Radio City Music Hall

Robert was this the 70mm version? Did anybody see it? What was it like?

I remember when Larry Parks died the Ziegfeld revived “The Jolson Story”.

SimonL and Vincent are both right — “The Jolson Story” premiered at RCMH on 10 October ‘46 and ran until the Xmas show “'Till the Clouds Roll By” opened on 5 December — a long eight weeks. It then moved to the State, where it was accompanied by a Vaudeville show, as the State in the mid-to-late '40s was wont to take films after their openers elsewhere. (Earlier in '46, at the age of three, I saw—and still remember— “Glida” at the State after it had moved from RCMH: my parents took me because the Vaudeville presentation featured a puppet show that they thought I’d like— quite a pairing to lure young tots and their folks to that seductive film— I have hazy memories of the puppet show set against a green backdrop, but can never forget Rita in stunning black-and-white.) After the State, “The Jolson Story” moved to the Fox in Brooklyn, where I remember seeing it; then, on to the nabes. “Jolson Sings Again” opened at the State on 17 August '49, and never played at RCMH. By that time, Larry Parks’s reputation was tainted by Communist allegations, no? (It’s awful to remember all this trivia—the dates come from “The NY Times Directory of the Film.”

Vincent: Record breaker for both attendance and gross “The Jolson Story” played Loews State, as did “Jolson Sings Again.”

I heard Burton Lane speak once. He said the nicest man he ever worked with in the entertainment industry was Astaire(one of the Music Hall’s favorite film stars)and the greatest performer and most wretched human being was Al Jolson(The Jolson Story was one of the Music Halls biggest hits.)

Vincent finds it hard to believe that they didn’t have mics in the huge movie palaces, and that is hard to understand from today’s perspective when almost everything is miced. Firstly, movie palaces were mostly built for silent movies, not the live, spoken word. Such speech as one might hear there under normal situations was only choral singing, where the aggregate volume was sufficient to penetrate to the rear of the auditorium. While a few of the largest theatres apparently did have rudimentary mics working off of a rudimentary amplifier, most did not, and so live, spoken word was NOT the norm at all. Few famous opera stars would sing at too large a hall for the simple reason that it could damage their voices if they were expected to project or ‘throw’ to the farthest balcony. This is one reason that few large palaces were then suitable to becoming opera houses. Today, virtually everything is miced, both because of our now customary reliance on technology, and because it lets the producers and sound men have more control over what the audience hears, as well as sometimes making up for the limitations of the acoustics of the hall.

Vincent implies that they over use microphones these days, even for the orchestra, and in some measure he is right. Sound reinforcement is not as pure as the source, no matter how much money is spent on good equipment, but the temptation to have more control and the electronic power to dazzle and even cow the audience is something irresistible to them, but sad to say, this is often abused. We must also not forget the profit motives of the merchants of such who persuade venues that powerful amps and speakers on several planes are essential to versatility, if not verisimilitude. As to lip-syncing to recordings: it is to be expected these days, since it can compensate for an out-of-condition performer, and does not include the noises of the stage, so it is rationalized that the crowd hears a more ‘clean’ sound track. Whether or not such constitutes a truly ‘live’ performance is up to the listener.

Vincent: The first Broadway show to use a stage mike was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific” in 1949. It was a decision made by the composers out of town before New York and was thought quite innovative. The first body mikes were subsequently used by Lena Horn in “Jamaica” (1957)and Anna Maria Alberghetti in “Carnival.” (1961)

Were the stage shows at the music hall miked or pre-taped? I remember the later shows in the 70’s seemed to have the look of the performers lip-synching.

“Miking” started with radio, of course, and was largely perfected with the arrival of sound movies, but most theatres were not “miced” until the late Twenties or after that. The arrival of sound depended upon the arrival of practical amplifiers, and Western Electric was the pioneer in introducing sound service to theatres with the first vacuum tubes (called electronic “valves” at the time), and it was not long thereafter that sound ‘systems’ were introduced to theatres on a limited basis. Prior to that, actors were trained to ‘throw’ their voices out into the reaches of the theatre, which is what limited earlier theatres to smaller audiences due to the limitations of the human voice. Many a would-be actor/performer failed on the early stage due to the inability to throw their voice. Early microphones, such as the carbon and the taught-band types were large, heavy and inefficient, and thus introduced much ‘noise’ into the amplifier to mix with the noise created by early amplifiers and speakers themselves. For this reason, there was no such thing as the portable, personal mics that are now clipped to a costume, nor were overhead mics practical until the 30s, and then only in the movie studios on huge boom cranes. With the advent of efficient sound reinforcement and electret miniature microphones in the 1950s, the tradition of the ‘thrown’ voice faded away as performers learned that they could speak in normal volumes and be easily heard anywhere if properly miced. The untoward affect of all this was the presence of ugly speaker clusters in our theatres since no one could hear the people these days without them.

