As I have written many times on this and other pages Martin Scorsese would be a very important person to have help build at this site an American Cinemateque as they have in CA. But as opposed to the one in CA or the MOMA and Film Forum in New York this would have an impressive screen maybe 70 feet or more enabling them to show the great wide screen films as they were meant to be seen, not letterboxed as they are shown at the two NY screening rooms mentioned above. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if the space were adaptable to 3 screen Cinerama as well? Of course this would involve a lot of donations help from the city and many important film and theater people involved for publicity sake(maybe De Niro would join in?) The old Mayfair would be the perfect space but it seems that the few of us who visit this site are the only ones who think this way.
Well there do seem to be a lot of single middle aged men in the sparse audience and who is that guy in a box in the upper right hand corner with his hand on his hip cruising the crowd?
Thanks to Ed I took a look at Warren’s photos from Oct 27th which I somehow had missed. Boy that screen in the first photo looks small. It’s hard to see how anybody in the rear orchestra or the balc saw anything more than a postage stamp. I mean how does a film like All About Eve or those Betty Grable movies make any kind of impact on a screen that small. And boy do I hate those drapes. The Roxy proscenium was so magnificent. Why would they have covered it up?
But Koch was a great corporate shill. He was very vocal and fought hard for that Marriott. He and the great Joe Papp went at it hammer and tongs in the media. He was the figurehead for that catastrphe. Without Koch and others like him in their pocket the developers could not do what they had done.
Do you want me to continue?
I was one of the people who fought to retain the Regency as a Rep house and I knew those who were instumental in forming this protest. Not only am I not aware that Koch had anything to do with trying to save the theater but I don’t remember any of the diehards ever mentioning him. If they had I would have responded with total disbelief.
Koch?!!!!
He was the one who fought for the destruction of the Helen Hayes, Morosco, Bijou, Astor and Victoria!
He was the one who wanted the Marriott built-one of New Yorks great architectural disasters.
He told Papp who fought for these great theaters that Broadway was dead and who gave a damn anyway.
This was the cornerstone of the complete and total devastation of corporate America on New York’s greatest neighborhood.
Truly one of the most detestable and loathsome New Yorkers ever!
And I’m being nice.
If the auditorium of the Roxy was built at an angle to accommodate a greater width was the audience facing towards 50th or 51st St and on which street were the stage doors and loading docks?
I was watching TCM sometime last week and much to my astonishment 2001 came on and I quickly turned it off.
They might as well show American Pie-Band Camp in 3 strip Cinerama which makes just about as much sense.
Imagine your mom and sister not wanting to see the marquee at the Capitol with 2001 on it! I didn’t think such people existed!
By the way did you see it at the Rivoli in 76 or 77? It was as they say awesome.
Though I avoided SON at the time as Florence Henderson in a big wide screen movie seemed like cruel and unusual punishement I wish now I had gone. It was my only chance to just to have seen some sort of Cinerama film there.
This was the movie that Kael said had been made by trolls. Does anyone know if it is really that bad?
The recent hit revival of the Odd Couple got me to thinking about one of its funnier jokes.
For those of you who were lucky enough to have seen the film during its run at the Hall what kind of response did FU get?
Did people get it? Did it get a big laugh? Or did it go over the heads of most of the Music Hall audience?
I believe it was only there for South Pacific. Anybody out there see it before it moved to the Rivoli? And as for that why did a big hit film like that move to the Rivoli anyway? What film did they move it for?
To Ed Solero,
Thank you for that thoughtful response to my sometimes heated words. But you are right about me vastly prefering the old studio performers to those of the Hollywood begun in the 70’s. I just think that many of the older stars were more nuanced actors than they are given credit for. I think that Gable in Mutiny for instance more than holds his own against a giant like Laughton. And as good as some contemporary and recent actors can be like De Niro and Streep I miss the passion and energy of a Cagney, the astonishing charm of a Grant and even the cool beauty of a Kim Novak and I think Heston is great in those big fat roadshow epics(don’t throw bricks!)
By the way I liked Crowe very much Gladiator. How nice that would have been at the State.
I saw it recently for the first time(no tv viewings for me) at the Loews Jersey and found it terrific. Better than the silent even though the sea battle in that one is far superior and the chariot race is its equal.
And if you think Heston is wooden would you prefer Pacino eating up every square inch of scenery rolling his eyes and smacking his lips or Kevin Costner or Keenu Reeves practically comatose from self absorption?
