Affentraum

What film involves a beach in New York City, apes and a very famous New York landmark? Yeah, well Planet of the Apes does, but I mean Ciao Maschio.

This is a pretty bad film, there is no story to explain, the relationships between the characters are sometimes puzzling, the occurrences are sometimes impossible and the people's reactions unreal. Then comes the acting, the very, very bad acting.

But if you love films set in New York City and just like a calm atmospheric and weird film set in parts of New York you don't often see then you can't miss this.

The entire film takes place among a few block radius in a residential neighborhood just a few blocks north of the World Trade Center. It seems to be shot in a hurry as many scenes could have used another take or two. I wonder if they had all the necessary permits of if it was, umm "guerilla" filmmaking. It seems like they may have shot it all on a few Sunday or Holiday mornings as you never see another soul walking the streets during any scenes.

But here is the most fascinating part. This was shot, I assume in 1977, and at the time they were building landfill or extending that part of Manhattan out into the East River to create a man-made neighborhood on which they would build expensive condos. But at this brief point in history it was a vast beach, it was all sand. It was blocked by a weak fence with a warning sign but they ignored it and several scenes, long scenes, take place on this yet -to-be-finished landfill area just under the Twin Towers. It is actually quite beautiful and I doubt another film exists that would show this. In fact I doubt you could even find an old newsreel type video on youtube that might show this.

For that reason alone i would recommend this.