By all accounts, the Seventies were a golden age in terms of cinema. It was an era when filmmakers were taking chances, boldly exploring the boundaries, experimenting beyond popular convention, and genuinely pushing the envelope. By virtually every metric and across every conceivable genre of moviemaking, the decade is widely considered to be one of the most adventurous periods of the art form, wherein countless films made tremendous strides forward, from widely commercial blockbusters through obscure, avant-garde masterpieces. I’m sure each one of you has a list of favorites from that decade.
This all said, not every reel of celluloid produced in those ten years was going to be a milestone achievement. For every landmark title like “Apocalypse Now,” “American Graffiti or “Dog Day Afternoon,” there were bound to be some genuine stinkers. This post is about one of those.
Directed by one Howard Goldberg, 1975’s “Apple Pie” was a loose amalgam of odd vignettes tenuously affixed to a frankly half-baked plot about a wannabe-gangster. Don’t ask me to extrapolate on that because I really can’t. I saw it, fleetingly, once on a public access channel way after midnight, and don’t remember that much about it, other that it was something of a surreal, muddled mess. The major reason I was watching it was because it featured Brother Theodore (who I spoke about here), portraying the protagonist’s father, for whatever that’s worth.
Suffice to say, “Apple Pie” was in every sense indicative of the no-holds-barred era of cinema alluded to in the first graph, only maybe without so much of a regard for any semblance of credible structure. But there was one aspect of the film that does indeed stick with me, and that’s the entirely inexplicable and exhaustively lengthy dance sequence at the climax of the film.
Ever since first seeing that late-night showing, I’ve been curious as to what Manhattan street the big closing number was shot on. Last night, apropos of nothing, really, I managed to figure it out.
But first, if you’ve never seen the film or even know what I’m talking about, feast your senses on the very-much-of-its-era big finish. Be warned, it takes no fewer than sixteen (!!!) minutes….
Bonkers, right?
In any case, I spent many hours speculating what strip of the island hosted that ridiculous hoedown. Was it in Hell’s Kitchen? Chelsea? The East Village? Are those buildings even still there here in 2024?
Upon watching the sequence again last night, I noticed a telling detail – that being a banner in the background advertising a run of Mark Medoff’s play “When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?” at a venue called the Eastside Playhouse. Some quick Googling later revealed that the theatre in question was on East 74th Street between Second and First Avenues on the Upper East Side. I knew that patch reasonably well, as my own father used to rent an apartment on 74th between Third and Second Avenues. I have verily strolled down that street whereupon all that gratuitous booty-shaking went down. Oh, and as a fun sidenote, the song everyone’s depicted dancing to is a funky little number called – wait for it – “Apple Pie,” performed by a little beat combo who went by the name of Hall & Oates.
Here at the tail-end of 2024, that street doesn’t look all that different from the “Apple Pie” days.
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