RKO Proctor's 58th Street

I can confirm Warren’s date. The old one closed in March 1928 and the new one opened for Christmas with TAXI 13.

Theatre research has never been an exact science. We all make mistakes sometimes, but I think that I have a higher rate of accuracy than many people. I would like to check the accuracy of information contributed by “mikemovies,” but I can’t find any. All of that phantom’s postings seem to be just opinions, and often off-topic.

The New York Times story about the 39-story office building had a major error. The theatre first opened on December 20th, 1928, and would not have been 40 years old until December 20th, 1968, which was about a year-and-a-half after the NYT report.

This bizarre triple bill in January, 1944 included a Walt Disney featurette in Technicolor about Nazi Germany. Has it ever been revived?
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/rko12544.jpg

Thanks, David. You’re absolutely right. Since 4/04/05, I finally managed to see the serial in its entirety. I still wish that I could remember what the double-feature was that I saw with chapter #1. I believe it was “Northern Pursuit” (with Errol Flynn) & “The Sultan’s Daughter” (with Ann Corio), but I’ve never been able to verify it. The RKO circuit apparently did not mention the serials in its newspaper advertsing.

Claudette Colbert

a steamy double bill
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After my beloved RKO 23rd Street closed in 1960, we had to go to the 58th St. RKO for this Christmas show. 3 movies (my hero Audie & Francis!!!)& cartoons, the day after Christmas 1960. WOW. jerry

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One of the features that followed “The Robe” on the RKO circuit was “Beat the Devil.” I remember seeing coming attraction for it in black and white on the reduced conventional 1:1.33 screen, diminished so as to heighten the impact of CinemaScope’s size and color.

“The Robe,” the first feature in CinemaScope, had its first neighborhood run on the RKO circuit (with some Skouras, Randforce and Century theatres thrown in where RKO did not have theatres) beginning Christmas Day, 1953. Advertising claimed “Nothing cut but the prices,” which wasn’t 100% true. While tickets were priced lower than during the Roxy’s premiere engagement, the nabes were charging higher than usual: 85 cents from opening to 1PM, $1 until 5PM, and $1.25 thereafter. Tickets for children under 12 years old were 50 cents at all times. The opening week of “The Robe” was such a success that the movie was held-over for five more days. On January 6th, 1954, the RKO circuit resumed its usual policy of staggered openings, with the Manhattan, Bronx, and Westchester houses showing “Calamity Jane” & “The Glass Web,” and the Brooklyn and Queens theatres presenting “Appointment in Honduras” & “Marry Me Again.” The Brooklyn/Queens combo had played the Manhattan, Bronx and Westchester theatres the week prior to “The Robe.”

Be that as it may, Warren, audiences lucky enough to be in attendance received a level of attention that is scarcely (if ever) paid to today’s moviegoing crowds.

Indeed, like the grand theaters, an era that we will never see again. I have many photos from this tour. I’ll see if I can get some of them scanned and posted on the individual theater pages.

You can see that Jerry was having a great time. Murray the K was with him and, at one point, they got off the tour bus to play stickball with some kids on the street. You can see the kids were thrilled by the astonished looks on their faces!

I’ve been meaning to mention that the previous theatre on the site, Proctor’s Pleasure Palace, was re-named Proctor’s 58th Street when it started showing movies with the vaudeville. I guess that Pleasure Palace seemed inappropriate and old-fashioned. When the replacement theatre opened in December, 1928, it was known as Proctor’s New 58th Street for the short time until RKO took over and it became RKO Proctor’s 58th Street.