film's Hispanics are, by definition, NOT "wetbacks". In fact, it's Stewart and the FBI agents who are the illegals in THEIR countries -- and, furthermore, engaged in unlawful activity (espionage, violation of neutrality) there to boot.
(No blacks are shown in the movie either, except the waiter whom James Stewart bosses around at the fish restaurant -- not even in the segment on the Ku Klux Klan, very busy in the 20s lynching as many black people as these ignoramuses could lay their hands on, though you wouldn't know it from the film -- and even in the shot of those hooded bozos breaking into a house and destroying the Torah and other religious objects apparently set out for a Seder, Stewart, narrating, speaks only of their "defiling ancient devotions" -- God forbid he should utter the word "Jew".)
Anyway, as to the thread -- I lived in NYC when this film was shot and remember the Bronx and Yankee Stadium at this very period, since I went to grade school about three blocks from there for two years, including 1959. I like that segment too for its personal nostalgia, but I also think it's one of the better segments of the movie, not one of the worst -- at least it's all done on location, not in the studio. If anything should have been edited out, it was those endlessly recurring family crises where Chip and his wife go on and on about religion (God, the family Bible, their son having time to start a prayer before he died), or the kids, or her eternal (and, of course, incorrect) angst about the Bureau, and all the rest of it. A little is fine, but over and over and over again, in its heavy-handed way, it's just too much -- and really, really boring. Stick to the cases, even the phony stuff (like Hoover personally arresting Alvin Karpis, which he did not). That's what makes this movie so entertaining.
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I liked seeing that footage too - especially the stuff at Yankee Stadium. Actually, I liked the whole movie. I came to it expecting just a curiosity - a movie about the FBI approved by J. Edgar Hoover could only be fiction - but I ended up responding to it as a thriller and as a drama. Definitely a pleasant surprise!
What's the Spanish for drunken bum?
very interestingWhen there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...
I enjoyed the segment towards the end about the commie in NY.
I can't think of too many movies that have scenes in the old Yankee Stadium, before it was renovated in 1975. It was also pretty cool to get some subway scenes on what would be considered the 4 Train these days. Especially the shot of the subway coming out of the tunnel near the Stadium which as become infamous.
As a rail fan I liked those as well. I used to live around the corner from Restaurant row which is on 46th St between 8th and 9th Avenues.
The wife and I lived at 301 West 45th from 1978 to 1982.
Have you seen PAM AM as yet? The scenes on the subway sound the closing door bell
there was no such thing back then, Plus many of the cars in 1963 were still very old ones.
See some stars here
http://www.vbphoto.biz/
At least a dozen films produced before 1975 have used that location.
Perhaps the OP just wants to reach out for some sense of community.