Warren I’m pretty surprised that you would say thank god to never seeing roadshow presentation at the Loew’s State again.
At this point I’d love to see Fiddler again at the Rivoli and boy is that one a real stinker.
I decided to see the original Producers at the Film Forum a few years back after having seen it innumerable times on TV since I was a boy.
I was not prepared for how wonderful it was. Zero and Gene on a movie screen are so brilliant that all those TV broadcasts now seem to have had them trapped in a cage. Next to them Lane and Broderick as someone has said are nothing more than understudies.
That being said I did see Zero 3 times in a Fiddler revival at the Winter Garden in the 70’s and he was awful. The least professional performance I have ever seen.
So why did I see it 3 times? Because it was a great production. The supporting cast and the rest were impeccable with the great staging and sets and costumes beautifully recreated.
In the new picture book on Dean there is a full page photo of the Astor marquee and billboard at the time of Eden.
Those individual billboards from the 30’s to the 50’s are wonderful but I remember as a boy seeing the block long billboard with The Bible, Dr Dolittle, Star and Krakatoa. They were pretty spectacular to me.
If Giant and Persuasion were playing against each other was the Roxy outgrossing the Hall?
Perhaps the Hall at this point knew that only Holiday and summer shows would bring in the crowds. And this would only last til ‘68.
The New York Phil with Mitropolous at the Roxy in the 50’s?!! Whaa?!!!
So Furtwangler and Berlin were at the Paramount?
With Grummer and Dermota sharing the bill with Steve Condos?
.
Warren thanks but how are those magazines researched today?
And if the it turns out the Criterion did not have an extra large screen for those 70mm roadshows I am going to be very disillusioned.
Like reading here in Cinema Treasures that the Virginia on the boardwalk that I used to walk by as a boy in Atlantic City where the big roadshows would play was in reality a dump with no curtain.
I still refuse to believe its true.
As I have written many times on this and other pages Martin Scorsese would be a very important person to have help build at this site an American Cinemateque as they have in CA. But as opposed to the one in CA or the MOMA and Film Forum in New York this would have an impressive screen maybe 70 feet or more enabling them to show the great wide screen films as they were meant to be seen, not letterboxed as they are shown at the two NY screening rooms mentioned above. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if the space were adaptable to 3 screen Cinerama as well? Of course this would involve a lot of donations help from the city and many important film and theater people involved for publicity sake(maybe De Niro would join in?) The old Mayfair would be the perfect space but it seems that the few of us who visit this site are the only ones who think this way.
Well there do seem to be a lot of single middle aged men in the sparse audience and who is that guy in a box in the upper right hand corner with his hand on his hip cruising the crowd?
Thanks to Ed I took a look at Warren’s photos from Oct 27th which I somehow had missed. Boy that screen in the first photo looks small. It’s hard to see how anybody in the rear orchestra or the balc saw anything more than a postage stamp. I mean how does a film like All About Eve or those Betty Grable movies make any kind of impact on a screen that small. And boy do I hate those drapes. The Roxy proscenium was so magnificent. Why would they have covered it up?
But Koch was a great corporate shill. He was very vocal and fought hard for that Marriott. He and the great Joe Papp went at it hammer and tongs in the media. He was the figurehead for that catastrphe. Without Koch and others like him in their pocket the developers could not do what they had done.
Do you want me to continue?
I was one of the people who fought to retain the Regency as a Rep house and I knew those who were instumental in forming this protest. Not only am I not aware that Koch had anything to do with trying to save the theater but I don’t remember any of the diehards ever mentioning him. If they had I would have responded with total disbelief.
Koch?!!!!
He was the one who fought for the destruction of the Helen Hayes, Morosco, Bijou, Astor and Victoria!
He was the one who wanted the Marriott built-one of New Yorks great architectural disasters.
He told Papp who fought for these great theaters that Broadway was dead and who gave a damn anyway.
This was the cornerstone of the complete and total devastation of corporate America on New York’s greatest neighborhood.
Truly one of the most detestable and loathsome New Yorkers ever!
And I’m being nice.
If the auditorium of the Roxy was built at an angle to accommodate a greater width was the audience facing towards 50th or 51st St and on which street were the stage doors and loading docks?
So if people did tip especially in first Mezz were they refused? If an usher was found to have accepted a tip by a set up would he be fired?
