Rivoli Theatre
1620 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
1620 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
44 people
favorited this theater
Showing 501 - 525 of 921 comments
I saw “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” in that Museum of Modern Art series, and the print was missing the important scene in Berne, Switzerland, in the lawyer’s office. It just skipped right over the entire sequence. And that was supposed to be a print from Broccoli’s personal collection. Never could figure out what went wrong there.
Thanks all for the posts. My only regret is that I didn’t get to see Moonraker at the Rivoli, where it premiered in NYC back in 79. I just came from part of a Bond program at the Museum of Modern Art with my youngest brother, and we walked to the Rivoli and were tempted to buy tickets, but the line went around the block! Then in 83 Moonraker again played for a week with From Russia With Love, but again I missed it.
I recall seeing only two movies there, DC Cab with Mr. T and Easy Money with Rodney Dangerfield.
By the way, the Bond program was a two day event, on opening day of Moonraker they showed You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me, followed by a panel with Lewis Gilbert, Albert Broccoli and Ken Adam. The next day was a series of TV shows about the making of Spy Who Loved Me (which unfortunately I missed) followed by an appearance by Maurice Binder, who showed the titles for the Bond films he worked on, as well as trailers and titles for non-Bond movies.
Thanks for the two great ads, Robert. You always see hype like “one of the greatest” tossed around in movie ads, but in the case of “West Side Story”, they were being 100% accurate.
1961 re-release of “The King & I” 70mm roadshow
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An order form for the Roadshow of “West Side Story"
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Lucky you Vito.
You’re right about Carousel. It was never, ever shown in Cinemascope 55.(I believe there is a thread on that somewhere.)
Also the 30 frames was far superior to the 24 frames image so its too bad it was only used for two films.
Also interesting is that 80 Days had a much longer theatrical history than OK. Yet OK still exists in the Todd AO format and 80 Days does not.
Thanks for that info Rob, I had not known all all that came together, your posts are always so informative and educational, thanks! any more Preminger stories?
Vincent, of course you are right, it was Carousel, but didn’t Sinatra walk off for the same reasons? Carousel had to be shot twice, once in CinemaScope 55 and again in reg 35mm CinemaScope?
Perhaps Rob Endres knows the technical facts behind the CimemaScope reduction prints which apprentantly were not possible during that shooting. I am so happy to have been around to see both Oklahoma in Todd-Ao at the Rivoli and Carousel at the Roxy, although I believe Carousel was a 35mm reduction print.
I believe it was Carousel Sinatra walked off of. Boy did he get bad advice from his agent. Though neither he nor Macrae were right for this musical perhaps the worst adaptation of a R and H show. But then there was nobody. You would have needed a Brando who could sing magnificently. A very young Raitt from a kinescope is tremendous but he did not have star quality on the screen.
By the way the Todd AO Oklahoma is far superior to the Cinemascope version.
Vito: The problem with Todd-AO that caused the double shooting was the speed on the first two pictures of 30 F.P.S. which couldn’t readily be converted to 24 frame 35mm. (The same problem exists with the orignal Cinerama 3-strip features which were shot at 26 frame. While transfers to video exist of “Brothers Grimm and "HTWWW” which were shot at 24 frames to make transfer to conventional 35mm possible, no one has transferred or made a new print of any of the orignal Cinerama material possibly because of the special equipment that would be needed.) I worked as a projectionist in Otto Preminger’s home screening room for a while, and read up on him. One of the storys was that he wanted to shoot “Porgy & Bess” in Todd-AO, but Sam Goldwyn balked, saying that they would have to shoot everyting twice. Preminger told him that was no longer necessary. (“South Pacific” was the first Todd-AO film shot at 24 frames for subsequent transfer to 35mm.) Preminger got to shoot “Porgy” in Todd-AO and went on to do “Exodus” in 70mm as well.
Good notes Vincent, might I add that Frank Sinatra was originally signed on to play the lead but backed out when he heard everything had to be filmed twice, once in Todd-Ao and again in CinemaScope.
I understood that the production was not filmed simultaneously but each scene shot twice. The irony was, part way thru filming, reduction printing was improved and developed making filming the two versions unnecessary. Any idea if any of this is true? Thanks for the info on the DVD I will be looking for that.
Upcoming DVD anniversary release of Oklahoma and Todd AO.
Wouldn’t it have shown an ounce of ingenuity to show all of this on a specially installed screen at the Ziegfeld?
So ironic that Todd AO was meant to get people away from TV and now its the only place you can see it.
