Some of Bergman’s best films opened in NYC within a period of three years or so: “Smiles of a Summer’s Night,†“The Seventh Seal,†“Wild Strawberries,†“The Magician,†and “The Virgin Spring.†The buzz about them was loud enough, but I remember that many movie-goers were still caught off-guard. I recall sitting in the Beekman at “Wild Strawberries†and over-hearing a middle-aged couple behind me mid-way through the film: Heâ€"“How long is this picture anyway?†Sheâ€"“And why hasn’t Ingrid Bergman come on yet?â€
I O.D.’d on these films pretty quickly, and was reaching the point of fatigue with “The Magician,†but that didn’t prevent me from scribbling all over my program all sorts of profound thoughts that I believed I’d found in the film. I remember seeing “The World of Apu†later that year at the Fifth Avenue Cinema. I’d already seen (or would soon see) “Pather Panchali†at the Thalia; but neither film made much of an impression on me then. Nearly thirty years later I would view all three films of the Apu trilogy in one sitting, when they finally hit me for what they are worth. The impact was staggering. For days afterward, I found it hard to concentrate on anything else.
“Birth of the Blues” opened on 10 December 1941, just a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The air raid drill that TC mentions must have been one of the first in those panicked days that followed. It’s an eerie and foreboding atmosphere. As the war effort took off, Times Square would become a lively venue for selling war bonds and for entertaining on-leave servicemen-and-women.
“Mexican Spitfire’s Baby”! Lupe Velez! Leon Errol! Buddy Rogers! Zazu Pitts! Not only what many consider to be the greatest movie of all, but as part of a double feature that I imagine has to have been the greatest double feature of all! An inspired pairing—I never knew that it happened that way.
Michael Coate— Thanks. “A Dream Trip under White Sails”—sounds as though it were competing with “Windjammer” as well. This one completely slipped under my radar. It must have been the very last Cinerama-style travelogue, no?
RobertR: “Mediterranean Holiday”: I don’t remember that one at all. Since “Anatomy of a Marriage” had opened in Oct. ‘64, the Cinerama film must have followed in its wake, no? Was it a wholly new Cinerama production? or was it a compilation of travelogue scenes from “This is C” (the Spanish bullfight), “C Holiday” (Monaco), and “Seven Wonders of the World” (Egypt, Istanbul, Greece)?
lostmemory: The ad for “Mockingbird” from the New Yorker is appropriate, since during its run at RCMH all NYC newspapers were on strike and there is no record of newspaper ads for it. My post on “Mockingbird” will follow in a couple of weeks.
RobertR: That ad for “Father Goose” (Christmas ‘64, not '66) must have been printed in late January '65. When RCMH held over its Christmas film past mid-Jan., it dropped the Nativity section from its stage show (while unseasonably retaining the rest). The bit of “Marriage Italian Style” at the bottom of your post portends RCMH’s bookings of Sophia Loren’s next three films: “Operation Crossbow,” “Judith,” and “Arabesque” (and of “Sunflower” later on).
Warren: That’s a highly stylized trade ad from Dazian’s!
Compare the photo that I posted above last 18 April (from “Marquee” 2.3 [1979]: 16, depicting the Fred Waring stage show with “Wilson” in ‘44): the frame for the valance is inverted, the valance swags differ in number (three vs. two) and drape, and the choral stairways remain yet uncovered.
My memory of the Roxy from the late ‘40s is hazy, but the photo bears out most of it. Did Dazan keep adding and adjusting drapery until it swathed the entire proscenium? It’s hard to imagine the theater would have kept the same dusty drapes in place from '39 to '52. A visit to the Roxy would have brought on an allergy attack.
That’s a great photo of today’s Steinway and 28th Street. I recently circumnavigated the neighborhood looking for the great Titan Greek Supermarket, all the while wondering where the Triboro had once stood. This block of rowhouses would never have occured to me as the location.
yes, yes, exactly—these photos are great, from the aerial view of the street corner showing the two marquees, to the view of the audio=torium from up-front and rear. But no photo can capture the dusky glow of the house while a film was showing. It had marvelous lighting.
wow—if Gae’s girls weren’t balancing themselves on bouncing balls, they were perched on precarious pinnacles. RCMH’s Rockettes led a comparatively risk-free existence.
That’s a terrific image of the Casino! I don’t recognize the films, “Confess, Dr. Korda” and “Monpii(?),” but they are typical of the fare there in ‘63. I saw Gustav Grundgens’s “Faust” there around that time. Shortly afterwards (mid-'60s, no?) the theater was modernized and switched to current Hollywood product, first playing subsequent runs to the RKO and Loew’s houses on the other side of the block, and then joining one or another of the Showcase presentations for first-run offerings. I’d practically forgotten the steps up to the auditorium, and even the Tuxedo Ballroom next door. Across the street, above the Automat next to Loew’s, was a fencing studio where you could study (and practice) your swordsmanship. Colorful neighborhood. Thanks for the picture!
