Directors Guild of America Theatre

Isn't this theatre already listed under one of its previous names?

If it is not it should be listed under the last name from when it was open to the public which was The 57th Street Playhouse.

Apparently, all the previous discussion about this theatre was at the listing for the nearby Festival Theatre, which still carries an incorrect address. The Festival was between Fifth & Sixth Avenues. This theatre is between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.

No, it was not not previously listed. I found that appalling. I checked every Manhattan theatre first before posting it. It certainly ought to be listed, and now I've done it. I have seen some great films here over the decades! It's a truly important art house in the history of international film exhibition in New York City!

The theatre was originally known as the Normandie, and named in honor of a previous Normandie at 51 East 53rd Street, which was demolished in the 1950s to make way for an office building. The original Normandie, with 582 seats, was one of NYC's first "art" theatres and named in honor of the spectacular French ocean liner that was converted into a troop ship during WWII and ended up being destroyed in a mysterious fire while docked on NYC's West Side.

This had a really distinctive staircase down to the screen and a really spacious enjoyable lobby downstairs...I remember it well as the Playboy in the 70s screening a Rolling Stones concert film and then with a $1 policy seeing Godfather 2 and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore...In the 80's as the 57th St Playhouse as part of the City Cinemas chain, seeing Kurosawa's Dreams and an Australian film called Shame here

One great day I spent at the Normandie, as it was known in 1964, was watching five great French films in a row. They had a French classic film marathon which was, I think, sponsored by distributor Brandon Films. So on March 31, 1964, from morning until evening, I watched Marcel Carne's PORT OF SHADOWS, Rene' Clair's LE MILLION, Robert Bresson's LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE, Jean Renoir's LE CRIME DE MONSIEUR LANGE, and finally Maurice Cloche's MONSIEUR VINCENT. One after the other! I don't know when or what I ate that day, but it was one of the best movie days of my entire life.

And that wasn't the end of it! From the Normandie I went to the New Yorker to see A CHAPLIN REVIEW which consisted of the three films: SHOULDER ARMS, A DOG'S LIFE, and THE PILGRIM.

The theatre's biggest "boxoffice hit" was probably in 1969 with "I Am Curious- Yellow," which caused a huge censorship controversy at the time, though I personally found it one of the most boring and pretentious movies that I've ever seen.

Saw Little Dorrit here on hard ticket. Wonderful little gem of a theater. Too bad it's no longer open to the public.

I am not familiar with Little Dorrit or that it opened roadshow.

The film version of 'Little Dorrit' was 6 hours in length, broken up into two parts - 'Nobody's Fault' and 'Little Dorrit's Story' - and was based on a Charles Dickens novel. If I remember correctly, Cannon Pictures, of all studios, was its U.S. distributor.

The last film to screen at the DGA Theatre while it was still under the aegis of the 57th Street Playhouse was Atom Egoyan's 'Exotica', in the summer of '95. (Also, for those who are curious, a fair glimpse of both the interior and exterior of the DGA Theatre/57th Street Playhouse/Normandie/etc. can be seen in the 2003 documentary 'Cinemania'.)

At the time that "I Am Curious Yellow" played there, the NYTimes noted that the box office take outgrossed Radio City Music Hall showing of "Mayerling", the remake with Omar Sharif.

As the Normandie, this theater opened on 6 December 1951 with MGM's arty "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" (Ava Gardner, James Mason; dir and writer Albert Lewin). For the next fifteen years, it had a spotty record of showing minor-Hollywood/flashy-EuroTrash. I remember it as a comfortable theater when I saw a reissue of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in the late '50s. That was a terrific program on 31 March 1964. There was an Automat next door, where one could have grabbed a bite in between the reels, no?

I saw many moveovers here, I think the last one being The Little Emporer. I liked the theatre alot, it was comfortable and well run.

