On the Town

"New York, New York, a helluva town. The Bronx is up but the Battery's down. The people ride in a hole in the ground. New York, New York, it's a helluva town!"

On the Town is a 1944 musical comedy by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, with music by Leonard Bernstein, about the adventures of three sailors on liberty in New York City. Traveling around the city by cab and by subway, they variously visit the Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Hall, Coney Island (in both imaginary and real versions), three nightclubs and two girls' apartments before their twenty-four hours are up.

The musical was made into a 1949 MGM film version, which featured Gene Kelly, Vera-Ellen, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Jules Munshin, Ann Miller, and not much of the original score. Comden and Green were around to write the screenplay, so the plot stayed roughly the same. The movie was named to the National Film Registry in 2018.

See also Anchors Aweigh (the first paring with Kelly and Sinatara).


 * Aluminum Christmas Trees: "Miss Turnstiles". Between 1941 and 1976, the New York subway system actually ran an advertising campaign in which a new "Miss Subways" was selected, beauty pageant-style, approximately every six months.  It was rarely a catapult to glorious celebrity for the girl so honored.  The "Miss Subways" campaign was so fondly recalled that there were calls to revive it in the 1980s; it was actually revived for a single year in 2004-5, and then again just before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2017-2019.
 * Beauty Contest: If "Miss Turnstiles" was managed like the real-world "Miss Subways", it was essentially this.
 * Big Applesauce: "New York, New York, a helluva town..."
 * Bowdlerization: The Breen Office refused to allow the line "a helluva town" in the film, so they were forced to make it "wonderful" instead.
 * Brake Angrily
 * Burlesque: Ivy's Dark Secret that she doesn't want to reveal to her new friends -- instead of being a sophisticated celebrity, she's a dancer in a burlesque show.
 * California Doubling: Averted in the film at the vehement insistence of co-directors Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen; this was one of the very first movies shot on-location in New York City.  (Even so, Louis Mayer only allowed them 9 days to shoot in NYC.)
 * City Mouse: All three girls, really, but Hildy most of all.
 * Country Mouse: Gabey, Chip and Ozzie, all to some degree.
 * Dark Secret: Ivy supports herself as a coochie dancer in a Burlesque show; she doesn't want to admit that to her new friends or (most of all) the guy who's clearly fallen for her.
 * Dream Ballet
 * Celeb Crush: Gabey falls in love with a picture he sees in the subway of Ivy as the current "Miss Turnstiles". Subverted in that she isn't the major celebrity he thinks she is, but basically a model in an ad campaign.
 * Celebrity Power: Faked, when Hildy bribes a maitre d' to address Ivy as "Miss Turnstiles" and treat her as a genuine celebrity.
 * Gender Equal Ensemble: Three males (Gabey, Chip and Ozzie) and three females (Ivy, Hildy and Claire).
 * Girl Next Door: Ivy comes across as this (probably as a reference to the real "Miss Subways" promotion, which selected its winners based on this quality). It makes the contrast between her and her "night job" even stronger.
 * Here We Go Again/Book Ends: As the boys return to their ship at the end of the movie, a new trio of sailors are setting out on their day of leave in fabulous Manhattan, complete with a reprise of "New York, New York".
 * Irrelevant Act Opener
 * New York Subway
 * Punny Name: "Claire Huddeson" ("clear Hudson" -- which it certainly wasn't).
 * Single Girl Coochie Dancer: Ivy.
 * Why We Can't Have Nice Things