Radio City Music Hall

SimonL and others—

sorry for the typos above—I find it hard to type blindly after running out of space in the visible box allowed — is there a way to edit one’s comments before submitting them tothe site:
Box Office Bill

“Streetcar…” wasn’t the only film originally expected to open at the RCMH but nixed (It went to the Warner…previously the Strand)after it was screened by the executives. “A Place in the Sun” was also removed (too sexy) from the year’s roster…it went instead to the Capitol. Anyone know why “Annie Get Your Gun” went to Loew’s State instead of RCMH. RCMH chose “Father of the Bride.” Annie seems so much more a Hall picture and “Father…” more typical of the Loew’s State fare. Interesting trivia: “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” (Jennifer Jones) was the first film (although a good one)to gross under $100,000 in its opening week in more than 20 years.

One can thank the Republican National Convention being at Madison Square Garden, the Garden is unavalible for the next 5 weeks. All home basketball games had to be moved somewhere.
It is not going to be a permanent installation.

I remember a little program light that was built into the back of the seat in front of me. I think these lights were removed by the 1960’s.

I believe according to Pauline Kael it was booked for the Hall but then Hearst put pressure on the Rockefellers to pull it.
Another great movie that the Hall was planning to show was Streetcar Named Desire which was pulled when the Catholic church was considering giving the film a C rating.
Occasionally the Hall had name talent but this was pretty rare.
Annette Funicello appeared on stage with the film Pollyana.

The only hope for the Music Hall would for the city and various sponsers to take over. It needs to be treated and maintained as a city landmark as much as Grants Tomb or Central Park. It needs to be managed by people who appreciate its history and resources. I believe the last year the Hall showed a profit was ‘55. After that I imagine it was propped up by the Rockefellers.
But this is a city that will spend a fortune of the taxpayers money on a sports stadium in Manhattan something that they wouldn’t even do in the beginning of the last century when the city was a fraction of its current density. This will cause us great security risks , congestion, and financial burdens while its very rich sponsers become even richer.
So I guess we won’t be seeing football games at the Music Hall but how about a golf range?

EdwinM remarks that: “Recently attended an Andres Rieu concert and the Boston Pops and the curtain just sat there in the upward position and didn’t move once.” This should not be faulted to the Music Hall, for it is customary at concerts to NOT use moving drapery, since the tradition is to emulate a standard concert hall which does not usually have a true stage or proscenium, and therefore no real drapery. The other uses of a true stage (legit theatre, opera, ballet, etc.) DO make use of moving/changing draperies to signal the opening, middle parts, and closing of a production, but not so for concerts. Still, I lament with you that the use of the wonderful House Curtain in RCMH (the vast Contour-type of curtain) is evidently so rarely used or moved these days. Who knows? Maybe the stage hands' union now requires a special person just to operate the Contour House Curtain, and that would be another expense for the management, which now exists for profit, NOT showmanship. It is sad, for as was said earlier, the raising and use of the vast golden curtain was part of the magic that made the Hall above and beyond the other theatres. We can but hope that a wiser and less money-focused administration will take over there in future.

Yes, I was there for the “The Great Nome Fire,” in which a replica of the town was engulfed in flames (I believe the Japanese are masters of on-stage fires, and they were also in charge of the burning of Atlanta in the London stage production of “Gone With The Wind”). The finale had fire engines racing through the town across the great stage spraying water on the fire with giant hoses as smoke billowed up and engulfed the entire stage from floor to rafters. The curtain came down as the smoke cleared showing the destroyed building. There were brighter moments during the first part of the show that included the Rockettes, as dance hall girls. It was a rather impressive but short display, as “The Nun’s Story” was 2 hours and 30 minutes leaving only twenty minutes for a stage show. The other shortest stage show (22 minutes)in my memory was for “The Greatest Show on Earth,” (2 hrs 32 mins). It had a circus theme. But when it comes to short stage shows, we can’t forget the 15 minutes devoted to the ice show (American Indian theme) that accompanied “Giant” (3 hrs 20 min at the Roxy. The running time for the entire show was just under 4 hours includidng breaks.

Strange but true. For some reason, which none of us alive now will ever know, someone in the Hall in ‘59 thought a fitting accompaniment to “The Nun’s Story” would be the destruction and devastation of Nome. So they burned the place 4 times a day. Now I wasn’t there so I can’t confirm any of this but I believe they threw in an earthquake as well.

Erwin
How lucky you were you got to see a Cagney, Day Cinemascope film at the Hall along with the Bolero. You might envy those who were there opening night(I wish I had been there too though from all accounts it was a very long, tedious vaudeville show, kind of like the current xmas show( midgets too!)
But I have to say I also envy those who were going there on a regular basis in the 50’s and 60’s. All those wonderful movies(and the Bolero, Undersea Ballet, Serenade to the Stars, the burning of Nome, Alaska…)

Well put Vincent and thanks for filling in some details on the Bolero number.
As you say there is a total lack of “showmanship” at RCMH these days. 76 million dollars to fix the place up and they hardly use the contour curtain, which watching it in the “old days” go up and down in various configurations was almost worth the price of admission alone. Too bad I wasn’t alive for the opening night show where 20 minutes were devoted to watching it do all sorts of tricks to a musical accompaniment.
Recently attended an Andres Rieu concert and the Boston Pops and the curtain just sat there in the upward position and didn’t move once. Also, I think they also screwed up the acoustics because in our seats on the far left of the orchestra for the Rieu concert there was an annoying echo.
Something else to kvetch about is….why do they have to have that gigantic lighting rig hanging in from of the procenium arch, which destroys the whole art deco effect of how it was meant to look? How did the Music Hall staff ever manage to light those four shows a day quite magnificently for some 35 odd years without that thing hanging there?

Re: Seth’s question on Premiere Showcases

I’m from Pittsburgh, but it was the same in every big city in the mid-60s…the studios had more product than first-run theaters in which to show them (particularly when good product led to long runs in the downtown movie palaces), so they put together networks of second-run neighborhood houses to serve as first-run houses for a week or two for films that were more cheaply-made or of an exploitational type…good examples would be the Elvis Presley or Jerry Lewis vehicles which came out two or more times a year. Using names like “Showcase” “Red Carpet” and “Blue Ribbon,” they made it seem like it was something special that you didn’t have to go all the way downtown on the trolley to see a new release.