42nd St Movie (1969)

Doobs first longer film begins with a shot of the sun setting over the Hudson River in New York City and goes on to examine the nighttime street life found in the block of 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues As Doob describes it That block was fairly notorious at that time with pornographic bookstores and theaters peepshows and prostitution It was also a kind of magnet for exotic personalities and a visually interesting location The film showed at many film festivals won a prize at the West German Short Film Festival in Oberhausen and was well reviewed in the New York Times After making this film and after the experience of taking Murray Lerners filmmaking class at Yale Doob worked as Lerners cinematographer on a number of films including his 1979 Academy Awardwinning documentary FROM MAO TO MOZART Yale Film Archive