Roxy Theatre
153 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
153 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
83 people
favorited this theater
Showing 551 - 575 of 1,209 comments
Ken and Al:
I have Ben Hall’s “Best Available Seats”. Lots on the Roxy but just a passing paragraph about the projection booth and no pictures.
Al…I contacted the Theatre Historical Society to order the Marquee Special edition on the Roxy.
Ken….that is a rare photo of the Roxy from the stage. Thanks for making it available.
Here is a scan of a rare view of the auditorium as seen from the stage, showing the position of the projection booth in the front center of the balcony:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kencta/374980167/
mjc, the Marquee magazine anniversary issue mentioned in previous posts does include a shot of the projectors.
MJC
Sorry, no pictures of the projection booth in opening night program, but I hope you enjoy the following “word for word” description of the projection booth…
The unique location of the projection room—in a cut in the balcony—has a three-fold purpose, the bettering of the theatre’s acoutics, the improvement of projection and creation of an atmosphere of intimacy despite the theatre’s size. The distance from the booth to the screen—the “throw” of the picture is exactly 100 feet, instead of the customary 250 feet. All distortion is eliminated by this innovation. Sixteen projectionists are on the various shifts which will be entrusted with the projection of pictures for Roxy’s gang. Three different types of projectors demonstrate that the Roxy is keeping pace with developments so that the ultimate in motion picture entertainment may at all times be provided for patrons of the Roxy. There is the standard Simplex projector, the product of the International Projector Corp., a special projector for Vitaphone presentations, and one for projection of stereoscopic pictures, first of which now is being produced in Hollywood by the Spoor Natural Vision Process. Six high density arc lamps, installed by Hall & Connolly are used in the booth, four for the Simplex projector and for the use with the Natural Vision Pictures. Five others are used with the Brenkert floodlight. Hoffman & Soons supplied the rheostats for the exacting requirements. Equipment experts agree that the system used at the Roxy , which was designed by the National Theatre Equipment Corp., represents tremendous and revolutionary strides in projection.
Christmas 1954
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nj-girl:
Does the program have a picture of the projection booth?
If so I would love to see it!
Thanks
My grandfather, Abe Holzmann, was a music composer and friend of “Roxy” and attended the opening of the Roxy Theatre in NYC with my grandmother on 3/11/27. My grandfather wrote a music composition, “The Rialto”, in 1916 dedicated to Roxy. Roxy was Managing Director of The Rialto Theatre at the time it was written.
I have 2 ticket stubs ($11 each) from the opening night at the Roxy and the opening night program, “Roxy A History”. The program is 95 pages and contains many congratulatory messages along with pictures of those involved with the Theatre’s construction. It also has pictures of the interior and exterior of the Theatre and contains diagrams and much information about the Theatre. I also have a copy of the dedicatory program from the opening on 3/11/27. This program lists the events for the evening. The first motion picture shown at the Roxy was “The Love of Sunya” produced by Gloria Swanson.
Thanks for sharing those “glory” days. Wish I would have been in Manhattan those days. Wish there was a book, say coffee table size, with loads of pictures of the Great White Way of the 40’s and 50’s. By the 60’s things seemed to have gone down hill. Oh for those glorious movie palaces again, not to mention the automats etc.
Every once in a while I do run accross a picture or two of Times Square, but I wish there were more. Also, every so often I see an old film where there are shots of the way as well. I like to freeze frame them. Must have been so exciting with all the hustle and bustle of all the eating establishments, bakeries, drug stores open all the time. I know there is hustle and bustle now, but it’s so different. Those glaring neons and ads are a killer. MOre like Las Vegas than New York. Tis' a pity.
Simon, don’t forget hitting the bakery after the show at dawn for those freshly baked donuts and bread. Sleep? what sleep, we would just take a quick nap between reel changes. Kidding of course, but I will admit, to every once in a while, being rudely awakened by the
dig-ding-ding of the reel end alarm : )
My pleasure Bill, At my age it’s rather therapeutic.
By the way, I have to say I share your sadness at the sight of what was the Great White Way. Early in my career I worked for Fox on,
I believe was 52nd and 10th. Weather and time permitting, I would take the subway to Times Square, and then walk the 8-10 blocks either North on B'way/7th or West down 42nd st to 8th ave to admire all the marquees and theatre fronts, which sadly are all gone now.
As I am sure you remember, going to Times Square in the evening was quite a sight, the marquee lights were spectacular!
Few of you will remember (very few) that most of the first run Broadway deluxers showed their feature until 4 AM, especially during the war years. Also remember that many factories employed round-the-clock shifts with many patrons looking for entertainment at odd hours. You can be sure if the customers were not there, they wouldn’t stay open. The grind houses on 42nd, in particular, never seemed to close. I don’t know the policy at the Roxy regarding this, but the Music Hall reduced its regular price of $1.50 to .90 for the midnight feature (no stage show)only.
Thanks, Vito. Your memories and your sharing them with us are definite examples of non-architectural Cinema Treasures.
Bill, that’s a tough question, the attendance in theatres for the late shows varied from theatre to theatre and movie to movie. I ran shows for as little as handful of patrons to almost a full house.
