I recently managed to get a VHS copy of this rarity. It unfortunately has no subtitles, but I am very familiar with the play ("The Women," 1936), so it was a real pleasure to watch.
Unlike Fassbinder's other made-for-television films like FEAR OF FEAR or I ONLY WANT YOU TO LOVE ME, both of which could have been released theatrically as feature films, FRAUEN IN NEW YORK only really works as a television product. It is "filmed theater" in the extreme the sets are very stagey, and slightly unreal in some cases. Each scene is filmed in single takes, with the camera zooming and panning to emphasize the different characters (very good camera work, mind you, from Michael Ballhaus). The scene in the Reno hotel is remarkable in that the entire scene was shot through a huge piece of glass with evenly spaced streams of water trickling down it (this is evidently meant to be one of the windows of the elegant hotel lobby). This strikingly visual scene places this film comfortably in Fassbinder's Chinese ROULETTE period.
FRAUEN IN NEW YORK features one of Peer Raben's stranger scores (very similar to his music for QUERELLE, actually). The primary elements are choral singers, mixed with some synthesizers ethereal to say the least, but thankfully subtle. In the scene where Mary is at the manicurist, there is this persistent synthesizer noodling in the background, giving the film a real 70s avant-garde feel.
Margit Carstensen shines the brightest as the cosmopolitan Sylvia who else in Fassbinder's troupe could have been so perfect for that role? And Fassbinder is very much at home in telling a story about catty women. I would say that this is certainly deserving of a DVD release, as it is, if nothing else, a nice television piece.
