A Holiday Classic For City Dwellers

By Jay Walljasper, Ode. Posted December 23, 2005.

Popular culture exerts a strong influence in how we view the world.

A lot of what we think and feel about any place comes from watching TV, going to the movies, and reading. A favorable impression of city life, for instance, could have been shaped by our excitement as kids watching Gene Kelly dance through the streets in movie musicals like An American in Paris and On the Town. A negative view might come from the fear we felt watching bad guys jump out of the shadows of Gotham City to attack Batman in comic books, TV shows and movies.

The power of TV and movies has actually played a role in turning many Americans away from cities and public spaces in general throughout the 20th century. Almost from the beginning, cars were portrayed as sleek and sexy while big houses with huge lawns were presented to us as the ultimate measure of success. Movies, of course, didn’t invent these things as status symbols but they did implant everyone’s minds with idealized images that fueled yearnings for a privatized version of utopia. One wonders how America would look today if Hollywood had romanticized trains, streetcars and bustling city streets with same fervor as it did speedy cars and rambling single-family homes.

The nature of filmmaking itself heightened these trends. Since Hollywood movies in their heyday were filmed almost exclusively on studio sets and backlots (or in vast empty places, which explains the popularity of Westerns), we were treated to many more scenes taking place indoors rather than out in the streets and parks. It’s exceedingly complicated, not to mention expensive, to shoot in busy public places. Movies made on location in real places did not become widespread until the 1960s. That was the same time we saw a resurgence of interest in historic preservation and revitalizing cities. Could there be a connection between what people were seeing at the moviehouse and what they wanted to see in their own communities?

Since the holiday season is upon us let me recommend a little known but delightful Christmas comedy—starring Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young—that stands as one of the best celebrations of the American city. The Bishop’s Wife hit the theaters 1947, the same year as the beloved and equally delightful Christmas movie Miracle on 34th Street. It was the era when suburbs were starting to boom, and the decline of American cities was just beginning. But while Miracle on 34th Street was jubilant in its embrace of the suburban dream, The Bishop’s Wife celebrated the energy and humanity of old urban neighborhoods and lamented their downfall. (It was remade as The Preacher’s Wife in a worthy 1996 version with Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston and Courtney B. Vance)

The Bishop’s Wife begins with a gay scene of Christmas shopping on crowded city streets in an unnamed city, but there are ominous undertones of urban woes as a blind man, a baby in a stroller and an old professor are nearly rundown by speeding cars and trucks. The bishop’s wife is buying a Christmas tree from a colorful Italian shop owner, but she clearly lacks the holiday spirit. Bumping into an old friend—who laughs “What are you doing in this disreputable part of town?”—she breaks into tears, saying how much she misses this old neighborhood now that her husband has been appointed bishop and they’ve moved with their young daughter to a grand residence up on the hill. Indeed, we soon see that her husband’s old church, St. Timothy’s, is in danger of closing. “It can’t stand up to the march of progress,” the friend sadly remarks.

Jay Walljasper is executive editor of Ode magazine and a fellow at the Project for Public Spaces. He lives in Minneapolis.

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