It's interesting to learn that the taxi set is so stripped down because producer Sam Spiegel forgot to pay for rear-projection equipment. Cinematographer Boris Kaufman had to improvise with lights and venetian blinds in the back window but has anyone in IMDB Land ever seen a taxi with venetian blinds in the rear window in real life & if so when & where?
I vaguely remember seeing cars, maybe even taxis with rear view blinds in real life back in the 50's. I saw them in Manhattan's upper west side where I grew up. I may also have seen them in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico during the first seven years of my life. Of course I've seen them in many movies of the 40's and 50's. Therefore in order to make sure that my memories of these cars weren't derived from pure celluloid I clicked "cars of the 40s and 50s with blinds" and found one picture of that period of a car with blinds on the rear window. From what I've seen Boris Kaufman's inspired solution may have come from real life.
CinemaScopeRulz
Thanks for the feed back vctpagan but it appears from the fact I only got one reply to my question cars/taxi's with Venetian Blinds in the rear window probably were far & few in-between.
"Oh Professor what a large stethoscope you have"
"Trust me my dear I'm a doctor"
Actually, I remember a lot of taxi's in Italy in the 1960's that had venetian blinds in the rear window. It definitely did exist but not so much in a NYC/NJ cab as a European cab.
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In the early to mid-1960's, my uncle drove a four-door car (can't rememeber the make) that had removable venetian blinds that could placed over the back window. Never saw anything like that again.
"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."
One of the DVD extras explains that a crew member had came to the set that day in a cab that had blinds in the rear window.
shareThank goodness there's no distracting and technically outdated view out the back window. As it stands this is one of the greatest scenes in cinema. The blinds actually contribute to the sense Charlie has of being trapped.
shareActually I was distracted by the blinds in the rear window because it seemed so unusual.
shareno i havent seen blinds like this before inside a taxi, but it kinda made the background a little unusual for my liking in this scene.
shareThere might have been blinds of a sort - but with the slats fixed horizontally, to shield the back of the car from the glare and the heat of the sun. Having the slats closed vertically would serve no practical purpose in a cab, except to simplify the set-up of the movie scene.
shareThere is a technical reason -a behind the scenes explanation for the blinds-yes....but,I prefer to stay within the realm of the film for a reason...It's John Friendlys cab-of course there are blinds in the back window! Imagine how many nefarious deals were hatched in that back seat,,,the demise of Charlie the Gent its last.
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