"New York, New York! It's a wonderful town," the sailors-on-leave sing in On the Town (1949), one of the featured movies in this salute to TCM's newest book, Cinematic Cities: New York: The Big Apple on the Big Screen. The profusely illustrated book, published by Running Press for Turner Classic Movies, is written by entertainment journalist Christian Blauvelt. It highlights movies set in New York City from the dawn of cinema to the present. Among the films covered are King Kong (1933), The Seven Year Itch (1955), The Godfather (1972), the films of Woody Allen and scores of others.

Cinematic Cities: New York also includes behind-the-scenes stories and a practical guide of tips on where to go, eat, drink, shop and sleep to follow the path of your favorite films set in NYC. Organized by neighborhoods and featuring illustrated maps throughout, the book offers a one-of-a-kind history of these movies.

Here are the films in the TCM salute:

The Clock (1945), directed by Vincente Minnelli, stars his wife-to-be Judy Garland in her first dramatic, non-singing vehicle for their home studio, MGM. This gentle romance concerns a soldier (Robert Walker) in New York City on a 48-hour leave during World War II. He meets and falls in love with a young woman (Garland), and they make hectic plans to become married. Although the city is practically a third leading character in the film, wartime restrictions meant that Minnelli and company had to shoot the film entirely on the MGM lot in Culver City, where the sets included a duplication of Pennsylvania Station at a reported cost of $66,000 (a sizeable sum in 1945 dollars).

On the Town (1949) is the film version of the Leonard Bernstein Broadway musical of the same name, with mostly new music by Roger Edens and Lennie Hayton (who won an Oscar for their score). Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin portray the sailors on leave in Manhattan, with Vera-Ellen, Betty Garrett and Ann Miller as the girls they encounter. This time, at the insistence of co-directors Kelly and Stanley Donen, the film blended studio filming with nine days of location shooting in New York City. Actual landmarks captured on film include the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Bridge and Rockefeller Center.

North By Northwest (1959) is Alfred Hitchcock's justly celebrated thriller about mistaken identity, with an innocent man (Cary Grant) pursued across the U.S. by enemy agents who believe that he holds the key to government secrets. Eva Marie Saint and James Mason provide, respectively, romance and villainy. The famous climax takes place on Mount Rushmore, but preceding that, the action is set in New York and Chicago and employs such NYC locations as the United Nations Headquarters, the Plaza Hotel and Grand Central Terminal.

Radio Days (1987), Woody Allen's nostalgic comedy-drama, has a middle-aged man from Rockaway Beach, NY, looking back at his youth during the Golden Age of Radio. Allen is the story's narrator and the ensemble cast includes Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts and Dianne Wiest. The movie was shot at New York's Kaufman Astoria Studios, with filming at such NYC landmarks as Radio City Music Hall, Macy's Store and the Metropolitan Life Tower.

Sleepless in Seattle (1993), directed and co-written by Nora Ephron, stars Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as a couple who are destined to meet in New York City even though he is from Chicago and has settled in Seattle, and she lives in Baltimore. It's all pegged to the 1957 Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr romance An Affair to Remember, in which the lovers face obstacles in a planned reunion at the Empire State Building. So that structure once again plays an all-important supporting role in a charming romantic comedy.

by Roger Fristoe