Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
118 people
favorited this theater
Showing 226 - 250 of 3,332 comments
Hank, what was the movie that you sat through twice in order to watch Henny Youngman’s stage exit?
Had no idea Youngman was in a stage show. He certainly counts.
By the way on you tube there is the ‘61 Music Hall opening evening premiere footage of Flower Drum Song featuring Nancy Kwan, Richard Rodgers, Celeste Holm and others entering the theater. There is a shot of the orchestra and you can see how many musicians there are as opposed to the 70s where there seem to have been much fewer.
Youngman is also seen entering and when he looks at the camera does what was considered funny at the time but would be horribly insulting today.
You might add Henny Youngman who worked to the orchestra pit instead of the house and when he threw in a new one liner they hadn’t heard in the pit he would play himself off with his theme, “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”, I stayed thru the film twice to see him do this! So there!!
She lived a long life. Did Charlie Murphy, who died today, perform any comedy shows here?
The wonderful Linda Hopkins has just died at the age of 92. She was the only name performer I ever saw in a Music Hall stage show during its movie era.
As you know the Music Hall rarely included name performers which were a staple of all the other movie and stage show houses. In fact off the top of my head outside of Jan Peerce and Robert Weede who really only became well known later despite being listed in the stage show ads(Vera Ellen was an anonymous Rockette) The only other two that I can think of off the top of my head were Gene Nelson and Annette Funicello.
The stage show with The Cowboys the ad of which was just posted certainly would not fly today. The Rockettes as squaws?
Certainly wish I had gone to see it because it sounds like fun but especially with Totem Tom Tom from Rose Marie as the finale.
I just didn’t want to see a movie about a bunch of boys being taught profanity, violence and whoring being past off as family entertainment. At least that’s what it came off as in the reviews.
NYer posts See No Evil from Sept 1 ‘71.
The Music Hall descends desperately into showing slasher/horror exploitation 42nd St fare.
Don’t let the pedigree fool you.
And this for a fall show. Though no time was right for it. Saw it in the burbs with Night of the Living Dead. A more suitable companion than It’s In Your Stars on the Great Stage.
The new ad of Odd Couple made me think of when I was a doorman there in ‘76 an usher supervisor who was working at the Roxy before he moved to the Music Hall when it opened told me there were as many patrons on the last day as there had been on the first 14 weeks before.
A ticket seller told me that it was the last film where the work was unrelenting. When I was there it seemed there were only a few hundred people there a performance and this was the Easter show. And a drearier Easter film the Music Hall never had had. And what was really sad was That’s Entertainment Part II was playing a few blocks north at the Ziegfeld when it would have been beautiful in widescreen and Technicolor on the large Music Hall screen and a real colorful holiday film.
Somebody brilliant at the Hall thought a dreary brown, green and gray revisionist telling of the Robin Hood story of Robin and Marian in sad tired middle age would appeal to the Music Hall audience looking for holiday entertainment. At long Last Love was a masterpiece in comparison. At least the photography was splendid. The best looking first run film I saw there in the 70s.
And the spring stage show after the Glory of Easter was in black and white! They were clearly intentionally driving the Hall into the ground.
Before I forget, here are the upcoming movies coming to Radio City…..
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in Concert March 31st or April 1st
Tribeca Film Festival April 19th and April 29th
Concerning EdBlanks comment it was why I said I found it on Wikipedia because I know of their unreliability. But just because it is on there it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong either.
I also know that somebody like AlAlvarez knows how to find fairly arcane information concerning film distribution and can put the record straight.
I just hope the guy who booked a condemned rated film for a Christmas show wasn’t sacked. But then he was probably the same guy who booked the equally licentious and morally corrupting The Odd Couple 35 years later.
According to Catholic.org the ratings started in 1933 but were only available to Catholics who enquired at the time. According to the New York Times, the public postings of film ratings by the Catholic Legion of Decency started on December 16, 1934. (NYT, Dec 7, 1934). So, although it was not common knowledge, the film was already “Condemned” by the Legion when it showed at RCMH that Christmas, as it made their first “Condemned” listing in 1933.
Al, “Flying Down to Rio” was rated A-3 several years ago. It was never rated before. Indeed, it was released three years before the Legion of Decency came into existence (1936).
