Roxy Theatre

Warren— no shame: that’s how business was done in those days. Both my mom and my wife’s mom were “comparison shoppers,” mine for Best and Co., hers for Macy’s. Their jobs were to shop ‘till they dropped at other dept. stores, then report back to their managers about what the competition was doing. Occasionally they were supposed to gush exuberantly about inferior products in hopes that rival stores would stock up on those products and infuriate their regular customers.

I find the short time span between great business at the Roxy to its demolition to be interesting also. This general phenomenon of “high point” then extinction has fascinated me for years now — and the time spans just seem to be getting shorter and shorter!

It first occurred to me with reference to ocean liners. The ocean liners getting bigger, better and faster, then “pouf” — the development of the jet airplane — and even just built, very modern ships, (e.g., the United States, the France, the Michaelangelo and the Raffaelo) were pulled out of service and mothballed.

Another great example is radio — whose “golden days” were even shorter than the movie palace. Roxy’s show done from the Capitol Theater was one of the earliest hits of radio, and radio seems to have lost out to TV as a major medium in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The gallop through 78s, 45s, 33 1/3, stereo, cassettes, CDs and now on-line music is in some ways, even more amazing. When “Tower (Records?) first open in New York (at Broadway and W. 3rd), it was so crowded it was like entering a "hot” nightclub. Don’t remember, but I think cassettes were the medium of choice then (just having overtaken vinyl). Didn’t go for a few years, and when I went back all the cassette bins were gone and replaced by CD bins. Now, it seems no matter when I go, it’s a near ghost town. (I assume people are listening to music on-line.)

Another example I find interesting (and disconcerting) is the sports/concert arena. It’s amazing to me that the Continental Arena (formerly Byrne Arena), Nassau Memorial Coliseum and Madison Sq. Garden are all seen as obsolete (rendered “obsolete,” apparently, by the “need” for luxury “skyboxes”). It just seems like “yesterday” that they were brand new â€" I have yet to even go to the Nassau Coliseum or the “new” Madison Sq. Garden! Same holds true for all those post Dodger Stadium multi-purpose stadiums (like Shea).

Interesting thought: The Continental Arena opened in 1981, which makes it 24 years old. The Roxy opened in 1927 and was 24 years old in 1951.

As mentioned in previous posts, I think the Roxy seemed older than it was because of its a) historical style of architecture and b) because of a watershed change in taste towards art deco, art moderne and the International Style. Although the prevailing architectural style has changed since 1981, it is less dramatic â€" so in some ways the Continental Arena looks like it could have been built yesterday.

Warren I don’t quite understand. How could Paramount send people to advance sale box office if they wanted a ticket for the film that day? And if you didn’t want to sit in the first Mezz I’m sure the crowd could see the cheaper general admission prices right there(I personally would pay $100 very happily to see this film and Berlin salute today. Not that I could afford it mind you.) It seems from the Variety grosses the film was wildly successful every week it played there fully justifying the run. This is as opposed to when I worked for Robin and Marion(10-12 weeks) where I seem to remember many perfs where if we were lucky there were a hundred people in the place. I am not exagerating.

I find the short time span between great business at the Roxy to its demolition to be interesting also. This general phenomenon of “high point” then extinction has fascinated me for years now — and the time spans just seem to be getting shorter and shorter!

It first occurred to me with reference to ocean liners. The ocean liners getting bigger, better and faster, then “pouf” — the development of the jet airplane — and even just built, very modern ships, (e.g., the United States, the France, the Michaelangelo and the Raffaelo) were pulled out of service and mothballed.

Another great example is radio — whose “golden days” were even shorter than the movie palace. Roxy’s show done from the Capitol Theater was one of the earliest hits of radio, and radio seems to have lost out to TV as a major medium in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The gallop through 78s, 45s, 33 1/3, stereo, cassettes, CDs and now on-line music is in some ways, even more amazing. When “Tower (Records?) first open in New York (at Broadway and W. 3rd), it was so crowded it was like entering a "hot” nightclub. Don’t remember, but I think cassettes were the medium of choice then (just having overtaken vinyl). Didn’t go for a few years, and when I went back all the cassette bins were gone and replaced by CD bins. Now, it seems no matter when I go, it’s a near ghost town. (I assume people are listening to music on-line.)

Another example I find interesting (and disconcerting) is the sports/concert arena. It’s amazing to me that the Continental Arena (formerly Byrne Arena), Nassau Memorial Coliseum and Madison Sq. Garden are all seen as obsolete (rendered “obsolete,” apparently, by the “need” for luxury “skyboxes”). It just seems like “yesterday” that they were brand new â€" I have yet to even go to the Nassau Coliseum or the “new” Madison Sq. Garden! Same holds true for all those post Dodger Stadium multi-purpose stadiums (like Shea).

Interesting thought: The Continental Arena opened in 1981, which makes it 24 years old. The Roxy opened in 1927 and was 24 years old in 1951.

As mentioned in previous posts, I think the Roxy seemed older than it was because of its a) historical style of architecture and b) because of a watershed change in taste towards art deco, art moderne and the International Style. Although the prevailing architectural style has changed since 1981, it is less dramatic â€" so in some ways the Continental Arena looks like it could have been built yesterday.

