Rivoli Theatre

Fox saluted Andrews for her Mary Poppins Oscar win while she was packing them in at the Rivoli in Sounf of Music.

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Yes, I’ve seen this many times over the years. It can be useful in small to medium auditoriums to achieve maxium screen size, and is called “sissors masking.” Loews 34th St. in Manhattan uses top, bottom and side masking in the smaller theaters to achieve the proper projected aspect ratio.

StereoVision was a new attempt at 3D which only required one camera and one projector. The left/right images were on a single 35mm frame, one above the other. A specal lens was required to fit over the prime projection lens to super-impose the two images together on the screen. Many theatres rented the lens along with the movie, however United Artist’s projection and sound tech Joe Kelly had them made up and purchased them for his theatres. Many UA theatres had these lenses in the booth ready for up coming releases but the
3-D fad died quicker than it did in the 50s.

Well I just finished the mix of my latest feature, “Soft Money”,
and am preparing it for release both theatrically and DVD so I
decided to log on here and see what’s posted.

As I suspected, another attempt by Coates to discredit me in our
feud.

I guess the main reason most film directors
or historians bother to post on film related sites is that there
is usually a heckler on each of them which makes discussion a
waste of time.

I’ll clear up one matter which I have mentioned on other sites.
My neice was visting me and playing on the Dell under my name and
saw the listing of my book so she said she’s give a review. It was
originally poster under her name but then for whatever reason, it was
changed to my name. At first I thought it was amusing but then got
negative feedback from it so I’m glad it was removed. Other reviews
by her are listed under her name elsewhere I believe. So much for that.

One final comment is that my last manuscript was not intended as a ‘book of lists’. I even note that in some sections stating that
it’s a list of notable titles not every title in a category. The lists I made were based on information I had at the time and were used to illustrate a point You can get into debates about what
titles should be included in each category but that is really missing the point. Book of lists are better suited for the internet since you have to constantly update them. If I were to re-write the chapter on 70mm I would update the lists based on new information but that is really missing the point of the subject matter. What I was illustrating was that the appex of 70mm was in the mid-eighties. It fizzled out in the mid-nineties not because the format fell out of favor with audiences but for economic reasons. Many theater chains assumed it’s major attribute was six track stereo sound rather than the improved image quality. Thus when six track 35mm digital sound systems were developed, they lost interest in the 70mm blow up prints even though they increased boxoffice revenue in houses that booked them at the time. Also, the newly built megaplexes refused to install the equipment to keep their staff to a minimum in the multiple 35mm platter systems on each screen. The loss of 70mm and the brief revival and demise of dye transfer printing represented the last gasp of showmanship for theatrical exhibition, at least in a general sense. There are still isolated
cinemas that put on a good show.

Back to the Rivoli,

As I recall, after twinning (renamed UA Twin), only the bottom
theater had 70mm capability. The curved screen was removed and replaced with a flat one but the presentations were still quite good.
I would guess that the above mentioned sound system was only installed on this screen. The balcony screen was not as large and probably limted 35mm since I don’t recall a 70mm print ever playing there. The UA Twin didn’t last for long and was being demolished with construction gear outside the fascade even while
they continued to play new features until it’s end. I have pictures of it from that era.

We saw Arnold Schwartznegger’s PREDITOR here on their big screen. About 30 minutes into the show, about 4 or 5 jive-turkeys came in and began making noise as if nobody else was there. Several shush! shush! sounds from the audience yielded the agonizingly familiar “We paid our money and we won’t shut up.. blah, blah, blah!” Then I heard one Negro voice say out loud, “You’re the reason us N…… don’t never have nuthin' cuz people like you ruin it for ev'body!” I’ll never forget that, never forget the guy who said it. AMEN.

x

William, I worked post production at 20th Century fox and also at News of the Day for a while in the late 50s. It was tense but I enjoyed it a lot and we always had passes to the Roxy and Rivoli. The guys at News of the Day had a very stressful job with new footgae being delivered all day long and having to get two newsreels out every week.

I still run track & picture screenings, but not as many as before. But I’m not in the regular theatre world. I’m in Post-Production projection, its like working a film festival 5 days a week.

CConnolly, I shall tell you what I know about IMAX.
First of all the picture is not digital, but a 70mm fifteen perforation film which runs thru the IMAX projectr horizontally at 24 frames per second. The projector is capable of running two prints at the same time for 3-D.The sound comes on CD disks which is then loaded onto the computer’s hard drive which syncs up the picture and sound. In the theatre I worked, the light source is a 15,000 watt lamp and the sound system carried 12,000 watts of power. A wall to wall,floor to ceiling silver screen, to maximize the reflection to the audience, was installed. IMAX has been a new shot in the arm now due to DMR which is a process of digitally re-mastering regularly shot 35mm movies to the IMAX process,as was the case in “Robots” and the upcoming “Batman Returns” amoung many others.
I hope I helped explain a bit about IMAX and hope someone with more knowledge can add to or correct anything I wrote

It is not like it once was with film, Digital is picking up speed in doing preview screenings. I still run a lot of film, but we do about 4-6 different video type screenings a week. Today I have two HD screenings, one from a D-5 format and another from HDcam-SR, plus two film screenings. Some people might say it is hard to go from film and video type formats. It really isn’t that hard to do.

Rob, I can only imagine the pressur of working at RCMH. But it had to be a rewarding and thrilling experience. As for the Guys running digital, I suppose it must have it’s anxious moments. As a film projectionist, when something went wrong we could generally take care of the problem. Switching rectifiers/generators for a light source problem or amplifiers when the sound gave us trouble. Heck, most of us at one time or another have had to change out an intermittent or replace a drive gear at one time or another not to mention a water cooled jaw in a arc lamp house that suddenly sprung a leak. Ahh the memories… but my experience with digital was one of
a feeling of helpness when it went sour, something I was not used to or enjoyed very much. All one could do was call the 800# for tech support. As you very well know, digital projection comes with it’s one sets of problems. So the industry had changed a great deal, my last booth job was in an IMAX theatre, I played “Polar Express” in IMAX 3-D. What a nightmare that was!, the print didi not carry a time code as does DTS for example, but rather runs on it’s own program so the chances of losing sync was always about. Then of course if you had a film break and lost any frames in the left eye print you had to replace (slug) the missing footage in the right eye print to keep everything matched up. Of course we had to do the same thing in the old 3-D and Cinerama days and I know some of the boys would sometimes cheat and simply remove the missing footage from all the prints, but with IMAX if you did that you would lose sound sync.
But at least we had film, and running 2-3 or even, as you did, 5 projectors in a single thetare in a single booth. I miss that!

Bill Huelbig, you might want to add your link for that interesting “Days of Heaven” booklet to the Cinema 1, 2, 3 site.