Sunday in New York


Sunday in New York is a 1963 American Metrocolor romantic comedy film directed by Peter Tewksbury and starring Jane Fonda, Rod Taylor and Cliff Robertson. The soundtrack score was composed and performed by Peter Nero; Mel Tormé recorded the vocals for the title song. The screenplay was written by Norman Krasna based on Krasna's play of the same name.

Plot

Eileen Tyler, a 22-year-old music critic for the Albany Times Union, is suffering from her breakup with Russ from a rich Albany family. She comes to New York City to visit her brother Adam, who is an airline pilot. Eileen confides to her brother that she thinks she may be the only 22-year-old virgin left in the world. Adam assures her that sex is not what all men look for and insists he hasn't slept around. Of course, Adam is lying and is in hot pursuit of a tryst with his occasional girlfriend Mona. However, Adam's date with Mona has a series of job-related interruptions. Meanwhile, Eileen decides to see if she can have some fun in New York, and seems to find the perfect candidate in Mike, a man she meets on the bus. But things get complicated when Russ pops in with a proposal and a mistaken assumption. Mike later confesses to Eileen his feelings whereby she has a change of heart.

Cast

The screenplay by Norman Krasna was adapted from his play, which had been produced on Broadway by David Merrick starring Robert Redford and directed by Garson Kanin. It ran for 188 performances.

Original cast

reported in November 1960 that Krasna was writing the play in Switzerland, where he had a home. The play was optioned by David Merrick who in April 1961 arranged Garson Kanin to direct.. Kanin called it Krasna's "best play, with a lot of feeling and very funny.
Peter Graves and Jane Fonda were discussed as leads in the play. Then in May 1961 Carroll Baker was mooted as star. Baker ended up going into Come on Strong a play written by Kanin. Jane Fonda was also offered the lead but she turned it down to make The Chapman Report which she felt was more challenging.
The lead roles went to Pat Stanley, Robert Redford and Conrad Janis.
Redford had deliberately sought out to do a comedy on Broadway because he had been doing so much heavy drama on stage and TV. He lobbied for the role; producer David Merrick was reluctant but eventually agreed to audition him. Kanin later said he did not intend to cast Redford in the lead as "we already had a major New York actor signed and sealed and in the wings." Kanin auditioned Redford for a lesser part then the actor asked if he could read for the lead. The director agreed and said Redford gave "a subtle, funny, original performance" as Mike Mitchell. "He was canny. He'd been holding back on the first reading, which wasn't terrific, because he believed he was the lead."
In order to do the play Redford pulled out of a three-picture deal he had signed with the Sanders brothers to make War Hunt which resulted in a law suit that kept him off screen until 1964.
Rehearsals took place in October 1961. In Washington during try-outs, a teacher attended a production during previews with school children and walked out claiming the play was indecent.

Reception

The New York Times called it "inventive and chic. Only the substance is familiar and thin." Walter Kerr called it a "sentimentalised farce... precisely the kind of echo chamber exercise that drives intelligent young theatregoers to complete despair."
Redford later said he liked the jokes but felt the play was "not up to the standard of a Kanin-Gordon script". However the New York Times review was positive enough to ensure a semi-decent run and give Redford his first significant stage success.
The show closed in May 1962 after 189 performances.
The play ran for two years in Paris, and had a successful run in Los Angeles in a production starring Marlo Thomas.
Redford's appearance in the play would later help him be cast in Barefoot in the Park. It also contributed to George Roy Hill casting him in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid because it gave Hill confidence Redford could handle comedy.

Production

The play was seen on Broadway by Eliot Hyman and Ray Stark of Seven Arts Productions who "thought it would make a good movie," according to Stark. Other companies were interested in film rights but Stark called Krasna direct in Switzerland and did the deal. The rights cost $150,000 plus a percentage of the gross.
The film was a part of a multi-picture deal between Seven Arts and MGM. Lead roles originally were offered to Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty, who turned them down. Peter Tewksbury, best known for his work in TV, signed to direct. Redford auditioned to repeat his stage role but says his reading "did not go well for me" and he was not cast.
Jane Fonda agreed to be in the film for a fee of $100,000. She later said "the girl I play is an absolute bore. She talks so much about her virginity; and you know the more she talks about it the more it's on her mind. I mean, for God's sake let her make her mind up one way or the other and stop all that talking."
Filming took place on location in New York and on the MGM backlot in Los Angeles. Rod Taylor later said he and Fonda "got on like a couple of lovely kids" adding the film "seemed like a labor of love to her... was a wonderful, frothy time."

Reception

Critical

In a review of the playwright's "frank screen version" of the play, Bosley Crowther characterized the film as another in a series of films that dwelled on a subject first brought to the screen ten years earlier in The Moon Is Blue: "There once was a time when the candor of Mr. Krasna's mildly popular Broadway play about an Albany girl who struggles bravely with the problem of her virtue during a rainy afternoon in New York might have caused the Production Code people a moment or two of anxious pause. They might then have thought it a bit too racy for youthful and innocent ears"; on the film itself, Crowther said "the extent of the film's disconcertion and delight for a viewer will depend upon how prone one may be to a juvenile quandary and to the nimble performing of a pleasant cast. The twists of the plot are downright hackneyed—the confusions of opening the wrong doors, mistaking people and getting caught in . But the actors are all attractive, and so long as one can go along with them in their valiant attempts at pretending this is hot stuff, one may have a good time."
According to Time magazine, "Sunday in New York is another brightly salacious Hollywood comedy about the way of a man with a maid who just may. 'This motion picture,' leers an announcement flashed on the screen as a teaser, 'is dedicated to the proposition that every girl gets...sooner or later.' As usual, winking wickedness turns out to be mostly eyewash, but the plot—more to be pitied than censored—gets a buoyant lift from stars Jane Fonda, Cliff Robertson and Rod Taylor. All three abandon themselves to the film version of Norman Krasna's trite Broadway farce with disarming faith, as though one more glossy, glittering package of pseudo sex might save the world."

Box Office

The film was a minor hit, earned $2 million in rentals in North America.
In 2019 Jane Fonda reflected "I’m surprised how many people say they love Sunday in New York.. Why?"