I never get tired of it Bill, sometimes I catch the first few minutes of a movie on Fox movie channel just to watch the fanfare. I always hated it when they would substitute the fanfare for other music behind the searchlights, ie: Peyton Place, A Farewell to Arms, and worst of all, “Sound of Music” with silent searchlights. I don’t like the new fanfare either, the tempo has been slowed and instrumentation has been altered. It’s sacreligious(s) I tell you.

Vito, thanks for that great story about the Fox Fanfare. 20th Century Fox had the best-looking AND the best-sounding studio logo in the history of the movies.

Also CC just think in ‘68 the Music Hall had its most successful movie of all time. The Odd Couple. 14 weeks and somebody at the Music Hall who worked there during the engagement told me there were as many people on the final day as there had been on the first. A box office cashier said it was the last film where the work had no let up. Two years later when I started going there on my own it had already become a ghost town.

Just another thought that I’ve raised here countless times before but I feel I have to bring up again: how amazing that The Roxy did such splendid business in 1953 only to close a mere seven(!!!) years later because of the decline in business! It seems so incredible to me but that’s the way things go when it comes to entertainment for the “masses”, right?

Think about now days. Ten years ago, no one heard of DVD. Now, it’s taken over everything and movies are being released on DVD a mere four months after their theatrical run.

Warren— thanks for the details and your fine-grained distinctions between “all ice shows” and combo “ice/stage” shows. Yes, the Roxy did make that distinction. Performers without the benefit of skates did their turns on a marley mat spread out upon the stage apron.

In the days of Ice Colorama, I remember that between performances the stage crew had rolled out a rubber mat in front of the film sheet to reduce the glare shining up from the ice in the face of its screen. You can see this mat in the late ‘52 photo of the Roxy’s renovated proscenium in Theatre Catalog 1953. I wonder why the Roxy didn’t commission more photos of its stage in those days?

’53 was evidently a prosperous year for the Roxy, and my parents contributed more than they might have wanted to. I recall that we saw “The Robe” uncharacteristically at a late afternoon rather than early morning showing, despite higher prices for the later viewing. In years past, after abandoning the long lines at RCMH for three Christmas shows in a row (’49, ’50, ’51), my mom asked an usher at the corner of E 51st and 6th (the line had stretched that far) on what time of day we could best bet to avoid another disappointing shut-out. He replied that after the family crush at morning and noon, 4:00 pm might give us a chance before the evening crowds set in. So four-ish it was when we succeeded in scaling the lobby at RCMH in ’52. The same logic figured when we planned our assault on the Roxy for “The Robe” ten months later.

Earlier in ’53 we had also endured long lines at the Roxy. For Disney’s “Peter Pan” on the Lincoln’s Birthday holiday, we stood on E 50th Street yards from the box office with only a view of the Rivoli’s rear-wall billboard for any consolation. In April, my mom announced that we would not submit to the lines at RCMH that Easter (the film was a sappy Doris Day filler and, besides, a year earlier we had seen “Singin’ in the Rain” there, which was enough for at least two Easter shows). Instead, we’d try our luck at the Roxy, where Ethel Merman’s “Call Me Madam” was packing ‘em in. Apparently others thought the same, and so we endured yet another long line at the Roxyâ€"only worse, perhaps, because after doing your time on the street, you had to face yet more time in the labyrinthine interior, especially if you wanted choice balcony seats to enjoy the ice show with neon tubing buried in the permafrost floor.

So it seemed sensible to opt for a four-ish arrival when “The Robe” began breaking records in September. You’d pay a few nickles more for afternoon prices, but you’d avoid the frustration of dealing with throngs. On the day appointed, I rushed home from school at 3 pm, walked the dog, changed my clothes, dodged a hundred other obstacles, and finally descended the BMT stairs for an hour’s ride into midtown. The street line at the Roxy proved fairly short and time flew as it moved along. When we reached the closest box office, a white-gloved usher stopped my dad. As my mom and I gazed at the display cases, another usher approached with a two-foot-ladder, mounted it, withdrew a sign declaring the $1.50 afternoon price, and replaced it at the stroke of 5 pm with one demanding a $2.25 evening feeâ€"a steep increase in those days. My mom asked my dad why he bothered to stop for the usher in the first placeâ€"she wouldn’t haveâ€"and he answered that he thought we were going to receive a dish or a door prize for being such good customers. And so the Roxy managed to squeeze nine more quarters from his pocket before allowing us to pass onward. My dad repeated this tale for decades afterwards.

(I’m going to check Variety for the exact “top” price at the time—I recall mostly that it seemed outrageous, especially to those who usually paid ninety cents for morning shows.)

Bill, I remember “The Robe” like it was yesterday and you are so right, I too thought gosh, the news is being shown on such a small screen. Of course it added to the impact somewhat like the small image projected before Cinerama when Mr.Thomas proclamed “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Cinerama” and the curtains widened.
I have to remind you, there was no Fox Fanfare at the start of
“The Robe”, just the Fox logo. The music played behind the logo was part of the rich score written for the film. In fact, Mr.Newman did not write the CinemaScope extension until a few months later. Does anyone remember which film was the first to present the Fox Fanfare with the CinemaScope extension? Come on now Warren, I know you know the answer to this one.

Warren, I would have to agree, only now and then a new movie comes on for the first time but the repeats are well….repeated to often.
I get a bit tired of the post 1970s stuff. Hour of Stars has some excellent B&W gems that have not been shown since the original airing. Some very good performances from a lot of “before they where stars”.