Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
116 people
favorited this theater
Showing 251 - 275 of 3,322 comments
I just happened to be doing some other research on 1977, so I looked up MR. BILLION.
MR. BILLION opened on 3/3/1977 with the Easter Show. It was replaced on 3/31/77 by THE LITTLEST HORSE THIEVES which ran until 4/27/77, to be replaced by THE STING.
Robert, you are a true “cinema treasure.” Thanks for some inside lowdown on one of our favorite houses.
I was Head Projectionist at the Hall for both “Smokey” and “Mr. Billion” and can tell you why they were booked. “Smokey” was part of a trilogy of Universal Picture films we played that summer. Universal four-walled the house to present “MacArthur”, “Smokey” and a re-run of “The Sting”. “McArthur” was to be the “class” Radio City picture. “The Sting” had done well and was added to fill the package. No one thought “Smokey” would be a hit at the Hall but it was a big summer picture. Actually, it didn’t help our situation but created another complication. As pointed out above it was the second most popular film of the summer after “Star Wars”. When we played it and didn’t do the business it was generating across the country the industry said, “Gee they had the number two film of the summer and died with it. I guess you just can’t play film at the Hall” or words to that effect. (Coming from the Midwest “drive-in” country it was one of my favorite films that we played.)
“Mr. Billion” did so little business I think we actually ended up in litigation with Fox since it didn’t even meet the Hall’s advertising expenses. Of all of the clunkers we played (remember we were an independent house and couldn’t match the booking power of the circuits) it’s the only one that was pulled mid-run. The Disney replacement wasn’t much better, but it was Disney. One good thing did come from “Mr. Billion” Fox was getting ready to release “Star Wars” with optical Dolby Stereo and used “Mr. Billion” as a test film. Thus Dolby gave us a stereo/optical processor to use which we kept until we re-built the whole system for “The Lion King”.
The only company that really supported us in the last days was Universal. They four-walled the theatre the summer of “Smokey” and picked up “Caravans” the last movie we played in the old movie/stage show format just so we would have a Christmas picture.
Good luck to your wife at the new show. Nothing new happening here. Film will always pop up here and there. It will never totally go away. Thank god.
rcdt55b, I still have a pair of well maintained simplex xl projectors at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank NJ. Last time I ran 35MM was Jan 2015. They keep telling me film is dead. Its all about the money. On a separate note, my wife is no working the Christmas show with you guys this year. Shes got a permanent gig on Cirque Paramore. She misses the hall.
We can run 35MM and 70MM still so we’re ready. We keep all 4 projectors very well maintained. I just don’t think that some of the people upstairs know that we can still run film. It’s a shame.
I’m still hoping that RCMH will bring back, even for one week, a weekend, or a day an event that will have a movie and show like the old days. Patrons will of course pay for reserved seats.
Well, do you want to fill the house with class or fill the seats with ass? “Smokey” was the number two picture of the year, (after “Star Wars”) and starred the number one box office actor, so I guess someone used their head for once. More bookings like this and maybe the house would have lasted longer than only two years more …
I still can’t believe saw SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT here. That had to be the biggest WTH booking in RCMH history.
They sure dumped Balalaika fast.
I think they did the same thing with No No Nanette the following year. Pulling it fast for The Philadelphia Story.
I remember when Mr Billion was the Easter show (what were they thinking?)and replaced it with some Disney pony movie(what were they thinking?)
I don’t think it did any better.
same here. Disney should reissue the movie in its unaltered version.
NYer posted the opening day ad of the B&B ‘71 Christmas show. As you can see the secular part had a circus theme.
My memory is that they had made holes in the first arch so that they could suspend the trapezes. Therefore the act took place in the auditorium itself.
I don’t remember exactly but I think the orchestra went down and stagehands put a net over the pit.
This scared the devil out of me as I was very young and had somebody been flung and not taken hold it looked like they could have gone any which way including the stage or choral stairs or audience.
I endured this twice and it was terrific but it made me very nervous.
It’s also unfortunate the film was heavily cut before release to the Hall. I’ve never seen the restored cut.
As far as I know all of the nitrate is out of the Hall. There’s a room on the North side of the theatre that was specifically designed as a vault, with a room between it and the corridor. It’s next to what used to be the costume sewing room. It wasn’t cooled, and my boss discovered it when they were using the second room as an echo chamber when Plaza Sound had the recording studio there. He moved all of the film to the Projection office where it sat behind the desk to the discomfort of the City Inspectors since one of the cans on top of the stack had a big red “nitrate” label on it. The collection moved around. To get it out of the sight of the inspectors, for a time it was stored behind the screen in Preview A. We finally made a deal with the Museum of Modern Art to take the RKO newsreel footage of the Hall in return for striking acetate prints for the Hall from the nitrate footage. The rest of the nitrate (some of which did go into the garbage) went to Sherman-Grinberg.
Is it safe to assume that there is no nitrate film left in the film “safe” in the closet at the end of the hall? I was going to go through all the film in there this season.