Pandora I believe was supposed to open at Radio City as the Thanksgiving film. For some reason it was cancelled and for two weeks they presented Too Young to Kiss which did pretty poorly in what was all around a great year there. They should have just kept American for another two weeks. (So why didn't Pandora go into a major Times Square house like the Loew's or the Capitol?)

Right--that was the same year that "The Great Caruso" broke records with a nine-week run at RCMH. The latter had booked "A Streetcar Named Desire" for Fall, then withdrew it (no doubt after viewing it belatedly with lips together, teeth apart) on the grounds that "Caruso"'s hold-over had preempted it. "An American in Paris" ran seven weeks, and the "Too Young" filler opened on Thanksgiving Day. With a schedule like that, what box could they have stuffed "Pandora" into?

I'm sure that the Music Hall had already viewed Streetcar when they booked it and knew that it would have been a perfect film for them with Brando and Leigh. I'm also sure that the Hall staff was familiar with it during its Broadway run. According to Kazan it was pulled after the catholic chrch threatened to give it a C rating. Too bad. It would have been a great Music Hall film and a nice break after all those months of MGM technicolor musicals.

The 2 Cinemeccanica Victoria 8 35mm/70mm projectors and the Dolby mag-stereo equipment from the then-closed Murray Hill were brought over here and installed for 'The Last Emperor' when the film moved over from Cinema I.

Can someone confirm that a 1984 re-release of Lang's great "Metropolis" played here? It had a horrible rock track added to it but the movie was still spectacular.

But it's the theater I remember well. It was small but very art deco and the bathroom/lounge was downstairs.

If this was it, this is a GREAT theater and I'm glad it's still around.

What's the seating capacity of this theater? Does anyone know?

In July of 2003, long-simmering plans to sell the DGA building to a developer who planned to construct a 40-story, mixed-use luxury apartment tower on the site fell through; instead, the property was renovated by the present owner.

As the 57th Street Playhouse there were 586 seats.

Seating capacity of the NYC DGA Theatre is 484.

The official web site of the DGA: http://www.dga.org

Can someone confirm that a 1984 re-release of Lang's great "Metropolis" played here? It had a horrible rock track added to it but the movie was still spectacular.

Yes, indeed it did play here and was great. I don't know, I loved the sountrack. So much I got it booked for the theater I managed on Long Island. The 57th Street Playhouse was also one of the first theatres in Manhattan to show a film with digital sound, a Laurie Anderson concert film called "Home Of The Brave" in '86. I remember I went only because I wanted to hear the digital soundtrack and for a good five minutes during one part the sound went out. It was a cool litlle comfortable theatre with a loge in the back of the auditorium, similar to The Ziegfeld.

This house always seemed larger then 586 seats.

This theatre was unique. I remember descending the escalator to a spacious lobby in the basement where the snack bar, rest rooms and that neat, circular coach/sitting area was located.

The Christmas of 1971 had the then Playboy Theatre showing Roman Polanski's "Macbeth". The daily showtimes were 2:30, 5:45 and 8:45.

In October 1976 near the end of it's life as the Playboy Theatre it was $1 at all times except Sunday $1.25. Odd that Saturdays were not higher priced. The double bill was "The Shootist" and "Three Days of the Condor".

A film festival in 2003
http://www.bigappleanimefest.com/jap/history.htm#movie

Under its original name of Normandie, this theatre first opened on December 6, 1951, with the NYC premiere engagement of MGM's Technicolored "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman," starring Ava Gardner and James Mason. The multi-million dollar production was considered too "artie" for a Broadway showcase, but did not fare much better at the Normandie, where it received mostly negative reviews. When "Pandora" reached the Loew's circuit, some theatres gave top billing to the second feature, "For Men Only," a Lippert exploitationer about the evils of hazing in college fraternities.

Directed by and starring Paul Henreid, "For Men Only" received the advertising tag "... and the women who love them. It's every woman's picture!" I never knew that it concerned frat boys. It opened at Loew's State on 15 January, 1952.

