Normandie Theatre

A propos of nothing in particular: I have a New York Times ad here showing that in 1948 the Technicolor film "The Swordsman", starring Larry Parks and Ellen Drew, played here. It was directed by auteurist cult-favorite Joseph H. Lewis. I wish I could have gone to this theatre.

By 1948, the Normandie was showing mostly sub-run Hollywood movies, in competition with the Plaza on East 58th Street. "The Swordsman" had previously opened at a Broadway house, and then moved on to the Loew's circuit as the top feature with "Her Husband's Affairs" (both Columbia releases). The Normandie and Plaza catered to "the carriage trade" and usually didn't present double features.

57th Street Playhouse
110 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

Originally called the Normandie, the interior was designed to look like the art-deco theatre aboard the French ocean liner Normandie. It was an orchestra-stadium type auditorium with 586 seats. It had several incarnations over the years, including being 4-walled by Hugh Hefner and called the Playboy Theatre. In recent years it was operated by City Cinemas. The landlord is the Directors Guild of America which owns and occupies the office building upstairs, and it is now used by them as a private screening room and named The Directors Cinema.

Dave-Bronx, that 57th Street Normandie you talk about is not to be confused with this earlier Normandie on 53rd Street. The 57th Street Normandie/Playboy/Cinema Rendezvous that you describe is now listed under the Directors' Guild of America Theatre. It is a different theatre from this one. The DGA still exists. The Normandie of this listing is long-gone.

I was not aware of the theatre on 53rd St., thought it was a typo. I had been the manager of the theatre on 57th and in the former coat-check room we had coat hangers and tags engraved with 'Normandie Theatre' with the address. I also found photographs of the theatre on the Normandie liner and compared them to my auditorium and many of the architectural elements matched. The painted designs on the walls didn't match, but that had been just a recent paint job. So I guess NYC had 2 theatres designed after the ship.

Dave, in the listing for the 57th Street Normandie, Warren posted a comment stating that it was named after the former one on 53rd Street one.
http://cinematreasures.org/theater/7049/

The Normandie was on the north side of East 53rd Street, between Madison and Park Avenues. Rosario Candela was the architect, with Benjamin Schlanger as associate. The auditorium, which had a stadium section of seats at the rear, was built on an angle to the entrance and lobby to make maximum use of the small land plot, which measured only 94' wide x 97' deep. Robert Walton Goelet was the Normandie's original owner and operator. I don't know why the theatre had such a short life, but it probably felt the pinch of TV's arrival and became more valuable as real estate than as a cinema.

Here are some rare images. The stadium seating section was considerably higher than the one in the later 57th Street Normandie:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3798_IMG.jpg
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3799_IMG.jpg
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/138-3802_IMG.jpg
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/138-3804_IMG.jpg

During which years was this theatre in operation?

The interior is very similar to that of the 57th Street theatre - the cove lighting in the ceiling drops and the procenium - were duplicated in the newer theatre. Ben Schlanger, the associate architect mentioned in Warren's post above, was also involved with Abe Geller in the original designing of the Cinema I - Cinema II (now C1,2,3) here in New York. He is also credited as the architect of 'The Cinema' in Washington DC.

I'm astonished! I have no memory of it whatsoever. My mom had worked at Best & Co. on 51 Street and Fifth in those years, and I thought I knew the area pretty well as a kid in the '40s and '50s. Yes, I recall seeing ads in the NYT alongside those for the Plaza and the Sutton and the Baronet and the 55th Street Playhous. But I never thought to track down the address. It's a shock how these things creep up on you.

The Normandie is mentioned in the NY Times article about its architect.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/realestate/05scap.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Hre's the excerpt:
(1936) must have seemed like Champagne — first a 200-foot-wide store and theater complex on the west side of Park Avenue, from 53rd to 54th Street (now the site of Lever House). The trim little swank-modern stores had bronze and marble detailing, and the lusciously Art Moderne movie theater, the Normandie, was of sculptured concrete. Eric Gugler and Ben Schlanger also worked on this commission.

Here's a photo of the auditorium on the French superliner SS Normandie, which was the inspiration for this theatre as well as the second Normandie (now DGA Theatre) on West 57th Street:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/ssnorm1935.jpg

The Normandie operated from December 1938 until May 1950. The new one on 57th Street opened in December 1951 as a first run house.

The Normandie first opened on the evening of November 30, 1938. Here's an ad from The New York Times:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/normandieopener.jpg

Theatre in Construction On Park Avenue Sold

NY Times November 21, 1938

The new Normandie Theatre, a 600-seat motion picture louse under construction at Park Avenue and Fifty-third Street, has been sold by Philip Smith, theatre operator of Boston. It was bought by the Norman Theatre Corporation, headed by David Weinstock and Harry Brandt, through David Berk and J. Krumgold, brokers.

Phil Smith of Boston, mentioned in the previous post, was the founder of Midwest Drive-In Co. and Smith Management Co., predecessor companies of General Cinema Corp. Smith opened his first 2 drive-ins in 1938 in Cleveland and Detroit and then concentrated efforts on development of more drive-ins. They retained several indoor theatres that they were already operating, but abandoned development of more indoors until about 1951 when they developed the suburban shopping center cinema concept.

Whenever I catch a showing of Hitchcock's the Rope, I imagine this theater and the Manhattan location of that particular period frequented by the so-called "carriage trade".

Renewing link.