At one point we were trying to get all of the nitrate film which had been stored in a nitrate safety room in the Hall out of the building. Since it would be dangerous to just throw it out, I asked the Sherman-Grinberg stock footage library which had the rights to the RKO newsreel footage of the Hall if they would take the film to add to their archive. They accepted. In going through the footage I came across a reel marked “Breen”. I thought it might be something in regards to the Breen behind the Motion-Picture Code who also had ties to Rockefeller Center. The archivist at Grinberg played it and told me it was Bobby Breen singing. I suspect it was a protection track in case Breen’s voice gave out from doing multiple shows during the Christmas run. It may well have been the “Cantique de Noel” referred to in the above post.
In remembrance of the legendary child star and singer Bobby Breen, who died last week at age 87, I’m posting an ad for a unique achievement at Radio City Music Hall. Back in December, 1936, Breen dominated the Christmas holiday show, with his movie “Rainbow on the River” on screen, and with the boy soprano himself performing in the stage show. Costumed as a young shepherd in the “Nativity” pageant, Breen sang “Cantique de Noel,” accompanied by the Music Hall’s resident chorus and symphony orchestra.
Here’s an excerpt from the NYTimes' review of this theater’s first “pictorial attraction:”
Radio City Music Hall yesterday became a motion picture theatre, with the Columbia film “The Bitter Tea of General Yen” as its first offering. The RKO Roxy, the smaller theatre in Radio City, continues to exhibit the screen version of Philip Barry’s play, “The Animal Kingdom.”
It gladdened the hearts of the management to observe the imposing throngs at the doors of the Music Hall for its initial performance as a cinema. Most of the lower-priced seats were filled before 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and later there were lines of persons in the grand foyer and along the Fiftieth Street side of the house awaiting admission. Even the loge chairs were well patronized.
The acoustics of the great auditorium are suited admirably to the showing of talking pictures. The projection booths were installed during the construction of the theatre, but the screen, one 70 by 40 feet, was installed after it was decided to run it as a motion picture theatre.
In addition to the feature film, the program is as follows:
Excerpts from “Faust,” with Alida Vane, Aroldo Lindi and Max Ratjmiroff.
“The Sunburst,” with the Radio City Roxyettes.
“Spanish Twist,” a pictorial cartoon.
“The Story of the Walts,” with Patricia Bowman, Gomez and Winona, the ballet corps and choral ensemble.
The Tuskegee Singers.
Ray Bolger.
“Marche Militaire,” by Franz Schubert, with the ballet corps and the Roxyettes.
An organ recital.
This stage show evidently pleased the audience, but it cannot be said to be very different from other exhibitions of singing and dancing offered by Mr. Rothafel. One might also say that it would be materially helped by more humor and fewer exhibitions of dancing.
The screen attraction, “The Bitter Tea of General Yen,” is a handsomely mounted affair with conspicuously good portrayals by Nils Asther and Walter Connolly. It is a melodrama of China that has certain aspects of Edith M. Hull’s “The Sheik.” It is a story that is scarcely plausible but which has the saving grace of being fairly entertaining. Certain characters are called upon to be exceptionally credulous at times and those who can overlook this and other shortcomings will probably find the tale of missionaries, romance and civil war in China diverting.
I’m glad you’re here, CC. Your collection is amazing and I am pleased that your are sharing it.
In the Photos Section, I uploaded a poster and details for the Mel Brooks event back on August 10th, so Cinema Treasures did provide members with advance notice of the event.
rcdt55b, that was a complaint of mine when the movie started. The image wasn’t touching the bottom masking and from my seat on the stage left side there was a motor chain bag hanging in the image upper right. The movie looked fantastic. I was under the balcony. I was gonna ask if they shot it to the screen from the booth or in the seating area. You answered my question. Also I was curious, and you certainly do not have to answer, but was it a digital ingest, or……
Early tomorrow morning at 6:15am TCM is running this theater’s opening attraction The Bitter Tea of General Yen. By coincidence or design at 4am they are showing Marooned, the opening attraction of the Ziegfeld…
I can’t believe how packed it was. Throughout the day, they kept releasing more and more seats. They even seat people behind the projectors in the first mezz.
My biggest complaint was the non use of ANY masking. How do you not mask the image on ANY side?????
I thought his funniest story was the one about him and the late Bill Cullen.
One of the best moments of the Mel Brooks appearance for me was when he talked about how he and Anne Bancroft loved going to see movies at Radio City Music Hall. He said they went so many times. He couldn’t believe he was now standing on the great stage.
I only found out about it earlier this week from markp’s comment above, on August 29th. It was a coincidence that it was scheduled so soon after Gene Wilder died.
Mel talked about meeting Gene backstage at a Broadway play Anne Bancroft was starring in, and that Gene was also in. They hit it off right away. Mel was grateful to Gene for stepping into the role of Jim in Blazing Saddles at the very last minute after Gig Young came to the set drunk on the first day of shooting. He said Gene was a comedy genius.