I was at the DGA Theatre last night for an advanced screening oF BROKEN FLOWERS. It looks like the DGA is sprucing up the theatre. They seemed to have pulled some seats out in the front and added some in the back or did something to the back of the theatre. That snack bar in the basement is also gone. It was circular and free standing.

I drove past there last night and saw the line. Just curious: what did you think of "Broken Flowers"? As much as I like Murray, his indie thing (to me) is starting to wear thin. "Rushmore" and "Lost in Translation" were fine and good for a change of pace. But this is the guy who did "Meatballs" and "Stripes" for God's sake!

I hated, absolutely hated, BROKEN FLOWERS. Given all the accolades it was received with at Cannes, I had high expectatins, but they were quickly dashed. I'm apparently in the minority though because A.O. Scott in The Times (on the front page of the Weekend Arts Section, praised it. Murray's ennui did not work with Jarmusch's ennui. Combine the two and not too much happens.

What was interesting was the crowd reaction because there was lots of laughter through the first two-thirds of the film and then no more laughter as the film kind of got serious. I didn't notice much difference between the first two-thirds/"laughing" part of the film and the last third/"serious" part of the film, but the audience reacted differently.

Aren't people sick of artie indie movies? And Hollywood teenage boy comic book blockbusters? What happened to just good entertaining movies for adults that if you wanted to you could bring your children to(in other words the kind of movies I went to when I was a kid in the 60's.)

Teenage boy comic book blockbusters? Yes, I'm sick of seeing them, or being given scant choice besides them. I saw Stealth last week and almost threw up from the vapid, stupid emptiness. Artie indie? Well, "artie" can be a put-down. Artistic? I'd actually love to see more movies that are truly so. Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Ingmar Bergman's Saraband with the great Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. It wasn't exactly "pleasure" or "entertainment" in the conventional sense, but it was joy, enrichment, and a challenge. What a change after all the summer pap and pablum, a movie that presumes I may have an iota of sensibility, of intelligence. It's an unusual feeling.

Teenage boy comic book blockbusters? Yes, I'm sick of seeing them, or being given scant choice besides them. I saw Stealth last week and almost threw up from the vapid, stupid emptiness. Artie indie? Well, "artie" can be a put-down. Artistic? I'd actually love to see more movies that are truly so. Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Ingmar Bergman's Saraband with the great Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. It wasn't exactly "pleasure" or "entertainment" in the conventional sense, but it was joy, enrichment, and a challenge. What a change after all the summer pap and pablum, a movie that presumes I may have an iota of sensibility, of intelligence. It's an unusual feeling.

How were the seats at the DGA? I'm thinking of doing Robert McKee's STORY workshop which is to be held there. Before I commit to three days in a theater seat, I'd like to know if they're nice and wide and comfortably spaced, or if I'd be in for three days of hell...

And I'm hoping it is well air-conditioned, given NYC's current tropical rain forest atmosphere.

By artie-indie I mean the stuff that gets standing ovations at Sundance which means its probably unwatchable. When Bergman dies I don't think there will be one great director left alive.
His Royal Stockholm productions out in Brooklyn were along with the Prince/Sondheim productions of the '70's the greatest theatrical experiences of my life.

The architect was William I. Hohauser. It was a totally new theatre, built on the site of the demolished Lotus Club. Both this and NYC's original Normandie (see separate listing) had stadium-type auditoriums patterned after the cinema on the legendary French luxury liner, Normandie:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3710_IMG.jpg
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3713_IMG.jpg

A NY story:
Jackie and Aristotle Onassis were watching "I Am Curious (Yellow)" at the Cinema 57 Rendezvous on October 5, 1969, when Mrs. Onassis left the auditorium half-way through the show, only to discover photographers in the lobby. She asked that they be removed, which they were. She then exited the building and, according to a Daily News photographer among the group, used a judo move to flip him over onto the ground. An AP photographer caught the "post-flip" moment on film but no witnesses, including the theatre's doorman and the AP photographer and people in the background of his photo, could confirm the account of the News photog. Through sources close to her, Mrs. Onassis also denied the accusation.
Mr. Onassis remained in the theatre auditorium for the remainder of the feature.

