Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
116 people
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Warren Thank You that was great!!!
Truly awful Music Hall movies started creeping up with some regularity in the late 60’s with films like The Bobo, Sweet November, and The Impossible Years. But maybe the lowest point was See No Evil in 71. A low budget, very bloody, slasher flic which had no reason being at the Hall and should have opened on a double bill on 42nd ST.
The producer of “Matilda” is also the producer of last year’s Oscar-winning Best Picture, “Million Dollar Baby”. He also produced “The Godfather” in 1972. I guess 1978 was an off year for him.
Here is the poster
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CConnolly
Check this out
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077917/
“Matilda”? The boxing kangaroo movie? A pretty good example of where the Hall was circa 1978.
A Matter of Time was a low point for all involved, Vincente, Liza and Ingrid. Jeez, it looked like crap and the story was weak. I’m surprised they didn’t bring in the wrecking ball during its engagement. I’m sure they wouldn’t have hit any non-existent patrons.
They had a man in a kangaroo suit, need I say more LOL. Actually if you see stills from the some of the scenes it might have scared young kids because it looked so demented. The hall played a few AIP films around that time didn’t it? I remember seeing “Matter of Time” there also.
Operation Crossbow is another one of those holiday films where I wonder what the Hall was thinking. It’s a pretty brutal violent WW 2 movie(in fact it should not even have been booked for the Hall at all.)This was the Easter 65 film with Sound of Music playing down the block at the Rivoli.
I saw the coming attractions for Matilda when I went to Fantasia. It looked unwatchable. I guess it was as bad as I thought.
The post above with the playbill for the 1978 re-release of “Fantasia” lists “Matilda” as the next attraction. I’m embarassed to admit I saw that there. OMG, that film is so bad I don’t think it ever came out on video and I don’t even recall it being on TV. The great Robert Mitchums lowest moment.
The post above with the playbill for the 1978 re-release of “Fantasia” lists “Matilda” as the next attraction. I’m embaressed to admit I saw that there. OMG, that film is so bad I don’t think it ever came out on video and I don’t even recall it being on TV. The great Robert Mitchums lowest moment.
lostmemory: The ad for “Mockingbird” from the New Yorker is appropriate, since during its run at RCMH all NYC newspapers were on strike and there is no record of newspaper ads for it. My post on “Mockingbird” will follow in a couple of weeks.
RobertR: That ad for “Father Goose” (Christmas ‘64, not '66) must have been printed in late January '65. When RCMH held over its Christmas film past mid-Jan., it dropped the Nativity section from its stage show (while unseasonably retaining the rest). The bit of “Marriage Italian Style” at the bottom of your post portends RCMH’s bookings of Sophia Loren’s next three films: “Operation Crossbow,” “Judith,” and “Arabesque” (and of “Sunflower” later on).
Father Goose was the 1966 Christmas Show
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Here’s a Program from March ‘67. If you want to read the fine print, after you click on the URL you must click the image itself so that it enlarges on your screen. I’m sorry that a print-out won’t be so clear.
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At the time, I was pursuing the shelf-contents through a trail of libraries that stretched from Morningside Heights to Washington Square. One balmy Spring morning, bound on the subway toward the NYPL, I alighted at 50 Street intending to walk eastwards to Fifth and then down that sunny avenue to 42 Street. Compulsion drove me to the box-office of RCMH and then into the theater’s deep, dark recesses for the day’s first show.
I hadn’t particularly wanted to see the film or the stage review (it proved to be the last Easter show I’d see there), but once inside, I fell under their spell. In addition to the cathedral pageant, the live production offered the theater’s classic Cherry Blossom ballet and a fabulous rainstorm-water finale. That afternoon, having greeted the Twin Lions and become deeply immersed in decipherment, I couldn’t erase the energizing glow from the morning’s entertainment. I had played hooky for a few hours, but the pay-back more than made up for it. It had been a great show.
The Happiest Millionaire might not have been a success but it was the best Christmas movie I saw at the Hall. I saw most of them from this point on and from production design alone it was the best looking on that screen(also that great looking 60’s technicolor which was about to turn to the grainy washed out color of the 70’s.)
