I've read a lot about 1960s NYC 'counterculture' but was a bit too young to experience any of it firsthand-- in '67 I was six years old and living 200 miles north of there. So I found it interesting to see the details of Bleecker and MacDougal and other streets in lower Manhattan as Sidney is trying to make his escape.
Hasid Clothes, 164 Canal St., is used as a very distinct backdrop in several shots. Anyone know if it still exists?
As Sidney rounds the corner near the movie theater that's playing "8 1/2" and "Breathless", a red sign for a Grand Union supermarket (remember those?) is visible in the upper left corner of the screen. A Grand Union in the Village? I wouldn't have expected that.
Two minutes later at the Cafe Wha?, as Godfrey Cambridge sneaks up behind Severn Darden, you can see a poster next to the entrance, advertising the Fugs-- presumably they were playing there at the time, or were about to.
But what really caught my eye-- as I've been a fan of Frank Zappa's music for decades now-- was the shot where Sidney races past the Garrick Theater. Knowing that the Mothers had started a lengthy engagement at the Garrick in 1967, I wondered, "Whose name is shown on the marquee?" The DVD player's zoom control revealed what may have been a joke created for the film. Sidney dashes past the theater, with others in hot pursuit... and the marquee above them says "NO RUNNING".
I'm just nuts enough to have looked up 164 Canal Street on Google Street View, and it just doesn't look the same (looks like an Asian jewelry store there now). There are some clearly new store fronts on the block, but the buildings underneath look like they've been there for some time - the fire escapes look different too.
I'm from out of town - like 1,000 miles out - any idea where on 7th Avenue the opening scene was shot at?
Well, before last night I didn't have any idea, but two or three hours of online sleuthing and a DVD player with zoom function revealed quite a bit. I enjoyed matching the details of the buildings in 1967 to the same buildings in 2011 using Street View. (You think YOU'RE nuts? All the info in this post was gathered with only a dial-up connection!)
First shot of the movie: The camera zooms back from (the film stock of a shot of) the Allied Chemical building (product placement?) at 1 Times Square, then pans south along 7th Ave. from a vantage point a few stories above it.
At 0:31 on the DVD, we see Florsheim Shoes, 7th Ave at West 37th St. Just south of there, across W.37th, is 499 7th Ave., whose storefront is-- or at least was, in 2011-- occupied by Liberty Travel (as shown on Street View). The camera continues south on 7th Ave.
At 0:35, a Chock Full o' Nuts coffee shop is visible (by 2011 it was Pret a Manger). Next to it we see Ripley Clothes. The camera continues south along the east side of 7th Ave., and at 0:47 we see a taxi turning left onto West 36th St.
At 0:51, Godfrey Cambridge's (GC's) soon-to-be-victim, the young man in the light gray suit, arrives on the southeast corner of 7th Ave. and W.36th.
At 0:54, GC turns south on 7th Ave., probably from W.37th St., pushing his rack of clothes.
The gray-suited man takes the envelope (1:02), heads north across W.36th, passes Ripley Clothes (1:17), and stops in front of Chock Full O' Nuts (1:38). GC comes up and shivs him (1:47), then proceeds south on 7th past Ripley Clothes (1:53) and crosses W.36th (not seen, due to an edit).
GC continues down 7th Ave. At 1:59 he's in front of Carli Drug Store (in 2011 it was Guy & Gallard). Just before the first shot of James Coburn at 2:07, GC is passing Tobin Pearlman clothiers (now gone), heading toward West 35th St. Just to the right of Tobin Pearlman is the entrance to 463 7th Ave, and that was my first clue to these locations-- with zoom you can see '463”' above the doorway.
The filmmakers would have been following common practice if, for certain shots, they'd used streets in a different part of Manhattan-- or, these days, Vancouver!-- to provide a better backdrop or vantage point or lighting. They didn't, though, and what really surprised me-- and made the locations easier to verify-- was the complete continuity. Somebody made sure that the places pictured and the order in which they are shown are completely faithful to that specific NYC location. There are cuts from one block or streetcorner to another, but all the actors are shown exactly where they would have to be along 7th Ave. if they had played out this cloak-and-dagger scenario in one long continuous shot-- even though, in an era long before people were able to pause and rewind movies, very few filmgoers (aside from the locals) would have known if the location continuity were 'changed for creative purposes'. (And it sure looks like they filmed the action among unsuspecting NYC pedestrians instead of having extras fill the sidewalks.)
As for the remainder of GC's opening-credits trip through the garment district, I haven't figured out those locations, with one exception. At 3:47, we see Macy's in the background (still there in 2011 on Street View, but with a modernized sign), which means GC has turned north on 7th Ave. just above West 35th St.-- putting him just across the street from where we saw him at 2:06 but now heading the other way, although we've seen him on other streets or blocks in the meantime (2:29, 2:58, 3:18). Do they maintain the continuity? Undoubtedly the buildings in the background at 3:02-3:04 would be recognizable to some NYC residents.
I used to think the first couple of minutes were a bit slow-paced and drawn-out, at least by the standards of present-day movies, but now I'm glad they made it that way, because this online historical/architectural detective work can be FUN! (Generally.)
If the documentary about "The President's Analyst" ever gets completed, let's hope they ask Theodore Flicker about the effort he put into the opening sequence.
Oh, BTW: Have you ever seen the beginning of the original "Shaft" (1971)? It looks as if it were inspired by this one, and they shot it within a few blocks of there, in the vicinity of Broadway and Times Square. I have a feeling there were other similar ones, too, in the '60s and '70s. "Super Fly" was another. Anyone out there like to add some…?
That is some awesome detective work - I love it when a movie shoots on location without a closed set and the filter of casting and wardrobe, and we can see how people and things really looked at the time. The crew did seem to get away with a lot - can't imagine anyone getting a 'TPC' logo sticker on a maintenance wheelbarrow inside the White House gates anymore!
TCM ran a short promo film from 1966 the other day for a movie I've never seen, "Mister Buddwing", where James Garner plays an amnesiac in NYC. It focused on the film crew and their search for locations to shoot at. They were concentrating on the detail and reality they could only get from a location set (a subway station for instance). Great looking short film; I'm going to have to catch the movie now.
Thank you, and thanks for the tip on the Garner film.
Incidentally, Zappa fans, if you go frame-by-frame on the chase past the Garrick (and maybe zoom in), you will see that, yes, on one window there is a poster for the Mothers shows, so they probably WERE in residence there at the time of the shoot. And I would bet this isn't the only movie with a scene filmed on that block during that period.