Plot
As three sailors – Gabey, Chip, and Ozzie – begin their shore leave, Gabey falls in love with the picture of "Miss Turnstiles", who is actually Ivy Smith. The sailors race around New York attempting to find her in the brief period they have ("New York, New York").
They are assisted by, and become romantically involved with, two women, and pair up: Ozzie with Claire, an anthropologist; and Chip with Hildy Esterhazy, an aggressively amorous taxi driver; and eventually, Gabey with Ivy, an aspiring actress. Claire claims that she's found her passionate "Prehistoric Man" in Ozzie at the Museum of Anthropological History. Hildy invites Chip to "Come Up to My Place". Gabey takes Ivy on an imaginary date down "Mainstreet" in a studio in Symphonic Hall. Later, Chip sincerely falls for Hildy telling her "You're Awful" -- awful nice to be with. That evening, all the couples meet at the top of the Empire State Building to celebrate a night "On the Town".
But when Ivy must leave early to work as a cooch dancer, the friends tell a despondent Gabey, "You Can Count on Me", joined by Hildy's hilarious roommate, Lucy Schmeeler. They have a number of adventures reuniting with Ivy at Coney Island before their 24-hour leave ends and they must return to their ship to head off to sea. Although their future is uncertain, the boys and girls share one last kiss on the pier as a new crew of sailors heads out into the city for their leave ("New York, New York reprise").
Read more about this topic: On The Town (film)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitor’s thought,
And midwife Time the ripened plot to murder brought.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)