Little Carnegie Playhouse

“The Talented Mr Ripley” is actually a very fine movie.

“Plein Soleil” was later successfully remade in English as “The Talented Mr. Ripley”.

I was very fortunate to work at the Little Carnegie as a teenager in the late 70s/early 80s. What a magnificent place! Like a smaller version of the Beekman but even better. The doors to the theater were amazingly deco. Seeing the photo of the interior posted in one of the comments was shocking. In my mind, this place was huge. It was actually quite teanie. But what programming! Because they were a premiere platform theater, everything opened here to huge crowds, celebrities, and very long runs. I worked there for several years during high school and the only 2 films I remember are PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK and MANHATTAN. They were hugely successful and played for months.

On this day in 1942, United Artists' “New Wine,” a B&W biography of the great classical composer Franz Schubert, opened its NYC premiere engagement at the Little Carnegie. Though Schubert was known to be obese and unattractve, he was portrayed on screen by handsome ex-model Alan Curtis, whose real-life spouse, Ilona Massey, played his aristocratic patroness. A scene where the Countess tries to persuade Beethoven to hire Schubert to complete “The Unfinished Symphony” must have raised gales of laughter loud enough to carry into adjacent Carnegie Hall.

To answer the query above by Ed Solero on 9/15/06, the Little Carnegie did become a newsreel theatre, closing on June 30th, 1941, for re-modeling by Thomas Lamb’s firm, according to reportage in The New York Times. The seating capacity was reduced from 470 to 350 to permit installation of larger upholstered chairs and more space between rows. The auditorium walls were newly covered with rust-and-cream brocades, with gold-tufted walls in the main lounge. A new area was created off the main lobby where free tea and coffee were served. The Little Carnegie Newsreel Theatre opened on September 26th, 1941, charging 25 cents at all times for programs of newsreels and shorts that could run from 75 to 90 minutes in length. But competition from newsreel houses in the heart of Broadway/Times Square proved too much, and the theatre switched back to features as the Little Carnegie Playhouse on December 5th, with the subsquent-run “A Yank in the R.A.F.” This turned out to be only days before the USA entered WWII, but there was no turning back to the newsreel policy. Sub-run features continued into late December, when the Little Carnegie obtained a first-run booking with the British import, “Quiet Wedding,” which proved very successful and enabled the theatre to remain first-run with a mix of British imports and American independent releases, sometimes punctuated by revivals of “quality” foreign and American films.

A photo of the auditorium of the Little Carnegie as remodeled by John McNamara was featured on the cover of Boxoffice, October 4, 1952. Two giant salamanders, cleverly disguising themselves as Art Moderne ornamentation, waited on either side of the screen to pounce upon and devour arriving audience members.

Renewing link.

I found this website after doing a search for information about the little Carnegie and the Thalia. I lived in New York for a year in 1980 and attended the Little Carnegie only once, to see the Woody Allen film Manhattan. What a wonderful experience, to see that film on the big screen with a New York audience. At the end the film got a standing ovation from the audience. This Seattle boy was impressed.

Henry Smith

Great illustrations, Warren. Just to see the interior brings back vivid memories. On a 1973 visit to Little Carnegie, I caught a small film called “I Love You, Rosa” at a crowded weekend performance and sitting close to the right front exit gawking at wall ornament looming over the exit. At the time I saw “Faces” there, I remember reading a John Cassavetes interview in which he said he wanted to book his pride and joy there because he had worked in Little Carnegie many years earlier. – Ed Blank

The program booklet for the American premiere of Antonioni’s Eclipse in December 1962 at the Little Carnegie.

THIS CLOSED MID TO LATE 80s……….

I think that for most of its lifetime, this was called Little Carnegie or Little Carnegie Theatre, and not Little Carnegie Playhouse. When it first opened, it was known as Little Carnegie Playhouse, but “Playhouse” eventually fell by the wayside.