Here’s a Program from March ‘67. If you want to read the fine print, after you click on the URL you must click the image itself so that it enlarges on your screen. I’m sorry that a print-out won’t be so clear.
At the time, I was pursuing the shelf-contents through a trail of libraries that stretched from Morningside Heights to Washington Square. One balmy Spring morning, bound on the subway toward the NYPL, I alighted at 50 Street intending to walk eastwards to Fifth and then down that sunny avenue to 42 Street. Compulsion drove me to the box-office of RCMH and then into the theater’s deep, dark recesses for the day’s first show.
I hadn’t particularly wanted to see the film or the stage review (it proved to be the last Easter show I’d see there), but once inside, I fell under their spell. In addition to the cathedral pageant, the live production offered the theater’s classic Cherry Blossom ballet and a fabulous rainstorm-water finale. That afternoon, having greeted the Twin Lions and become deeply immersed in decipherment, I couldn’t erase the energizing glow from the morning’s entertainment. I had played hooky for a few hours, but the pay-back more than made up for it. It had been a great show.
That’s a wonderful program! “Anna” received a big distribution in (was it?) ‘54 when it had been dubbed and circulated across the RKO nabes circuit. I remember seeing it at the RKO Dyker, against my parents’ wishes (“All those Italian films are immoral”—that about the land of the popes). I told them I was going to the Alpine to see “I Love Melvin,” or something like it, but went to the steamy Dyker instead. Hot stuff. A clip from it surfaced in “Cinema Paradiso” decades later, suggesting that it was a big hit in the papal territories as well. By the time “Umberto D” came to Brooklyn (to the venerable Astor on Flatbush Avenue), I was in h.s. and a regular patron of that theater.
That “Someone” was Warren, whose comprehensive knowledge, research skills, and pitch-perfect accuracy are legendary on these pages, and his list appeared on 25 Feb ‘05 above.
Warren: you’re up to ‘45 now; bring us to '53, and then from '56 to closing. Finally: pre-'41? Would that be saving the best till last?
Like Benjamin, I find a teasing hint of the Paramount in Knef’s description: for me, it’s the reference to flower boxes, which the Paramount had and prominently displayed every Spring in its annual “flower show” (which usually extended over the season through the runs of several films). But there were no chorus girls at the Paramount, nor at the Strand or Capitol. In any case, any of those three were more raucous than the Roxy. Still, the Roxy had the dancing Roxyettes. Did Carl Ravazza croon Spanish songs? Knef changed her name to Neff and did a few films for 20C-Fox, no? That connection points to the Roxy. For me, that’s ‘nuf about Neff.
“Black Orpheus†was a huge hit with college kids who knew enough of the Greek myth to be able to trace the lines of telling and retelling in its modernized Brazilian setting. It was perhaps even more of a hit with cinephiles who could compare it with Jean Cocteau’s symbolist-Orphic trilogy. Though I liked Cocteau’s versions, my friends persuaded me that Camus’s film was more kinetic, more hip, and certainly more musically thrilling than any of his.
I carried the message back to campus, and when the film moved from the Plaza to the Apollo on 42 Street a few months later, I organized a bunch of students who’d never seen a sub-titled film to accompany me. I think it was on Good Friday evening, and it changed more than a few lives by winning converts to the religion of foreign film. The picture’s AA for Best Foreign Film of the Year that Spring seemed to validate the effort.
Ron— That report, available on the page for the Camelback Cinema in Scottsdale AZ on this site, reeks of greed. It’s scandalous. Tisk-tisk, Tisch Tisch.
Warren— Thanks again for your continued efforts to chronicle the Roxy’s presentations. It’s a list I’ve long wanted to compile myself but never found time to do properly.
CConnolly— I wonder whether such 20C-Fox films as “Gentlemen’s Agreement” played at the Mayfair or Rivoli (or sometimes Astor [“Three Came Home,” “Fourteen Hours], Globe ["Don’t BOther to Knock], or Loew’s State ["Seven Year Itch]) because of the possibility for longer runs (three weeks and upwards) that might enable word-of-mouth to build and spread.
The Roxy generally moved its product every two or three weeks because, as Warren implied, the stage-show format with headline performers required definite time commitments from them. (RCMH had the freedom to let the Rockettes kick up a given routine for as many weeks as it pleased; the entr'acte acrobats and magicians could be exchanged and substituted if necessary.) Films that played at the Rivoli, Mayfair, or elsewhere could run as long or as briefly as the crowds mandated. Adult content probably had little to do with the selection.