The summer of 1964 an MGM musical festival
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/Movie%20Ads/chalkgarden.jpg

In my memory, I always confuse this theater with the Festival Theater, further to the east on 57th Street. To add to the confusion, I'm not entirely sure that the Plaza on East 58th Street isn't also entering into the fray! Anyway, between these three theaters I saw a gorgeously restored 35 mm print of Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" sometime in the mid-to-late '80's, an interesting and very frank documentary on the adult film industry entitled "Not a Love Story" and the 1983 documentary "The Complete Beatles." I'm almost positive that "The Complete Beatles" played at the Festival and that "Strangelove" was at the 57th Street Playhouse, but, as I said, my memories are a bit muddled.

Did this theater have a marquee projecting out over the sidewalk, or was it a flat marquee over the entrance similar to the Loew's Paradise in the Bronx? I might be thinking of the Festival again, as I seem to recall that theater anounced its existence via a large blue banner that hung from a flagpole from the 2nd floor above the entrance.

Can anyone out there help me sort out these memories?

Yes, the 57th Street playhouse had a flat marquee, and just an awning over the sidewalk. When I worked there in the early 90s we had a blue flag on the pole with silver letters spelling out '57th St. Playhouse'. The Festival never had a marquee either, and no awning, only a sign in the window of the upstairs lobby.

Complete Beatles did play at the Festival

Ahhh... Great. Thanks for clarifying that part of my memory. Now if I could untangle my confusion over where I saw those movies. I love this site!

Thanks JohnG for confirming that. That's the one I was most confident about. Still searching here and on those other theater's respective pages for confirmations on the other titles.

I HATED Broken Flowers...I fled after about half an hour..It felt like they were continuing on with Lost In Translation..But Murray's ennui worked in Japan, here it just was boring..And all the accolades!

Anyway, this was once the greatest theater in New York, along with the Guild in Rockefeller Center..It is such a shame that these theaters are gone..

I saw some great films here..too many to remember. It was a very plush theater. Now it has this wierd sometimes-open sometimes-not feel to it..I think one day it will vanish.

The last film I saw here was a screening of a Todd Solodnz film, and he was there to answer questions..He is a pretty strange character! I thought it was interesting at the time that he only had a few films out, yet already he was getting legendary status.

The funniest memory of that event was watching him come out of the theater..A young student, with a big flashing neon sign over her head that said "craven soul"..She kept following him down the block, trying to talk to him, telling him that she had waited two years to see him...Eeeek!

The theatre is not "gone." It's still used as a cinema by the Directors' Guild for membership and press screenings.

Check out this ad for Wizard of Oz in 1955. Very ahead of it's time for the 50's.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/Movie%20Ads/WIzardofOzatNormandie.jpg

Designed by William I. Hohauser. It's was one of his last theater jobs.

Early 60's summer film festival
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/Movie%20Ads/SummertimeNormandie.jpg

Early 60's summer film festival
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/Movie%20Ads/SummertimeNormandie.jpg

I would like to add a photo since I have discovered some material of my grandfather's theater work but unfortunately the "Add A Photo" function has been off line for over a year.

WH... "Add a Photo" hasn't worked in ages. You can go to photobucket.com or some other image-hosting site and get a free account. From there, you can post a link to your image here in your comment - just as RobertR did back on Jan 28th of this year.