From this point on they were all turkeys(except for Scrooge but the blow up 70 mm print left al ot to be desired.)
Even before that you’d have to go back to The Sundowners to find a good proper Christmas film for the Hall.
Test image of “Airport” program – hopefully it will look better than the earlier images I posted:
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An important scene in the horror classic “Rosemary’s Baby” was shot across the street from Radio City Music Hall during the run of “The Happiest Millionaire”. You can see Tommy Steele’s name on the marquee. Sad that such a dud movie was the last one Walt Disney personally produced before his death.
Right about HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE being road-shown. Worked as a film booker in San Francisco and I had to go back and track weekly grosses at the local United Artists Theatre Circuit for SOUND OF MUSIC which Disney would be comparing. lol..We opened MILLIONAIRE at the conclusion of MUSIC and it ran three weeks as a road-show. Then it was trimmed by 20 some odd minuets, a new print was shipped up and we replaced the road show version with it. It then ran on a CONTINUOUS basis for another couple of weeks and finally died. So much for copying by hand (before computers, mind you) all theose weekly grosses. All for naught….
Like Benjamin, I find a teasing hint of the Paramount in Knef’s description: for me, it’s the reference to flower boxes, which the Paramount had and prominently displayed every Spring in its annual “flower show” (which usually extended over the season through the runs of several films). But there were no chorus girls at the Paramount, nor at the Strand or Capitol. In any case, any of those three were more raucous than the Roxy. Still, the Roxy had the dancing Roxyettes. Did Carl Ravazza croon Spanish songs? Knef changed her name to Neff and did a few films for 20C-Fox, no? That connection points to the Roxy. For me, that’s ‘nuf about Neff.
Vincent, I am not so sure I agree, the bobby soxers of the 40s most certainly danced in the aisles at the Paramount for Benny and screamed up and down the aisles for Frank Sinatra. I think the 80s Carnegie Hall crowd was more subdued, not so much however at the 1938 concert.
P.S. — One wrinkle, however, is I wonder if any of the Paramount stage shows actually included any chorus girls? I got the impression that during Benny Goodman’s engagement, at least, the performance of the Goodman band was the entire stage show portion of the bill.
But the audiences certainly did seem sufficiently rambunctious!
Well I saw Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall in the 80’s and the above description bears no relation at all to that audience.
Very good point Benjamin, I forgot about the magnificent Paramount, and yes it would fit that bill. Warren, any thoughts?
In the excerpt quoted by Gerald A. DeLuca in his July 6th post (above), I wonder if Hildegrad Knef is describing a visit to the Paramount Theater (on Broadway and 43rd) instead of either the Roxy or Radio City Music Hall?
The reason the Paramount comes to mind is I was just reading about Benny Goodman’s engagement at the Paramount the other day (I forget the name of the book or the website) and what was striking about the description was how “wild” and uninhibited the audiences seemed to be. If I remember correctly — and if the description is to be believed — people were yelling all throughout the concert, dancing in the aisles and even occasionally dancing on the stage!
I wonder if the various mid-Manhattan theaters each had, to a certain degree, their own personalities — or, at least, if a theater’s architectural design, its facilities, the policies of its management, and the kind of shows that were presented in it, when added all together, attracted certain kinds of audiences and elicited certain kinds of behavior?
It also seems to me that the interior of the Paramount as much as the Roxy could be accurately described as “a cross between the public baths and a set for an operetta, between a temple and a railway station … . ”
(If I can find again what I read about Benny Goodman’s engagement at the Paramount, I will post it to the Paramount Theater page of Cinema Treasures. This description really makes it sound amazing.)
Well if you had a few months of the same stage show with changing films shown in Imax it could work. However you would need another Leonidoff to produce the stage show and I don’t think there is a person in the business today who knows how to properly utilize the Hall with its own specific characteristics. It is treated as if it were simply the theater at Madison Square Garden or another concert venue. When I see photos of the auditorium now with those speakers hanging down its stomach churning. And the amazing thing is all they do is just make the music louder!