As the city elates in celebration at the announcement of victory in Japan, a saxophone player (Robert De Niro) relentlessly pursues a lounge singer (Liza Minnelli), and their eventual marriage falters as her success soars. With New York, New York, you can see director Martin Scorsese get lost in his tribute to the big budget MGM musicals of the Golden Age of Hollywood, who also must of been ecstatic to work with the daughter of two people who made so many of those great films. Here, Liza has several good musical numbers and her sweetness is evident, but her appeal is not, and De Niro creates an inviolable, incredibly frustrating character. The set design is impressive, as is Laszlo Kovacs' cinematography, but it's not nearly enough to sustain the picture. What is of interest are the seeds of jealously and possessiveness in the De Niro character that would manfest themself completely and ceaselessly in Raging Bull.
