Summer in the City

This documentary from 1968 looks at the Upper West Side of Manhattan from the perspective of a German writer who lived on W. 96th St for two years.

Uwe Johnson wrote the script and two directors handled the video, and the resulting documentary appeared on German TV at the time, but was hidden from the American public.

Too bad, because we might have appreciated seeing how the Germans viewed us. Not very well is the answer!

Johnson's script is filled with lectures on the poor, and how they deserve better treatment. The naivete is astounding. His "hero" is named Jeanette and she's a professional protestor/agitator who goes downtown on the 2 train to picket City Hall, gets arrested and then is immediately bailed out. As she's led into the police van she's smiling and talking smack like she's been through this a thousand times before.

Jeanette wants better housing for her and her family, at taxpayer expense. I guess we're not supposed to ask why this deeply angry and financially unstable person went ahead and had 7 children. She promises they'll be just as angry as she is. Great! What a win.

We also get to see a heroin junkie shoot up and puke into a bucket, which I'm sure delighted a teenaged Angela Merkel.

It's hard not to see "Summer in the City" as some sort of revenge drive-by for Hogan's Heroes, Siegfried on Get Smart and The Producers. Germany certainly was a butt of jokes in 1960s American media. Perhaps this explains the motivation.

All in all, the film is pretty dismal and quite preachy, though if you're into old footage of long-disappeared luncheonettes I guess it's good fun.

It's also useful as an antidote to the popular opinion that the 60s and 70s were "the good old days" on the UWS, a time when (supposedly) you knew your neighbor, sat on the stoop and talked politics as Frank Messer crackled away on the transistor radio. Actually, the people in the documentary don't seem happy with the UWS at all.