Radio City Music Hall

I’ve heard that the reason there are 5 projectors is because “in the day” 2 prints were run simultaneously, one projecting onto the screen and one running with the dowser closed. I was told was that should a projector fail, film break, anything go wrong, they would instantly switch to the other running projector. Supposedly this was cheaper than refunding 6000 tickets.

Also regarding screen size, I have a 1926 Paramount magazine ad, (part of their “Friendship Means More at the Movies” ad campaign) that shows a theater full of happy people watching a tiny screen in a vast curtained movie palace proscenium. My old time projectionist buddy tells me that the pre WWII lamps simply weren’t bright enough to really light up a big screen. If the image got too big, the image was too dim: a problem in all the big halls, but obviously compounded by the outsize RCMH screen.

Bonnie and Clyde was made even cooler with an appearance by the film’s director Arthur Penn. These two consecutive series were incredible. It seemed like a new light had shown on Manhattan theatergoing. Jaws was PACKED! I believe Blade Runner may even have been sold out. The Exorcist was an experience like none other, and with William Friedkin and Ellen Burstyn both there… priceless.

I’ve been hoping someone would pick that idea back up again, but now reading over the posts I wonder just how much it must cost to make Radio City run for a night. As many noticed, so many of these screenings were packed. Seeing a movie with 5,000 other people is just incredible.

Does anyone know who organized these film series? To this outsider they sure seemed easy to run. If you can charge $40 for a show ticket and do okay with all the hydraulics and smoke machines of a concert, you should be able to have a film projected for $12 a ticket times 5,000 tickets. Older films are just not that expensive to rent. Even if they’re collecting 35% of the door, sharing $60K for projecting a film print just doesn’t seem like bad business.

Yankee Mike: I don’t know if it was 12 years ago but sometime in the 1990’s, there was a Warner Bros. Classic Film Festival, followed a year later by a Universal Classic Film Festival. I attended the showings of Bonnie and Clyde, The Exorcist, My Fair Lady, Psycho, Jaws, Animal House and The Blues Brothers. Bonnie and Clyde was a Wednesday night show and attracted a fairly good crowd, but all the other shows looked like sellouts to me.

Thanks William, Yes the end off 4-track mag came along with Dolby optical noise reduction prints and then Dolby stereo, although most studios had stop making mag prints available in the early 60s. Even Fox which released all of their films prior to 1960 in 4-track
mag-optical, switched to straight optical mono prints.I can recall the joy of getting a rare post 1960 mag print like “Hello Dolly”, “Star”, “2001” amoung a few others,and then presenting the film in stereo. We would put it on the marguee, presented in 4 track sterophonic sound. As for the Music Hall’s image size I believe you are quite right, it was rather small but the alternative Magnascope added much to much grain and robbed more light, even with carbon arc ,then the Hall could afford to lose.

I’ve said somewhere on this site that when I saw Singin in the Rain here in ‘75 the image was surprisingly small and there is an old Hitchcock where there is a chase through the Music Hall during the film presentation and the image is that small. So I guess from when the Music Hall opened to the 50’s people were watching a pretty small screen. So what was that like for the audiences in the second and third mezzanines during this era when the Hall frequently filled up? Their powers of concentration must have been enormous.
Unfortunately when the screen is opened for the Magnascope lenses the image becomes fairly grainy.

The aspect ratio was correct during Casablanca, but the image was small in relation to the proscenium. When the Music Hall showed films on a regular basis, did they really use so little of the available space?

As to the sound, I did see several movies there during the movie/stage show era, and don’t recall any sound problems.

I think that when theaters aren’t regularly showing films, but do show the occasional movie, when they do play a movie the equipment and the projectionists aren’t always up to speed. If a projectionist comes in and find that the bulb isn’t bright enough, or the speakers aren’t working right, there is very little he or she can do about it.

I saw Casablanca here during a film festival a few years ago, and the image seemed small to me, considering the space available, and the sound was terrible. It was all echoes and tinny, and if I didn’t already know the movie so well, I wouldn’t have known what all the Casablanca fuss was about.

I was very interested in Williams notes about the Hall’s 70mm presentations. I knew the 35mm prints were made a little lighter because I worked at Deluxe labs in New York during that time. I believe before Dolby came along many 35mm prints were struck with magnetic stereo tracks and although after 1960 such prints were hard to come by, Radio City still played a lot of films in 35mm 4 track magnetic. Anyone know more about this?

But this is the height of the tourist season in July!
Considering how the Music Hall is used now I guess Andrew Stein’s idea of turning it into the NY stock exchange back in the 70’s wasn’t much different.

The scope screen is 69' x 31' and full ratio 70MM screen is 69' x 34'. I was typing to fast on that post. All three films “Darling Lili”, “Scrooge” and “Tom Sawyer” were all 70MM blow-ups. “Airport” looked fantastic on the big screen.

William what is the size of the of the cinemascope screen? From what I remember from seeing 7 Brides there in the late 70’s it is larger than the 70mm screen. Also was Darling Lillie a blow up like Scrooge or real 70mm? Blow-ups never looked good at the Music Hall. Both Scrooge and Tom Sawyer were somewhat grainy and washed out but Airport in Todd AO with those old fashioned glossy Ross Hunter production values looked sensational.

The Music Hall was relatively late in installing 70MM projection equipment because of the necessity of accommodating the stage show that accompanied the film. The Music Hall show always ran between two and three hours including the stage show which varied in length depending on the length of the feature. Since the initial 70MM attractions were all Roadshow presentations, it was felt that they were too long to be played at the Music Hall. Then in 1970 Ross Hunter, the producer of “Airport” insisted that film be shown at the Hall in 70MM. The Music Hall would run two other 70MM featuresthat year “Darling Lili” and “Scrooge”. Since 1970 approximately twenty-two features have had 70MM presentation at the Hall, either as part of the movie.stage show policy or as premieres and special presentations. The screen at the Music Hall is 69 ½' x 34 ½'. The regular 35mm 1.85 ratio use is 48' x 26' and the 70MM Full screen is 69' x 31' and spherical 70MM (1.85 blow-up) is 63' x 34'.
The size of the auditorium presents a number of unique projection problems. Often prints are tailored to the theatre. This usually means printing them a little lighter in density to increse the apparent light on the screen. since the projection throw is about 185' to the screen, if the sound is in sync with the picture at the screen it is four frames out-of-sync at the back of the third mezzanine.