Radio City Music Hall

1260 6th Avenue,
New York, NY 10020

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Showing 176 - 200 of 3,322 comments

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on August 25, 2017 at 6:08 pm

Has Dolby Atmos been installed at this theater? They should put in recliners.

vindanpar
vindanpar on August 25, 2017 at 4:59 pm

As per CC’s posting of King Solomon’s Mines I believe I read once on here the magnascope screen was used for the stampede.

There should be a list of movies that used the screen and for which sequences. But I guess no one at this point would remember or that any record was kept.

kong1911
kong1911 on August 21, 2017 at 7:25 am

The first Christmas show I ever saw at RCMH was in 1958. I was taking accordion lessons for only 2 months. In the stage show presentation Santa came out on stage playing the accordion. I turned to my mother and said that someday I’d do that. It took 34 years but I did perform on stage on keyboards in a show there and mom was in the audience. I am now curator of the Wurlitzer Organ at the old Brooklyn Paramount and one thing I’d like to do is play the 4/58 Wurlitzer at RCMH.

vindanpar
vindanpar on July 24, 2017 at 3:46 am

I wonder why we don’t have dancing accordionists any more. I bet he alone was worth the 99 cents.

hanksykes
hanksykes on July 22, 2017 at 1:01 pm

Hello vindanpar, Don’t know if this will help, but Leon Leonidoff became a senior producer in 1934 so maybe an Easter production was his idea, then of course Roxy also had an Easter pageant in 1933, so who knows?

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on July 21, 2017 at 7:14 pm

hans zimmer is performing here next week.

Tom06355
Tom06355 on July 21, 2017 at 12:30 pm

I sat in the balcony below the booth and enjoyed What’s Up Doc. The matinee was full and The Whole crowed laughed so hard our side hurt.

vindanpar
vindanpar on July 7, 2017 at 11:38 am

CC posted the Robin and Marian ad.

Probably the dreariest Easter show ever. Another what were they thinking film. Not that the Music Hall had much of a choice. Hepburn said, I could have done without the rotten apples at the end.'

Considering the seemingly endless acres of empty seats at every performance audiences could do without the film.

And what was truly astounding was that the stage show was in Black and white! An Easter show in black and white! It’s like everyone at the Hall had it in for the place.

I saw every Glory of Easter I could because it was so beautiful and the only thing that held on to what was great about the theater. When it was revived after the stage and screen show era they must have lost the original lighting charts because the lighting was pretty much lights on lights off. The lighting of the original which they kept through the 70s was gorgeous.

It was also I believe the last Easter show to have the religious icons on the choral stairs.

Would love to know who designed it and what year it was first presented. I think the first Easter show(Cavalcade second run) had a Good Friday tableaux.

vindanpar
vindanpar on June 22, 2017 at 6:43 pm

Comfortably Cool posted the Up the Down Staircase ad from the summer of ‘67.

On the stage was one of the Music Hall’s spectacles unfortunately like all the rest lost forever called Court of Jewels. I had a Kodachrome slide of it once and it looked terrific.

By coincidence it is also the 50th anniversary of Balanchine’s great full length abstract ballet Jewels which is now being celebrated at the New York State Theater.

The summer of love certainly had rock on its mind.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on June 15, 2017 at 12:25 pm

The Tony Awards were held here this past Sunday and David Chapelle will host an event here…https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwikz_KGysDUAhXF7D4KHXYqDI4QqUMIRzAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2017%2F06%2F14%2Fentertainment%2Fdave-chappelle-live-radio-city%2Findex.html&usg=AFQjCNHsjLOl9W9eBfVLF6c3PB05ANI8sw&sig2=9dGrgxvg_6eNsRYWozu9ag

vindanpar
vindanpar on June 15, 2017 at 4:44 am

Anybody know what happened to the beautiful 2 ton Cherry Blossom Doncho curtain that was given to the city of New York as a gift and was kept by the Music Hall to occasionally feature in their stage shows? I believe I saw it once in a stage show during the 70s.

vindanpar
vindanpar on June 2, 2017 at 8:40 pm

I believe Thrill of It all was the big ‘63 summer movie.
The 3 Bs was the hit Easter show.

Charlie Brown was indeed the ‘69 Christmas movie and while I thought it was pretty bad compared to the TV specials of the 60s it had the best stage saw I saw there. Quite elaborate and spectacular with the finale showing the blast off and landing on the moon of Apollo 11 which had just occured that summer. Great special effects with no computer graphic cheating thank god. Wonderful ending with the stage rising with the image of the flag being planted on the moon with a large frame descending to freeze the image in time. The rest of the cast filled in the stage in front of it for the grand finale. I though all Music Hall stage shows were supposed to be like that. They weren’t.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on May 31, 2017 at 11:27 am

When did RKO sell the theater?

paul baar
paul baar on May 31, 2017 at 3:50 am

I saw Doris Day in"The Thrill of it All" 1963 Easter show,and"A boy named Charlie Brown" 1969 Christmas show.

vindanpar
vindanpar on May 18, 2017 at 10:39 am

I had never heard about the Godfather being offered to the Hall. And as an Easter show?

