Radio City Music Hall

Didn’t miss it. Wasn’t allowed to talk about it. I will tomorrow if anyone wants to know about it.

For the Music Hall to show classic films it would need an endowment.

And if I were a David Koch I would be the one to give it.

Just would like to clarify the fact that the score to Scaramouche was recorded in 3 track stereo and the film opened here in the summer of ‘52. Recording of the film started in October of '51. As I said would be interesting to know how it was presented.

When I first started going to the Hall in ‘70 it was $1.75 before 12 weekday mornings and this was when they still had a ballet company, full symphony orchestra and 36 Rockettes. I believe a few months before it had been $1.50.

Of course the films at that point were very weak, things like Sunflower and Private Life of Sherlock Holmes which was so disastrous they had to pull it early and for the first time in Music Hall history and opened the Christmas show before Thanksgiving which at the time was considered too early.

The films only got worse but every once in a while though rarely they got a What’s Up Doc or Play It Again Sam.

Sill I got to see the spectacles Rhapsody in Blue and the Undersea Ballet which were great. Literally missed Bolero by days and though it had been done frequently in the past it was never done again much to my eternal chagrin. It was done again as part of a Encores spectacle but it was a completely new staging and new sets and costumes like the current Nativity. A completely different thing without the Leonidoff imprimatur and therefore not really the Music Hall at all.

And maybe Mr Endres is to modest to say but the presentation of SITR was so spectacular that Vincent Canby in that Sunday Times did a big piece on it(gilt edged he called it.) And you must understand this was in 75 when all the NY critics were droning on endlessly about the American New Wave in all their long essays. Very surprising.

I was there on a Saturday and had never seen the film before not even on TV. I was in shock(you know how us movie fans can be) and sat through it twice. I had never seen such colors before and there seemed to be enough inventiveness for 10 films.

It was one of my 3 greatest movie going experiences.

Also I don’t know if the sound had been put through some fake stereo or what but I have not heard since then Conrad Salinger’s orchestrations with such clarity. Especially in the sound stage sequence when Kelly starts turning on the effects for Reynolds. Listen to what Salinger is doing and imagine it in stereo. Magical. Who knows maybe it was stereo originally! The great score of Scaramouche was recorded in stereo(alas the tracks are lost) and that played at the Hall shortly after Rain the same year. Doubt though if it was presented that way. At this point who knows?

The Music Hall had a great stereo system and this was before Dolby. The analogue stereo was better. Warmer, richer and with greater depth. Not so hard and glassy. And there were no visible speakers!

The memory of the sound in the final musical sequence of Scrooge when all the groups converge still gives me chills. It made the final moments of Finney all the more moving. I was a boy but I was practically lifted out of my seat in exhilaration.

Actually we did that on a few occasions. MGM wanted to premiere “The Wind and the Lion” there in 70mm, and as a warm up we did “Dr. Zhivago”, “Gone With The Wind” and “200l” in 70mm and the above mentioned “Singing In The Rain” all with the same (shortened) stage show. “Fantasia” was another re-issue as was “1776” which had played there in it’s original release. “The Sting” was another re-issue as mentioned above.

Even so, the re-issues were better than most of the first run films we played in those day. (“Matilda” anyone?) Universal was the only company that really tried to help us, actually four-walling the theatre for the run of “The Sting”, “Smokey and the Bandit” and “MacArthur”. They also picked up “Caravans”, the last movie we played in the movie/stage show format, so we’d have a Christmas attraction that year. As vindanpar points out above, those were pretty bleak days for the Hall.

She did not mean ‘65 she meant '75. SOM had a run with stage show. I remember it as it was one of the most beautiful 70MM prints of a film I have ever seen and the sound was spectacular. A great movie presentation(maybe I should thank Mr. Endres.)

I didn’t stay for the stage show because by that time they were so pathetic they were unwatchable. By this time there was no ballet and the Rockettes were cut to 30. The great spectacles that made the Hall famous were no longer done. There were relatively few people on that vast stage and sets were simple and unimpressive.

Also at this point so few people were going to the Hall that sometimes the lights were kept a dark blue so you didn’t realize you were only among a couple of hundred people in a theater of 6,000 seats. Of course you knew and it was painfully sad.

The only good thing I could say about the Hall at this point is that they could still could present a movie. Singing in the Rain, Fantasia and The Sting(if only it had opened there!)were also excellent presentations.

Also the Hall was kept unadorned and intact in its art deco magnificence. No extraneous lights, video screens or thunderous ugly Dolby speakers on the choral stairs.

Yes about 1956 ticket prices, My Mom and I in that year paid 99cents for the first show at Xmas , plus full length movie,plus 36 rockettes, plus 60 corpse ballet members, probably the pit orchestra was 65 strong (no recorded music),plus 25 male chorus, plus ice skaters,plus comic, plus Wurlitzer organ short concert to start and used again during the Navivity number,plus original waterfall curtain, which you didn’t see walking feet under , plus a 6 page free printed program. As a pricing example the first balcony was $1.25. Plus real scenery not digital! All elevators were used and the bandcar,what an experience, thank you ,thank god I’m old!!!!

Did it EVER play here?

75 cents before noon. In the 50’s, I recall a ticket to the Radio City Music Hall was just 75 cents or 90 cents before noon. Can anybody confirm this and we used to get a free souvenir program as well describing the film & stage performance. I saved the programs somewhere in my house.

The only Santa part that is on a track is the 3D flight from the North Pole. The rest of the show is all him. The other main characters say and sing there own vocals also. The rest of the ensemble pretty much runs off of tracks. I’m pretty sure the Rockettes are tracks too but I’ll check.

Not only did she use the front wall, but she used the sides also. It took 27 digital projectors to do it. It was a good show.