Since 2008, when he started reviewing movies for Taxi TV — his old-timey newsman voice booming from the back seat of cabs around the city — Sandy Kenyon has become a Big Apple institution. “It has been the single greatest thing that has happened to me in my career,” says the WABC entertainment reporter. Kenyon says he’s regularly approached by New Yorkers asking for selfies and movie recommendations. Even Matt Damon and his daughter Alexia are fans. “I gave Matt my Taxi TV mug for her!” says Kenyon, who is hosting an Oscar preview special, “The Road to Gold,” on WABC-TV this Saturday. We asked the native New Yorker for his favorite movie scenes featuring — what else? — NYC cabs.
“On the Town” (1949)
“Betty Garrett as a cabby is a woman ahead of her time. It begins with three sailors — Jules Munshin, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra — on leave. And she basically propositions [Sinatra] twice. This was considered very forward. He demurs. She says it again, ‘Why don’t you ditch these guys and come up to my place?’ To which he replies, ‘Now look, lady, I hardly even know you.’ ”
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961)
“There is no scene that has ever captured New York like the opening scene of the taxicab coming down Fifth Avenue. The best scene, however, is the final one in the cab, [when Audrey Hepburn] asserts her independence. ‘I’m not going to let anyone put me in a cage. We belong to nobody, and nobody belongs to us.’ Those are words to live by even today. The cab is absolutely integral to this movie. It’s a symbol of a certain type of New York.”
“Taxi Driver” (1976)
“Director Martin Scorsese plays a husband who [while in Robert De Niro’s cab] is watching the silhouette of his wife committing adultery with another man in an apartment. He starts talking about the relative merits of the .44 Magnum to do what he has in mind — and what he has in mind is not printable in a family newspaper. It captures the eerie vibe of New York in the ’70s, the edginess, the danger, the uncertainty.”
“Scrooged” (1988)
“David Johansen, lead vocalist for the New York Dolls, plays a cab driver in this one. Not just any cab driver — he’s the Ghost of Christmas Past, and his taxi meter features years going backward. There is a classic line where Bill Murray enquires, ‘Where are we?’ to which the cab driver responds, ‘You mean when are we?’ He goes through a delivery van at one point — it’s kind of a ghost thing — prompting someone to yell, ‘Go back to Jersey, you moron.’ ”
“Coming to America” (1988)
“Eddie and Arsenio meet Jake Steinfeld, with a mountain of luggage. Eddie says, ‘Take us to Queens at once.’ He says, ‘Are you sure you guys want to go to Queens? A couple of rich folks like you should be in Manhattan.’ Here’s what’s interesting: They leave from JFK in Queens, but they’re deposited in Brooklyn. There’s the subway in the background. The car comes up the wrong way on Hooper Street and drops them right there. The BQE is the closest they get to Queens.”
“Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” (1992)
“A little boy [Macaulay Culkin] gets into the cab in Central Park, and says, ‘Boy, it’s scary out there.’ And the scary-looking driver replies, ‘Ain’t much better in here, kid’ — to which Culkin makes his famous [wide-eyed] face and exits the cab. The total elapsed time is less than 20 seconds. Our shortest [scene] is our most memorable.”
“Die Hard: With a Vengeance” (1995)
After Bruce Willis commandeers a cab — with Samuel L. Jackson riding shotgun — “they go into Central Park, and the geography is confused. They’re supposed to be going south, but by my reckoning, they head east, west, north and south. They exit at Seventh Avenue and Central Park South [and] hit a rock and go flying. It’s fantastic to see the taxi doing stuff that would get you arrested.”
“Godzilla” (1998)
“The finale takes place in a cab and is so over-the-top. Godzilla is chasing them — Jean Reno, the great French star, is the cab driver and Matthew Broderick is one of the passengers. Near the end, the cab is in the mouth of Godzilla with our stars in the cab, prompting this classic piece of dialogue: ‘We’re in his mouth!’ And then they get out of the jam by blinding Godzilla. Spoiler alert: Godzilla dies by falling on the taxi. Luckily, the passengers and driver are no longer inside.”