That seems pretty strange especially considering the NY rollout that Evans devised for it in Loew’s One and Two and other NY theaters which was a major profit making innovation at the time.

The Easter show that Year was What’s Up Doc which was a perfect holiday G rated film and a huge popular success both at the Hall and across the country. And they were considering an R rated violent epic? Especially after it presented the camorra cement brick The Brotherhood?

The first non G rated holiday film was Mame in ‘74.

People say that a problem with the Hall was they wouldn’t show any quality R rated films(which they never did during the stageshow era.) That is total bunk. The Music Hall couldn’t get quality PG rated films. THAT was the problem. Exhibitors didn’t want the sky high overhead or the old-fashioned Hall itself. There were plenty of films at the time that should have played at the Hall but the studios didn’t want the Hall to have them. I would look at the ads thinking why isn’t Cabaret, That’s Entertainment, Murder on the Orient Express, The Way We Were…playing at the Hall? Because by then it was turning into an embarrassment. The stageshows were beyond dire. Cheap flimsy sets, hardly anyone on stage, the Rockettes reduced to 30, no ballet company, the great gold curtain opening getting smaller and smaller. And the Hall was playing one astonishing turkey after another. You would sit there in a complete stupor watching things like Hennessy or The Girl from Petrovka. Not only were you shocked the Music Hall was playing them you were shocked that anybody was making them.

And then in 1976 the Music Hall presents what certainly is keen competition for the worst film in cinema history-The Bluebird. Some people actually consider it the worst and I wouldn’t argue with them. You should have seen the tourists flooding into the foyer during the film. New Yorkers had thrown up their hands by that point and couldn’t be bothered.

And Play it Again Sam flopped at the Hall(I read somewhere Allen never wanted another film of his presented there. Same thing with George Roy Hill after Henry Orient. I wouldn’t count the revival of The Sting-which was a terrific presentation by the way.It probably never looked or sounded so good. It should have opened there. A perfect Music Hall film.) Then turned into a long run east side hit. That helped to seal the Music Hall’s fate.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on May 17, 2017 at 3:45 pm

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/arts/television/jimmy-fallon-tonight-show-interview-trump.html?_r=0 check out the picture as Fallon is sitting on top of the marquee.

RobertEndres
RobertEndres on May 3, 2017 at 10:38 am

Yes, along with 5.1 sound. (That’s ironic since the original release was in mono in most, if not all theatres.) Following the picture the stage presentation was done on a set that copied Brando’s office in the film.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on May 2, 2017 at 11:59 am

was it a 4k print?

RobertEndres
RobertEndres on May 2, 2017 at 10:22 am

“Godfather and Part 11” was screened digitally at the Hall (one of our Dolby engineers was there for the sound E.Q.) “Reservoir Dogs” did screen on 35mm at the Beacon the same weekend. Since it was Tarantino’s personal print it was screened on two projectors with changeovers.

markp
markp on May 1, 2017 at 2:18 pm

HowardBHass, I’m sure it was DCP. I wasn’t there, I was working, but given that 35mm seems like a curse these days, I’m sure it was digital.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on May 1, 2017 at 12:53 pm

The hall turns 85 this christmas. Any chance they’ll have an anniversary event or will they wait until 90 in 2022 and perhaps 2032 when it turns 100?

HowardBHaas
HowardBHaas on May 1, 2017 at 10:29 am

I am curious. Did The Godfather & Part II screen in 35mm or DCP? what were the prices? how many attended?

RobertEndres
RobertEndres on May 1, 2017 at 9:41 am

“All That Jazz” didn’t screen at the Hall. In 1979 they changed the format from movie/stage show to it’s present use with Bob Jani’s stage “Spectaculars”. Had “All That Jazz” opened a couple of years earlier it could have qualified for Bob’s Movie Musical Memories". Other than one offs and special series the Hall didn’t have any long movie runs other than those mentioned above.

One irony, the Hall was offered the original run of “The Godfather” and considered it even though it was rated “R” but ultimately rejected it even though they could have used a hit. It would have accompanied the Easter show with it’s “Glory of Easter” prologue set in a cathedral with “novices” (officially they weren’t called “nuns”). It was felt that you couldn’t come out of the violent ending of “The Godfather” into a religious sequence like “Glory”. Thus this weekend’s screening at the Hall was finally fulfilling the offer made years earlier.

Flix70
Flix70 on April 27, 2017 at 4:32 pm

Fans of classic cinema will be excited to learn that this Saturday’s 45th-anniversary “Godfather” reunion panel at Radio City Music Hall will stream live on the Tribeca Film Festival’s Facebook page starting at 8:10 PM EST.

The landmark reunion will be moderated by Taylor Hackford and feature director Francis Ford Coppola along with stars Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire. Fans attending the event will be treated to a screening of both “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II” beforehand.

Talk about an offer you can’t refuse.