“Original Poster”. He was commenting on the ad in the photo section for “FLYING DOWN TO RIO” being a Christmas booking while condemned by the Legion of Decency.
What is OP, Al?
The OP was about “FLYING DOWN TO RIO”. I took a quick look on IMDB and found a long thread on the many sexual double entendre comments in the film’s dialogue as well as a rather graphic see-through chorus line on an airplane wing.
Anyone can post anything on Wikipedia, which is why in the newspaper business we were never allowed to quote or take any unverified information from there. The misinformation quotient makes it unreliable.
The only one of those movies that was “C” (condemned) was “Never on Sunday.” “Psycho” and “Some Like It Hot” were “B.” “Spartacus” was A-3. Most of the “Carry On” films were A’s rather than B’s. Although I have the original ratings book, this information is readily available on the Internet. I did monitor it closely as a kid as the ratings came out every two weeks as I recall.
“The Last Temptation of Christ” also received an “O” rating, with this explanation: “Deeply flawed screen adaptation of the Nikos Kazantzakis novel probing the mystery of the human nature of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, fails because of artistic inadequacy rather than anti-religious bias. Director Martin Scorsese’s wrong-headed insistence on gore and brutality, as well as a preoccupatiuon with sexual rather than spirtual love, is compounded by screenwriter Paul Schrader’s muddled script, shallow characterizations and flat dialogue delivered woodenly by William Dafoe in the title role. Excessively graphic violence, several sexually explicit scenes and some incidental nudity.” (O) ® ( 1988 )
The “pledge” taken in Catholic churches annually for many years was a generalized agreement not to support “indecent” entertainment. It did not carry specific penalties for Catholics.
“Rosemary’s Baby” received an “O” (morally offensive)rating from the National Catholic Officer of Motion Pictures, successor to the Legion of Decency. The “C” rating (condemned) had been discarded. Here’s the official explanation: “Modern-day horror story about a young husband (John Cassavetes) who turns his wife (Mia Farrow), body and soul, over to the next-door neighbors, a coven of witches (led by Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer) so she can become the mother of Satan Incarnate. Directed by Roman Polanski, the production values are topnotch and performances completely chilling, but the movie’s inverted Christian elements denigrate religious beliefs. Brief nudity. (O) ® ( 1968 )
I believe “Rosemary’s Baby” was also condemned.
In 1988 my dad went to a weekly Catholic Mass where he was asked to take a pledge that he would not go see Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ”. That immediately made him want to see it, which he did. And he liked it.
Not again! The Legion of Decency (LOD)is regularly cited for condemning (“C” rating) the most innocuous movies. Even the hallowed TCM runs documentaries in which some blithering idiot of another accuses the LOD of condemning some classic such as “Singin' in the Rain” or “Miracle on 34th Street” when in fact some were rated “B” (objectionable in part) for such reasons as “suggestive costuming and dance,” “reflects the acceptability of divorce” or “low moral tone.” There was no pressure on even Catholics to avoid such “B-rated” films. Period. The ratings were for Catholics and reflected the more stringent moral code of their era. It was extremely rare for a major American movie to carry a “C” rating. “Baby Doll” was one, “Kiss Me, Stupid” another. The National Catholic Office of Motion Pictures, a later identity for the LOD, rated “The Odd Couple” A-III for “some sexual references.”
According to Wikipedia the Music Hall’s first Christmas movie which was just posted by Comfortably Cool received a Condemned rating from the Catholic Legion of Decency.
I hope this was posted outside the Music Hall to warn parents who thought they were bringing their children to a holiday show for the entire family.
The Music Hall’s longest running film The Odd Couple also was condemned.
I have no idea what the people who chose films for the Hall were thinking.
Comfortably Cool placing the Bells of St Mary program in the photo section made me think of Pacino and Keaton outside the Hall in The Godfather.
The displays in the vitrines outside the Music Hall which show the Rockette and ballet company figures behind the actors are the same ones that were used for the stage show with Scrooge. And I only saw this decades after The Godfather came out not having seen it originally.
I know, I know, who cares. Well it did bring back memories.
Myron, both films opened at RCMH first run, but “premiered” elsewhere.
I am curious if these 2 feature films premiered at RCMH. Darling Lili with Julie Andrews and Interrupted Melody with Eleanor Parker. Thanks.