Entertainment

Sets in the city

Though the American movie industry was born in New York, few features were actually filmed here after the coming of sound — until Mayor John V. Lindsay signed an executive order in 1965 cutting red tape that made it very difficult to shoot on city streets.

“Fun City: New York in the Movies 1965-75’’ — an 18-film series curated by historian J. Hoberman at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens — is named after the ironic label put on the rapidly declining Big Apple by the press after an offhand remark at Lindsay’s first press conference.

PHOTOS: FILM SETS IN THE CITY

The glorious old Penn Station can be seen during demolition in the opening film of the series on Saturday, “You’re a Big Boy Now,’’ a quirky coming-of-age comedy with Rip Torn and Geraldine Page that represented the major studio debut of Francis Ford Coppola.

Far less flattering portraits of a city increasingly in crisis are painted in such classics as “Midnight Cowboy’’ with Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight (hustlers), “The French Connection’’ starring Gene Hackman (drugs) and the Clint Eastwood vehicle “Coogan’s Bluff’’ (urban crime).

There’s also a fanciful subway hijacking in the original “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three’’ starring Walter Matthau — and gritty, fact-based crime in a pair with Al Pacino, “Serpico’’ (as a detective exposing police corruption) and “Dog Day Afternoon’’ (as the leader of the city’s most bizarre hostage crisis).

There are lesser-known films shot on location here during this era, including “The Panic in Needle Park’’ (Pacino, again, as a junkie), “The Angel Levine’’ (Harry Belafonte in the title role), the counterculture spoof “Taking Off’’ starring Buck Henry and “Cotton Comes to Harlem,’’ with a mostly black cast headed by Raymond St. Jacques and Godfrey Cambridge.

A highlight of the series is a 40th-anniversary screening of the blaxploitation classic “Superfly’’ with Ron O’Neal on Aug. 16. Museum trustee and curator Warrington Hudlin will moderate a discussion with co-star Sheila Frazier, who will also judge a costume and singing contest along with Bow Legged Lou, Paul Anthony and George Logan.

Info: movingimage.us

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MIDNIGHT COWBOY Male prostitute Jon Voight (left) and ailing pal Dustin Hoffman bundle up while crossing the Williamsburg Bridge in the Oscar-winning “MidnightCowboy’’ (1969),which originally carried an X rating. (Aug. 25)

THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE Walter Matthau’s police inspector tries to foil Robert Shaw —who is holding subway passengers hostage for a million dollars—in“The Taking of Pelham One Two Three’’ (1974). (Aug. 30)

THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK Al Pacino (far left) and Kitty Winn (second left) are heroin junkies who hang out in a then-notorious triangle at Broadway and 72nd Street in Jerry Schatzberg’s “The Panic in Needle Park’’ (1971). (Sept. 1)

THE LANDLORD A young Beau Bridges is a rich kid who becomes“The Landlord’’ (1970) of a run-down Brooklyn tenement he intends to renovate for himself in Hal Ashby’s comedy drama with Pearl Bailey. (Aug. 18)

COTTON COMES TO HARLEM Godfrey Cambridge (second from right) and Raymond St. Jacques (right) are black cops after a crooked preacher in Ossie Davis’ “Cotton Comes to Harlem’’ (1970). (Aug. 10)

LITTLE MURDERS Photographer Elliot Gould’s urban paranoia is not helped by a trip on a 1971 New York subway in Alan Arkin’s “Little Murders,’’ a black comedy based on a play by cartoonist Jules Feiffer. (Aug. 17)