The ornamentation and auditorium decorative draperies so usually seen in movie palaces was not just for show; it was essential to absorb and deflect the sound waves coming from the stage and organ/orchestra so that only one sound wave struck the listener. When sound hits an essentially smooth surface —such as the ceiling of an ‘atmospheric’ (stars and clouds) theatre— it is focused by that surface upon a single broad point in the audience, effectively amplifying the sound to those there, but dimming it for those elsewhere. Not only will others outside of that point not hear as much volume, but worse is the echo that develops as the main sound front hits the listener, followed by the delayed sound front reflected off the ceiling a split second later. Many smaller atmospherics had smaller effective reflective ceilings where the flanking false building fronts were closer to the surface and these absorbed or deflected much of the sound. In the over 3,000 seats in the PARADISE ( /theaters/344/ ), the vault of the ceiling was just too vast to have any ornament or draperies near enough to counteract the reflection(s); remember the laws of physics: the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection/refraction. Thus when the sound front hit the ceiling, it crashed onto the audience mid-floor, AFTER they had heard the other sound fronts from the stage and elsewhere. During music this may just cause muddled sound, but speech can be rendered unintelligible. How could the great architect Eberson miss this fact during planning? I don’t know, since acoustics was not an unknown science even then. It may be that the owner put too much pressure on him for a triumphal spectacular, which he achieved, as opposed to a good concert hall. After all, ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune.’

AS to organists and organs: snobbery exists in all levels of society, but more so in the arts, where egos dominate. There are those who believe that the Theatre Organ was a crass warping of the ‘classical’ sound of traditional organs, and with their sound effects in addition to a distinctive sound such as the “sobbing” vox humana voice, the Theatre Organ was more than many ‘classicists’ could endure, especially if they saw multitudes going into a theatre to hear its organ while a pitiful few attended classical or church concerts. That theatre instruments were expected to also play the latest ballads of the day also made them declass in the ears of the classically trained ‘elite.’ It boils down to taste, or the lack thereof. The late Ben Hall well covered this matter in his chapter on organs in his landmark book: The Best Remaining Seats: The Story of the Golden Age of the Movie Palace, 1961 and later editions at most libraries, via Inter-library Loan, or at www.Amazon.com

Hello, Organ-ize: It is kind of you to reply to my message, but I will not dwell long on a reply here since it is not good for us to go too far off-topic on the RCMH page. I would have written you directly had you listed Contact information on your ‘Profile Page’ which is accessed for anyone on this site by clicking on their name in blue at the bottom of a comment. You will find my E-mail address in that way.

Just because I am geographically closer to the Minneapolis Civic than you are doesn’t mean that I know anything of its organ — or of the Civic Auditorium, for that matter, sorry to say. That place is about 400 miles from me. You are privileged to be part of that giant Dickinson Kimball installation. There are classical organs of that size in both the Marcus Performing Arts Center and the Cooley Auditorium of the Vocational School here, but no such huge theatre instruments survive (or were ever built here to my knowledge). I am not an “organ nut” per se (architecture is my specialty) but I do enjoy a good concert on a pipe organ, especially by such as Lew Williams who knows how to use the toy counter and percussions to great effect, or Clark Wilson who can make an organ sing.

Organ-ized: Your comment about the ORIENTAL here in Milwaukee is right on the money; it is perhaps unique in its approach to ‘oriental’ as being East Indian, rather than Chinese, Indo-Chinese, or Japanese. There is a group of photos of it here: http://www.cinematour.com/tour.php?db=us&id=4035 but none are of the auditorium, unfortunately. The CT page about it is at: /theaters/443/ and this may help others to learn of its special place in America’s theatres. I must bow to your conclusions about the organ, though I too had heard that it was a twin to the one in the STANLEY, though it is now up to 38 ranks and growing, from its original 28. It is indeed a sweet sound, especially the strings! And you are quite right that it was originally in the WARNER/GRAND here ( /theaters/1903/ ) and while it may have helped re-use the WARNER had it stayed there, it is now ironic, given what happened to the theatre, that it was best that it was removed.

Your story about the STANLEY’s organ is sad to read; greed so often destroys beauty, but at least you have a recording of it before the end. If you track down the author of “Exit”, Robert Headley in the Baltimore/DC area, you might have a wonderful conversation, since he was also often here in Milw. and could no doubt tell you much.

And lucky Baltimore to have the restored HIPPODROME ( /theaters/1264/ )..