So This Is New York

So This Is New York is a 1948 satirical movie comedy starring acerbic radio and television comedian Henry Morgan and directed by Richard Fleischer. The cynically sophisticated screenplay was written by Carl Foreman and Herbert Baker from the 1920 novel The Big Town by Ring Lardner. Foreman was blacklisted soon after. This remains the only movie in which legendary humorist Henry Morgan plays the leading role, and the material was tailored to showcase the cynical persona Morgan had developed for his radio show. The film's supporting cast includes Leo Gorcey, Virginia Grey, and Arnold Stang as a Western Union clerk who gives Morgan a hard time. The film was the first feature for Richard Fleischer (son of Max Fleischer), who had previously directed short subjects for United Artists. Fleischer went on to direct Follow Me Quietly (1948), Armored Car Robbery (1950), and The Narrow Margin (1954). So This is New York was one of the first Hollywood movies to use the technique of freezing action on the screen while a narrator spoke about what the viewer was seeing. One scene has Morgan entering a taxi as a cabbie barks at him in a thick Bronx accent, "Awrite - where to, Mac?" Subtitles appear on the screen translating, "Where may I take you, sir?"