Location played a big part as well, the downtown theatres (remember them?) did very well indeed, where as the neighborhood house’s were not as busy. During the summer months business was up for the late shows, and we often ran them every night, generally starting around 11PM. During the slower winter months we ran the so-called midnight shows on Friday and Saturday, Many locations also ran midnight’s on any Sunday that preceded a holiday.
I had some rather long days in the booth back then, often pulling two shifts and a midnight, which meant going to work around noon and going home at three in the morning. I would get really spoiled whenever I bid on and won a Roadshow engagement because it meant running only one or two shows a day (3 on Sunday) It was nice to get top pay to go to work at 7, run one show at 8, and go home at 10:30 â€"11:00 Even when we had matinees the total hours we worked were a piece of cake.
Truth be told, I never really hated the long hours, except when I did an opening shift at a theatre thinking I had the night off only to get a call from the business agent telling me he was short handed that night and begging me to go to another theatre after my shift ended.
Bottom line, would I do it all again….. you bet, in a heartbeat.
Mountaingent… Do you happen to have a photo of the stained glass window in your loft? Perhaps if you can post it here, one of the resident Roxy experts might be able to identify if it might have (or did, in fact) come from the late great Roxy Theatre.
Vito: On average, how big were the audiences at those after-midnight shows?
I still find it hard to believe that Times Square, once such a vital all-night moviegoing mecca, is now practically devoid of movie theaters.
Those late night show often put a little extra on the dinner table for us. We would get paid by the shift, with the evening shift time ending at midnight, any thing after that was overtime or time and a half. A midnight show running till 3AM was gravy in the ole pay check.
Just met the architect who built my home in woodstock, ny. He says that the beautiful large (3'x5') stained glass window in the loft was from the roxy. It is gold, lavender, with many off-white circles
bordering and crossing the design. Is anyone knowledgeable and possibly have photos of the “old girl”.
When “Forbidden Planet” played the Globe (now the Lunt-Fontanne) in Times Square, the first show went on at 9 AM and the last show started at 1:20 AM, getting out at around 3! And this was just a regular non-holiday week in May 1956. If you look at the Movie Time Table, you’ll see several theaters had shows starting at midnight or later:
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Answer to mjc: That was indeed,only for New Years Eve. Generally the last stage show began at 10 PM with the last feature at 11 PM, except for Saturday night when the last stage show began at 11 PM and feature at midnight. The Roxy made it a policy to have their last show a bit later than the Music Hall in order to get the overflow and others who missed the last show at the Hall. During the war years, the Hall ran an additional midnight showing of the film without a late stage show.
The Roxy opened at 9 am and the last feature ran at 2.30am? Thats quite a day. Were these hours just for New Years?
Here are some playtimes:
ROXY
STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER (4 weeks)
GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (6 weeks)
THE ROBE(13 weeks)
THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (7 weeks)
PEYTON PLACE (6 weeks)
RCMH
THE BAND WAGON (7 weeks)
It should also be noted that
Yes, I heard about the opening with Ms. Merman. Would have loved to have been there and to have seen the film with that great finale as you say. Must have been quite something to see. I saw it at the Fox in San Francisco, at I remember being quite impressed. I was in my teens. I remember my parents saying something like WOW and there was applause at the conculsion. PEYTON PLACE is another film I’d like to know how long and how many weeks it played. I went to school with the girl who played Allison…Diane Varsi. When she got the role she was non too excited. However, at the premier in Hollywood, she past out from being overwhelmed with seeing herself and hearing her voice at Graumans. Wonder how she would have felt seeing herself at the Roxy!!!!
I know Warren is the expert with the exact grosses retrieved from Variety. But I’d like to take a stab at it just from memory. I believe that “…Show Business” was a huge disappointment to Fox despite the big campaign. I remember that Ethel Merman was on hand opening day at the Roxy to sell tickets…that’s right…they put at the box office with a regular cashier as a gimmick at the opening show. The opening week was around $90,000 (pre-Christmas) with the following holiday week jumbing to about $142,000 (not a record by any means). “Forever Amber” did $!80,000 as did “Stars and Stripes Forever.” It fell considerably below $90,000 in subsequent weeks , but Warren can tell you whether it played four or five weeks or more. What I can tell you is that seeing “…Show Business” on that great screen, especially that grand finale, was something else.
Yes ron I seem to recall a “Show Buiness” reel as well. In those days we often had special promotional/test reels. I had a collection of them stored away at the Paramount in Staten Island, but when I visited the theatre in 1982 the only one I found was “South Pacific” Darn, I wish I had some of those prints today.
Some of the older projectionist and exibitors will remember the test reels we would get for many engagements.
Warren, if you get the time, I too would love to learn the “Show Business” grosses at the Roxy.
Interesting about the test reel for CinemaScope and Stereo. In San Francisco there was a special reel of THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS for scope and sound purposes as well. This might have been for the smaller theatres..not sure..even though scope had been out a while, they still had a test reel of SHOW BUSINESS. By the way, wonder what SHOW BUSINESS did gross wise at the Roxy and how many weeks it played.