Radio City Music Hall

I remember in the late 1980s/early 1990s going to see the Abel Gance’s “Napolean” at RCMH. Carmen Coppolla conducted a full ochestra if memory serves me correctly.

And I remember attending that same film series that ran in the summer of ‘97 that someone above mentioned. The only film I caught in that series was “The Blues Brothers,” but if memory serves me correctly that screening was very well attended.

The Music Hall’s survival is a Pyrrhic victory at best.

Which I am sure will utilize the Hall’s magnificent facilities with equal skill and flair.

“Talk about selling your soul to the devil.”

Vincent: why do you say that? Ok, so it’s not your kind of music (for the record, it’s not mine either…) but the Hall is being used constantly. I work where I can see the Marquee every day and the sucker is booked every week. Thank God venues are being booked there from Yanni(!!!) to rap/hip-hop to mild rock (Maroon 5). It’s usage is what keeps the place vital.

I recall seeing it at the 2nd run Stanley-Warner Orpheum in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, PA in late 1959. Maybe we were jaded, but it got a big laugh there. Even though not in VistaVision :)

I don’t remember hearing any laughter or any audible signs of “getting it” re: the final scenes, during the many times I saw “North by Northwest” in my position as an usher.

Does anybody who saw North by Norwest at the Music Hall(perhaps multiple times?) remember if the final shot got a laugh? Or were the Music Hall patrons of the era too staid and conservative to get the joke(or if they did they kept it to themselves?)

Sombody really needs to put together a book of photos from the Hall stage shows with a description of the perennials. The pictures for the most part from the souvenir books until the early 60’s contain photos which are fairly grainy and washed out. However I have seen color photos from as early as the 50’s in souvenir slides and reproduced in encyclopedias which give you a great sense of what these production numbers really looked like. Otherwise you are stuck with that book that came out on the Music Hall about 25 years ago which was sloppily edited with snapshot photos that did no justice to the great stage.
In the early 70’s the Hall had set up on 50th street color photos of old stage shows from a studio called Impact. They looked great. There must be quite a few of them somewhere. Anybody know what happened to them? If they were stored at the Hall I’m afraid that one of the dim bulbs that works there now would have thrown them out already.

So how in the world did they clear out the parfum by the beginning of the movie or did they allow it to linger to cover the stink of the film?

The Showplace Program for 26 March ‘59 identifies the perfum for the “Old Fashioned Garden” finale as “Antilope by Parfums Weil, Paris.” The sequence was preceded by the Corps de Ballet dancing to music from Offenbach’s “La Belle Helene” and Leon Minkus’s “Don Quixote.” Credits note “Junior Fashions inspired by 'Green Mansions’ … Flowers by Modern Artificial Flowers, Inc. Radium effects by Stroblite Co. and Black Light Eastern Corp.” Whaaa? Costumes modeled on Audrey Hepburn’s spidery jungle shift? Paper-mache orchids with Parisian perfume? Radium rays that are really a show, send you out with a kind of glow? The world is a stage.

I remember “Old Fashioned Garden” (Easter show with “Green Mansions”) for the aroma that was pumped through the vents and permeated the entire auditorium. If you had allergies to floral bouquet you were in big trouble.

Serenade to the Stars was the finale of the show that accompanied North by Northwest. I saw many performances. It was problematic as the lights often short circuited and did not light up in sequence destroying the illusion as the hydraulic stage was raised to its full height. When it worked, it was awesome…when it didn’t, well…a shame. Describe Magic Mirrors. What what done.

For people who saw such things as Magic Mirrors and
Seranade to the Stars how do you think these things would go over today?