I was watching TCM sometime last week and much to my astonishment 2001 came on and I quickly turned it off.
They might as well show American Pie-Band Camp in 3 strip Cinerama which makes just about as much sense.
Imagine your mom and sister not wanting to see the marquee at the Capitol with 2001 on it! I didn’t think such people existed!
By the way did you see it at the Rivoli in 76 or 77? It was as they say awesome.
Though I avoided SON at the time as Florence Henderson in a big wide screen movie seemed like cruel and unusual punishement I wish now I had gone. It was my only chance to just to have seen some sort of Cinerama film there.
This was the movie that Kael said had been made by trolls. Does anyone know if it is really that bad?
The recent hit revival of the Odd Couple got me to thinking about one of its funnier jokes.
For those of you who were lucky enough to have seen the film during its run at the Hall what kind of response did FU get?
Did people get it? Did it get a big laugh? Or did it go over the heads of most of the Music Hall audience?
I saw Annie Hall in its original engagement at the Little Carnegie.
I believe it was only there for South Pacific. Anybody out there see it before it moved to the Rivoli? And as for that why did a big hit film like that move to the Rivoli anyway? What film did they move it for?
Not quite.
Frenzy played there after Applause.
What is this video wall? Where is it placed and how is it used?
To Ed Solero,
Thank you for that thoughtful response to my sometimes heated words. But you are right about me vastly prefering the old studio performers to those of the Hollywood begun in the 70’s. I just think that many of the older stars were more nuanced actors than they are given credit for. I think that Gable in Mutiny for instance more than holds his own against a giant like Laughton. And as good as some contemporary and recent actors can be like De Niro and Streep I miss the passion and energy of a Cagney, the astonishing charm of a Grant and even the cool beauty of a Kim Novak and I think Heston is great in those big fat roadshow epics(don’t throw bricks!)
By the way I liked Crowe very much Gladiator. How nice that would have been at the State.
I saw it recently for the first time(no tv viewings for me) at the Loews Jersey and found it terrific. Better than the silent even though the sea battle in that one is far superior and the chariot race is its equal.
And if you think Heston is wooden would you prefer Pacino eating up every square inch of scenery rolling his eyes and smacking his lips or Kevin Costner or Keenu Reeves practically comatose from self absorption?
Warren I’m pretty surprised that you would say thank god to never seeing roadshow presentation at the Loew’s State again.
At this point I’d love to see Fiddler again at the Rivoli and boy is that one a real stinker.
I decided to see the original Producers at the Film Forum a few years back after having seen it innumerable times on TV since I was a boy.
I was not prepared for how wonderful it was. Zero and Gene on a movie screen are so brilliant that all those TV broadcasts now seem to have had them trapped in a cage. Next to them Lane and Broderick as someone has said are nothing more than understudies.
That being said I did see Zero 3 times in a Fiddler revival at the Winter Garden in the 70’s and he was awful. The least professional performance I have ever seen.
So why did I see it 3 times? Because it was a great production. The supporting cast and the rest were impeccable with the great staging and sets and costumes beautifully recreated.
In the new picture book on Dean there is a full page photo of the Astor marquee and billboard at the time of Eden.
Those individual billboards from the 30’s to the 50’s are wonderful but I remember as a boy seeing the block long billboard with The Bible, Dr Dolittle, Star and Krakatoa. They were pretty spectacular to me.
If Giant and Persuasion were playing against each other was the Roxy outgrossing the Hall?
Perhaps the Hall at this point knew that only Holiday and summer shows would bring in the crowds. And this would only last til ‘68.
So was this the Ray McDonald of Til the Clouds Roll By and Good News?
The whole town was burning up with talent.
The New York Phil with Mitropolous at the Roxy in the 50’s?!! Whaa?!!!
So Furtwangler and Berlin were at the Paramount?
With Grummer and Dermota sharing the bill with Steve Condos?
.
I remember the basement as a large white elegant edwardian oval lounge for the rest rooms. Am I correct?
Warren thanks but how are those magazines researched today?
And if the it turns out the Criterion did not have an extra large screen for those 70mm roadshows I am going to be very disillusioned.
Like reading here in Cinema Treasures that the Virginia on the boardwalk that I used to walk by as a boy in Atlantic City where the big roadshows would play was in reality a dump with no curtain.
I still refuse to believe its true.