Criterion Theatre

It was after Walter Reade gave it up. It was in Aug 75. The opening was a doubel feature for $1.00. I remember one film was Jacquele Susan’s Once Is Not Enough. I don’t think it lasted long as a $1.00 theater. Right after that it became the Mark 1,2,3 and that didn’t last long. The last owner was the Guild organization.
Sorry I gave the wrong year in my earlier post.

Warren
The Demille did have a stage before they split it up. I interviewed their in 1976 when they were going to reopen as a dollar house. I rememeber the big stage and the redcurtains which were kept in the downstairs theater when they split it up.

I imagine the main reason why the El Capitan is such a draw are the stage productions which accompany most, if not all, the Disney flicks shown there. If a renovated Mayfair/DeMille/Embassy 1-2-3 were to become a studio o/o venue, it would most likely be run by a someone other than Disney – a studio whose product is 99% straight action, drama, comedy, etc., and doesn’t lend itself to any sort of theatrical accompaniment. I suspect the property’s ultimate fate will be conversion into retail space but maybe I’ll be proven wrong…

Obviously the El Capitan must be making money, why wouldent that work in New York?

Warren, The Palace will open the musical “All Shook Up” on
March 24 2005 with previews beginning on February 20, 2005
In the meanwhile, Vanessa Williams and Linda Elder have scheduled concerts in December. Wouldn’t it be fun to use the some of the dark time till Jan 20 with vaudeville shows and a movie? like the ole days. Yeah … that I’ll happen.

Marty,
The Criterion was a very elegant Art Deco theater with excellent sightlines. A spacious but not too large theater where the large screen was perfectly placed head on in front of the theater. It showed of its product as if they were jewels. Unless you were there during it’s heyday it’s hard to see in pictures what is more obvious in the old black and white photos of the Roccoco spectaculars built in the 20’s.
It was one of New York’s great movie theaters.

Marty, we are all in mourning for these magnificent theatres, the likes of which we will never see again.

UA certainly did run down the Criterion. The last films I saw there was “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and “Ten Things I Hate About You.” Here’s what I wrote about it in the late 90s.

The one and only time I was in this theatre, until last year, it was to see Presumed Innocent. That was a few years ago, and it was a rather abysmal experience. Times Square was a much different place, and at any hour, even the early afternoon, was an opportunity to be surrounded by teenage delinquents or worse. The one time I was there, the fire alarm went off during the climax of the film. Of course, there was no fire, and of course, there was no one getting up to leave the movie either.

All that has changed, although the theatres themselves do not seem so different. A recent trip (to see My Best Friend’s Wedding) shows a whole different sort of clientele. The couple in front of me where speaking Russian and the man behind me only spoke French. The seats are still old; not the newer more comfortable ones theatres are installing when they renovate or are built new.

There are six theatres and they are split into two levels with separate entrances. This helps reduce sneaking into extra screenings, although once inside, it seems rather easy to walk into a second movie after having just seen one.

Wow.

It was very frustrating during the 70’s and 80’s seeing two beautiful NY buildings like the Criterion and the Rivoli being so badly utilized while the comparatively worthless Astor Plaza and Ziegfeld were treated like jewels. For some reason when the 60’s became the 70’s both these theaters became undesirable dumping grounds but they were exactly as they were in the 60’s when they were the most desirable bookings in NY. Is it simply location? The destruction of the Astor Hotel was the worst thing to happen to Times Square and it has never recovered(unless of course you consider a New Jersey by way of Tokyo shopping mall an improvement.)

The Criterion couldn’t have survived after the AMC Empire 25 opened and had already begun to suffer (as did the other Times Square movie houses) after the opening of the Loews 42nd Street E-Walk in November of 1999. Two harsh realities helped contribute to the downfall of the Criterion: studios always want to book their product into the top available venues, and the best ones at that (i.e., ones with stadium seating, etc.), which means that older sites within or close to the same booking zone traditionally become little more than move-over houses or dumping spots for films that stand zero chance of doing bang-up business and of turning any sort of profit. Studios also, quite often, won’t book their product into two sites within the same zone (the E-Walk and Astor Plaza double-bookings being a unique circumstance because of their Times Square location, along with the movie-going crowds drawn to the area; the prestige house the Astor Plaza was – as opposed to the carve-up job the Criterion became; and Loews keeping the revenue the Astor Plaza strong, or at the least, solid, by limiting most of the films it ran in concurrence with the E-Walk to 2-3 week engagements).

(To answer your other question, Mike, the Criterion’s layout, at the end, was as follows: orchestra split left/right – auditoriums 1 and 2; balcony – auditorium 3; basement/former lounge area – auditoriums 4 through 7.)

The block the Criterion sits on is waiting for a major high rise development.The Moss family still owns the building and is waiting for the right project.The Toys R Us was only temprorary,so the Criterion would have been lost anyway.The Criterion was a modern showcase for the roadshow attraction but the Rivoli was more of a movie palace.When the Criterion was plexed it would have been smarter of UA to have left the orchestra section alone along with the big screen. Then again UA was not very smart and was one of the worst operators of the large circuits.brucec