Bryant Theatre

This was a small but luxurious 600-seat theatre designed by Thomas W. Lamb for B.S. Moss, who named it the Cameo, with advertising as "The Salon of the Cinema." The films were usually move-overs of top-quality Hollywood product from the big Broadway houses, with an occasional first-run. When many of the Moss theatres were taken over by RKO, it became the RKO Cameo until that circuit decided that it didn't want to be represented on rapidly changing 42nd Street and sold the theatre to the Brandt circuit. Brandt changed the name to Bryant in honor of nearby Bryant Park. For many years, the Bryant ran foreign move-overs from Brandt's Apollo, which was further west on 42nd Street. The Bryant was one of the first NYC theatres to show "adults-only" fare, starting with nudist features that stopped short of exposing genitalia. Before it switched to real porno, the Brandt ID was removed, but I think that the circuit continued to share in its revenues. The Bryant was finally demolished in the late 1980s, and for a long time the site was vacant except for a tent housing some sort of flea market. Something may have been erected since. I haven't been in the vicinity recently.

The 42nd Street Bryant was showing softcore porn as early as the late 1960's. Programming eventually went hardcore. The final years of the Bryant actually featured a "live-sex" show on stage with hardcore porn shown between the live acts. Admission to this type program was $3.99.

My June 1925 copy of "The Architetural Forum" magazine has plans for the Cameo Theater, New York (no actual address given) and internal photographs of the lobby and auditorium. The architect credited is Eugene De Rosa. The auditorium photo's show seating for, I would say, around 600 on a single floor (no balcony). Listings in the Film Daily Yearbooks I have (1941 and 1950) give a seating capacity of 539 and 538 respectively.

I presume this to be the same theatre, but being "The Architectural Forum" magazine was a 'talking shop' publication aimed at architects, I assume they are correct to credit this building to Eugene De Rosa and not Thomas W. Lamb as listed here. Any further views on this Warren?

If The Architectural Forum says DeRosa, than it could have been. Other sources say Lamb. It might have been both, since DeRosa once worked for Lamb. You might try sending a query to the B.S. Moss family website to see what they might have in their records. Moss built the theatre.

There's nice clear film of this theater's adult film marquee in that Travel Channel doumentary.

It was here on 42nd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, where in the late 1970's my girlfriend and I saw our first and only live sex show. Oh, brother.

My grandfather and his brother founded a company called Consolidated Amusement Enterprises which owned this theater sometime between 1910 and 1941 and perhaps later than that; I'm not sure. CAE was one of the largest independent theater chains in NYC in that era.

Saps
LOL, when I was in college I checked out one of those shows also just because I could not believe it would be real, oh it was LOL. At that time they were advertising the theatre as The New Bryant.

Click here http://www.hungovergourmet.com/food/deuce/ for a tiny picture of the "New" Bryant and an interesting article about the culinary options available near it. Not for those with weak stomachs.

One of Humbert Humbert's favorite movies:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/bryant.jpg

In the 1950's, 42nd Street was a wonderful place. One Friday night after classes at Xaverian High in Bay Ridge,my friend Ray Bush & I subwayed over for some spaghetti and then went to the Bryant to see "The Opposite Sex" with June Allyson & Joan Collins. Fond memories of a carefree youth when New York was truly New York !

Fondly recall catching soft-core b&w flicks at the Bryant in the late 60s, like Andy Milligan's twisted 'Tricks of the Trade,' Robert Downey Sr.'s 'Sweet Smell of Sex' (it was no 'Putney Swope' or even 'Chafed Elbows'), 'Shocking Sex' & others. Pretty tame fare but sometimes rich in camp value & occasionally innovative low-budget filmmaking techniques.

Here is another photo of the Bryant Theater.

A photo of the Cameo's marquee was used in an August, 1932 trade ad for "Goona Goona," a docudrama that was filmed on the exotic isle of Bali and created a sensation with its bare-breasted maidens: www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/cameo42.jpg

So I guess the Cameo was occasionally showing "adult" movies from its early days.

Here's a NY Times review from 1934 of a movie I recently saw on TCM:

Road to Ruin

February 21, 1934

Pitfalls of Life.

By A.D.S.

"Road to Ruin," written and co-directed by Mrs. Wallace Reid, is a morose investigation of a high school girl's downfall, and is intended, apparently, as a dramatized lecture to the mothers of adolescent girls rather than as a general entertainment.

With a gravity proper to the subject, the Cameo's new film describes the circumstances under which the youthful heroine is persuaded to smoke her first cigarette and drink her first cocktail, and later traces the successive steps in her betrayal by a sleek and astonishingly unprincipled young man.

The deficiencies of "Road to Ruin" lie not so much in its amateurish composition as in its dull and unnecessary preoccupation with subject-matter which belongs in a sociological case history.

THE ROAD TO RUIN, based on a story by Mrs. Wallace Reid; with Helen Foster, Nell O'Day, Glen Boles, Paul Page, Virginia True Boardman and Richard Tucker; directed by Mrs. Reid and Melville Shyer; a Willis Kent production; released by First Division Exchange. At the Cameo

Here is a nice photo of the Bryant.

I must correct some errors in my post above of 3/19/04. The Cameo closed as a showcase for Russian imports in the spring of 1940. The Consolidated Amusement chain bought a ten-year operating lease on the theatre and, after some refurbishing, re-opened it under the new name of Bryant on September 13th, 1940, with the American premiere of "After Mein Kampf?," a British pseudo-documentary. The Bryant had a "grind" policy, open from 8AM until 2 the next morning. Brandt Theatres later took over the operating lease from Consolidated, but was not responsible for changing the name to Bryant. Consolidated did that.

This is another 1983 photo. Would New Bryant be an aka name?