SOURCE: A review of New York, New York, in The New Yorker, Vol. LIII, No. 20, July 4, 1977, pp. 82-3.

In addition to being a highly regarded film critic, Gilliatt was an acclaimed novelist, short story writer and screen-writer, best known perhaps for the Academy Award-nominated screenplay Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971). In the following excerpt from a review of New York, New York, she criticizes Scorsese for unsuccessfully remaking a style—the Hollywood musical of the 1940s—which was not amenable to the kind of serious story he wished to tell.

"New York, New York." Of course, of course. But no, not the famous Bernstein-Comden-Green number from On the Town but another song, from a Martin Scorsese musical film that has the cheek to pilfer the name. To make a movie called New York, New York with a "New York" number that isn't the one you go into the cinema humming...