When we think of New Year's Eve, we think of short-lived resolutions, ill-advised groping and hangovers that would cripple King Kong. But we also think of the lighted, bejeweled ball dropping in Times Square as an increasingly withered Dick Clark counts down the seconds until the new year's arrival. So on this final day of 2007, we can think of no better way to kick off a new recurring feature dedicated to notable locations and their portrayal on film than with Times Square. Here are a few of our favorite movie moments set - though not necessarily shot - in that ever-evolving hub of humanity.
The bygone glamour of the '30s and '40s is evoked in Radio Days (1987), Woody Allen's most nostalgic work, which concludes on a nightclub rooftop overlooking Times Square on New Year's Eve, 1944. It's a set - certainly one of the most beguiling ones in the Allen filmography, all colorful neon signs and cigarette billboards blowing smoke as snow begins to fall. This era's Times Square is recreated in another spectacular set - albeit for a less wistful moment - in Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King Kong, as the ape escapes his "Eighth Wonder of the World" display on Broadway and goes on a rampage:
The square's later incarnation as a seedy pit of sin provides the backdrop for two counterculture classics. In Midnight Cowboy (1969), country boy Joe Buck has a rude awakening when his dreams of the high life as a top-dollar New York hustler are dashed in the Square's filthy hotels and run-down porno theaters. For Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976), the Square is no less than hell on earth; his late-night cruise through rain-slicked streets oozing steam and bad vibes remains the iconic image of Times Square from this period.
The latest version of Times Square is often described as "Disneyfied," and it is indeed a cleaned-up, corporate intersection of Gap stores and ESPN Zones. It does retain the outsized billboards and extravagant neon of decades past, however, and as this clip from the otherwise regrettable Vanilla Sky (2001) shows, it still has potential for creepiness:
The Square is used to similar effect as a deserted wasteland in I Am Legend, although this Times Square of the near future, crumbling and overgrown with weeds, is entirely computer generated. Still, we have the feeling Travis Bickle would approve.