1955 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical film with Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones, Gloria Grahame, Gene Nelson, Charlotte Greenwood, Eddie Albert, Rod Steiger. Includes Cinemascope and Todd AO versions that were filmed simultaneously in 1955. Extras: commentary by Ted Chapin and Hugh Fordin, Sing Along Subtitles, the trailer and a separate chapter list for songs only with a play-all feature, commentary by Shirley Jones and Nick Redman, “Cinemascope vs. Todd AO,” “The Miracle of Todd-AO” and “The March of Todd-AO” featurettes, vintage stage excerpts “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'” performed by Gordon MacRae and “People Will Say We’re in Love” performed by Gordon MacRae & Florence Henderson (from the 1954 General Foods 25th Anniversary TV Special), still galleries. Both versions in widescreen
While people bash the 70mm version of GWTW it was great seeing this at the Rivoli in ‘74. What I would give to see it like this again!
Is it really any better seeing it on DVD?
(Of course the original at the Capitol, Astor or Atlanta Loew’s Grand would be best of all.)
1974 and “Gone With the Wind” was back again in 70mm but this time continuous showings.
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Vincent, I played “West Side Story” all over Long Island, New York in 1962-63 and can only recall one 70mm run, at the Syosset, which I believe was in the spring of 1962. All the other runs I did were 35mm. I don’t even recall any 35mm mag stereo prints only optical mono, mag prints were getting scarce by then.
Perhaps Michael Coate knows of some other 70mm runs im NY.
You have a complete Arts and Leisure from 68?!!!
Nothing is like the real paper, I wonder if these are obtainable on E bay or is this just too arcane.
By the way I wonder what was the size of the screen for West Side Story here. I have never seen this film in real 70mm as it has not been shown here in NY probably since it left the Rivoli in ‘63.
Bill,
the ads are great stuff! Thanks for sharing them.
The ads I posted yesterday for West Side Story, The Wizard of Oz, Marty etc. were copied from microfilm in 1972, the year I began college. The location of the New York Times microfilm collection in the library basement of Seton Hall U. was probably the best thing I learned the whole time I was there! I taped them to pieces of oak tag and hung them on my bedroom wall, and they were still taped to the oak tag 33 years later. They were only collecting dust where they were, so it was better to post them here and share them with people who’d really appreciate them, like you guys.
Most of my other posts are from the Hackensack Public Library’s microfilm collection – I’ve been going there on my days off – but a few of them are from an actual New York Times Arts and Leisure section from 1968 that I still have intact (because of “2001: A Space Odyssey”).
Bill,I would like to second Porter’s remarks, the ads are a treasure
What great memories they stir up!
Hey Bill Huelbig, Whats the history of some of these ads you are listing for us? Some are real pieces of old newsprint, have you been saving them for years. Some have tape marks, did you have them on the wall at some point? They are the ones I like best they are nice and sharp and the paper has yellowed and I find them very evocative. Sometimes I feel like I am scanning the pages of the NY Times again when there was a choice of great films to see every day. Try doing that today. Thanks and keep up the good work!
I agree with Vincent todays film director’s can’t compare with the master film director’s from Hollywood’s Golden Era. Due to Hitler’s Nazi Germany the great European directors fled Europe to make there films in Hollywood at the height of the studio system.It was a rare time that produced quality mass audience films of all types. The Hollywood of today produces few quality films each year and todays A list films such as Batman Begins,Spiderman2 and War of the Worlds would of been the B films during the studio sytsem.brucec
From October 1961 – opening night of “West Side Story”:
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Oh my goodness I must have a mental block. However I never mispell Minnelli.
Ha ha! Is it a typo again? It’s Scorsese, –sese, not –cese. I’m glad we like a lot of the same films, especially Visconti’s Rocco and Il Gattopardo. They’re incredibly great.
The Scorcese mispelling was a typo but you got me on the Coppola.
I’ve always felt Scorcese had great taste in movies as an audience. We love a lot of the same films and I appreciate his attempt to evoke Minnelli, Cukor, Wyler, Visconti, and Ophuls in Innocence. But due to their cultural upbringing they had a style and taste which from what I’ve seen can no longer be recreated. That’s why everything to me in period films seems like Masterpiece Theater-weightless and dull.
Cukor could make Pat and Mike or MFL, Minnelli Gigi or Some Came Running, Ophuls Liebelei or Madame De, Visconti Rocco or Leopardo,
Wyler Carrie or Ben Hur. By the way they were also lucky with the craftsmen amd women they had working for them.
Yep, they were film giants. Is there a person alive today you could compare to them?(I’ll give you Bergman.)
I don’t want to be a pain in the butt, and I misspell things too, but I get annoyed at the frequent misspellings by many folks of the last names of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. I guess it bothers me because I am an Italian American. So that leads me to recommend to you Martin Scorsese’s “family film” entitled Italianamerican if you haven’t seen it. It’s a hoot.