Have many of you noted that many/most of the photos and newspaper pages entered into Cinema Treasures under Photobucket.com expire, or for whatever reason become inaccessible, after a year or two? I've found that's true in a hundred different moviehouse blogs on the Cinema Treasures site. - Ed Blank

This theater, under its various identities, has yielded an eclectic variety of bookings over the years. I saw Disney's "The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit" on one visit and "I Am Curious (Yellow)" on another - both first-runs. My fondest memory is of a period when the theater was running double features of great contemporary films at midnight on weekends. I caught a bill consisting of "A Thousand Clowns" and a great personal favorite, "Lord Love a Duck." - Ed Blank

Here are new links to images described above on 9/5/05:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3710_IMG.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3713_IMG.jpg

The Puccini opera TOSCA at the Trans-Lux Normandie in 1958, reserved seats only.

I love all those interior and exterior shots and the ads that contain plenty of detail - but especially those that show surrounding ads to we can see again which pictures were running concurrently. We had MOVIES then.
It was interesting to me to learn a few days ago that when "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" opened in New York, MGM premiered it in a new art house, several blocks from the heart of Broadway. In my hometown of Pittsburgh it went into Loew's Penn (now called Heinz Hall), a 3300-seater that was MGM's main outlet in Western Pennsylvania.

Ed, it was at this very theatre where "Pandora" had its NYC premiere engagement. Please see my images posted above on 5/22/08.

Yes, understood, Warren. Thank you. I typed my earlier comment too hastily and wasn't as clear as I might have been. But it was based on the fact I'd discovered that "Pandora" had opened at the Normandie.

1966 ad for the Italian film La Visita, when the theatre was known as Cinema Rendezvous.

Here are operating dates I have found.

Dec. 1951- Oct. 1964 as the Normandie
Oct. 1964- 1971 as the Cinema Rendezvous
1971- 1978 as the Playboy.
1979-1998 as the 57th Street Playhouse.

I used to go to this theater a lot when I first moved to the city in '88. I was 16 and I worked at Tower Records at Lincoln Center and would frequent most theaters in that general area. I remember seeing Shame, Kansas, Chicago Joe & The Showgirl, and one one of my first dates in the city, Miles From Home. I used to frequent it a lot between 1996 and 1998 after it was bought by the DGA. I used to love the year end marathons they would hold- a double feature almost every night of the week and four movies on Saturday and Sunday. I remember going to a very bizarre double feature of a pre-release The English Patient and Bill Murray's circus movie Larger Than Life. The theater was packed for English Patient and within 45 minutes, the whole audience was asleep. You could just feel the energy drain out of the crowd. I remember thinking at the time what a huge bomb it was going to be. After it ended, everyone but myself and five other people left and we had an almost private screening of the Bill Murray film.

On March 26, Swann Auction Galleries will be offering the original 1971 signage design for Playboy Theatre iteration of this house. An image can be seen at http://swanngalleries.rfcsystems.com/asp/fullcatalogue.asp?salelot=2174+++++237+&refno=++613040

Renewing link.

As the 57th St. Playhouse.

http://americanclassicimages.com/DesktopModules/CATALooKStore/MakeThumbImage.aspx?ID=%2fPortals%2f0%2f1%2fN%2fNY594.jpg&PORTALID=0

http://www1.dailynewspix.com/sales/largeview.php?name=6p30v00l.jpg&id=64627&lbx=-1&return_page=searchResults.php&searchDisplay=A&numFields=1&Button=%3CSPAN%3ESearch%3C/SPAN%3E&start=-2713888800&end=16343999&dayFrom=1&monthFrom=1&yearFrom=1884&dayTo=8&monthTo=7&yearTo=1970&location_0=allmeta&bool_0=AND&Button=%3CSPAN%3ESearch%3C/SPAN%3E&page=0

Cinema Rendezvous in 1969, courtesy of Warren

I have the DVD set of I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW) and (BLUE). They are really incredible timecapsules of the sixties.

As some of the comments above have said, this theater was designed by architect William I. Hohauser. An article about the new Normandie, with three small photos, appeared in the March 8, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.