Manhattan, New York City Mayor Eric Adams seems to believe, derives its distinctive energy and potency from its geology – namely the bedrock of crystals and stones that the city sits on. At first, to the contemporary-secular-modern-humanist-enlightened-scientific thinker, this proposition would seem deranged. But to any Manhattan Lover, this theory holds a certain enticement. Indeed, a New Yorker is wont to become quite superstitious as the overwhelming rhythms of the city bombard them with subconscious suggestions and mythic grandiosity. 

I don’t know when or where this theory of Manhattan’s crystalline enhancement emerged, but on a recent rewatch of Peter Bogdanovich’s 1981 masterpiece They All Laughed, I became fairly convinced Bogdanovich was a prophet of the spiritual movement. Watching the film, it’s perfectly reasonable to conclude that this bedrock does create some kind of magnification and magnetism. Moreover, on the issue of unseen forces and clandestine lines, there are few films that depict libidinal momentum quite like They All Laughed. 

Bogdanovich represents these unseen lines with the act of looking – sight lines. Looking, watching, stalking, leering, They All Laughed’s characters are always creating paths and connections with their eyes. These lines, physical and figural, form a knitted map – subway tracks criss-crossing, converging and overlapping at disjointed stations. Bogdanivich draws it with long and lasting looks piercing across the city, voyeuristic sight lines of detectives and stalkers, labyrinthine New York architecture, all converging and diverging at nodal landmarks, bars, restaurants, street corners, office buildings. Bogdanovich clues us in to the rhythms and momentum of Manhattan with near-constant point-of-view shots, showing us not just where each character is located but triangulating their desires within the city. 

They All Laughed, a self-described “New York Romance,” distinguishes itself from other ensemble romcoms by being so affirmatively New-Yorkian. A step above the location-as-character cliche, this is location-as-divine-presence. It feels as if the city itself is pushing and pulling the titular all together – as if even their blood relationships are manifestations of the city’s puckish machinations. Like the relationships, the city too, is all lines and sharp edges – equal parts architectural precision and yarn-mapped conspiratorial ravings. 

The film, it quickly becomes clear, is a roundabout series of vignettes following a trio of charming archetypal detectives who aren’t afraid to mix business and pleasure – Ben Gazarra’s casually charming middle-aged John Russo is accompanied by John Ritter’s affably clumsy Charles and Blaine Novak’s suave-hippie Arthur. The plot is assembled from a series of cascadingly relevant romantic trysts and personal digressions ranging from softly bittersweet to comically caricatured. The detectives, for all their slickness, don’t hesitate to disregard their professional responsibilities in favor of dumbfound desire. 

The main interlacing thrusts of the film are two parallel detective jobs – both tailing unsatisfied wives untrusted by largely-unseen husbands. Of course, those wives are hard not to fall in love with. An angular Audrey Hepburn, striking a dark and refined figure, enchants Russo. Charles falls for the golden, elfin Dorothy Stratten. Hepburn and Stratten are juxtaposed angels, each delicately floating through the sharp-edged city. The detectives stalk in a series of triangular patterns and kinetic gestures, until the desires become irresistible and they force a convergence. 

The other private-eye, the boss, the country singer, her band, the out-of-towner, the children, all of course have their own romantic entanglements. Beset by a slew of tempestuous ex-lovers, an affair with a secretary, or googly-eyed strangers across the bar, they each navigate the desires amidst a labyrinthine city. Skating, stalking, seducing, wedding – In Bogdanovich’s New York, everyone gives and finds love freely. 

The geometric lines that connect and reconnect the ensemble of characters take on an extra dimension as those lines mischievously interweave with the biographical relationships of the cast and crew. Ben Gazzara and Audrey Hepburn had previously had an extramarital affair. Gazzara’s character’s daughters are both played by Bogdanovich’s real daughters. Hepburn’s real son plays Colleen Camp’s character’s love interest. Etc. etc. Bogdanovich sets the film amidst playfully overlapping and intersecting lines of truth and fiction.

For all its playfulness, a macabre cruelty hangs over the film, a foreboding truth that it’s all too good to last. Dorothy Stratten, Bogdanvich’s real life girlfriend, plays the woman for whom Charles is dumbstruck in love. Stratten’s character is partially autobiographical, notable for an abusive and overbearing ex-husband. An ex-husband who would brutally murder Stratten not long after filming was complete – the opening titles of the film announce that it is dedicated to Stratten. 

A few years after They All Laughed, Blue Velvet director David Lynch puts the director-detective allegory even more bluntly when Kyle MacLachlan’s Lynch stand-in is mused to: “I don't know if you're a detective or a pervert.” The detective, like the director, is always following their eyes, and the eyes are sexual organs – like MacLachlan’s dilemma between blonde and brunette, cinema is trapped between Desire and Responsibility. Bogdanvich comes up with a simple answer to this dilemma – the detective/director’s job isn’t truth, it’s emotional honesty. Desire is enough. The job, the tryst, the relief, the chance to feel something however briefly, to converge immutable lines, is all we can ask for. 

The detectives, like film directors and audiences, are voyeurs, quietly watching their subjects, awestruck and desiring. They find themselves trapped in the seduction of sight, of the overwhelming magnetic sensation of looking. Drawn forward across Manhattan's exacting grid, they find looking turns to loving. 

Manhattan itself bears the weight of these invisible forces. Spiritual density begetting a spiritual gravitational force. To Bogdanvich; to Eric Adams; to viewers, voyeurs, stalkers and lookers; to anyone who falls in love at first sight; or to any of us who like to rubberneck, survey, gawp, ogle, or gaze; Manhattan bewitches us. As They All Laughed’s final title card concludes: "We thank the people of Manhattan, on whose island this picture was filmed.”