I remember seeing “Gentlemen’s Agreement” during its nabe run at the RKO Dyker; I was five years old. I also remember the opprobrium that attached to “Forever Amber,” which opened at the Roxy that year. One of my aunts defied the Church and saw it; she also read the book. I was always fascinated by the books she read, and tried to read them, too. The nuns cluck-clucked at me.
Here’s a Program from August ‘67. If you want to read the fine print, after you click on the URL you must click the image itself so that it enlarges on your screen. I’m sorry that a print-out won’t be so clear.
This show had broken RCMH’s box-office records to date and so, in the last days of its twelve-week run, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. The exuberance of both the screen and stage fare pulverized my skepticismâ€"it provided a real bounce, a spirited lift-me-up, a tiramisù. Iris Bala was a soprano with the NY City Opera, and the Alcettys composed a German acrobat team, but it was the athleticism of the Cowboy Balletâ€"a fleet and funny crowd pleaserâ€"that really wowed me. Great stuff.
It’s a nice touch that Programs in the late ‘60s provided the name of the Head Projectionist, a detail that I don’t recall from those of earlier or subsequent periods.
There were lots of adult films that glittering holiday season, the first after WWII. The Astor had “Spellbound†and the Rivoli opened “Lost Weekend.†Even “They Were Expendable†at the Capitol (with Tommy Dorsey on stage) proved adult fare. The Globe and the Palace offered films noirs (“Johnny Angel†and “Corneredâ€), pictures perhaps more suited than Father Bing’s to “The Godfather†couple who attended RCMH.
The ever-petulant Bosley Crowther began his review for “Leave Her to Heaven†with the complaint that it was “an inauspicious moment†for such “a piece of cheap fiction†(the review gets worse: poor BC!). The ad in the NYT for “The Enchanted Forest†at the Victoria quotes BC’s praise for it as “the only real film for the kiddies this year.†Here’s the page from the NYT:
Here’s a Showbill program from the Fifth Avenue Cinema in March, 1960:
View link
View link
Some of Bergman’s best films opened in NYC within a period of three years or so: “Smiles of a Summer’s Night,†“The Seventh Seal,†“Wild Strawberries,†“The Magician,†and “The Virgin Spring.†The buzz about them was loud enough, but I remember that many movie-goers were still caught off-guard. I recall sitting in the Beekman at “Wild Strawberries†and over-hearing a middle-aged couple behind me mid-way through the film: Heâ€"“How long is this picture anyway?†Sheâ€"“And why hasn’t Ingrid Bergman come on yet?â€
I O.D.’d on these films pretty quickly, and was reaching the point of fatigue with “The Magician,†but that didn’t prevent me from scribbling all over my program all sorts of profound thoughts that I believed I’d found in the film. I remember seeing “The World of Apu†later that year at the Fifth Avenue Cinema. I’d already seen (or would soon see) “Pather Panchali†at the Thalia; but neither film made much of an impression on me then. Nearly thirty years later I would view all three films of the Apu trilogy in one sitting, when they finally hit me for what they are worth. The impact was staggering. For days afterward, I found it hard to concentrate on anything else.
“Birth of the Blues” opened on 10 December 1941, just a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The air raid drill that TC mentions must have been one of the first in those panicked days that followed. It’s an eerie and foreboding atmosphere. As the war effort took off, Times Square would become a lively venue for selling war bonds and for entertaining on-leave servicemen-and-women.
“Mexican Spitfire’s Baby”! Lupe Velez! Leon Errol! Buddy Rogers! Zazu Pitts! Not only what many consider to be the greatest movie of all, but as part of a double feature that I imagine has to have been the greatest double feature of all! An inspired pairing—I never knew that it happened that way.
Michael Coate— Thanks. “A Dream Trip under White Sails”—sounds as though it were competing with “Windjammer” as well. This one completely slipped under my radar. It must have been the very last Cinerama-style travelogue, no?
Warren: That’s a great image of the original State. Source?
RobertR: “Mediterranean Holiday”: I don’t remember that one at all. Since “Anatomy of a Marriage” had opened in Oct. ‘64, the Cinerama film must have followed in its wake, no? Was it a wholly new Cinerama production? or was it a compilation of travelogue scenes from “This is C” (the Spanish bullfight), “C Holiday” (Monaco), and “Seven Wonders of the World” (Egypt, Istanbul, Greece)?
lostmemory: The ad for “Mockingbird” from the New Yorker is appropriate, since during its run at RCMH all NYC newspapers were on strike and there is no record of newspaper ads for it. My post on “Mockingbird” will follow in a couple of weeks.
RobertR: That ad for “Father Goose” (Christmas ‘64, not '66) must have been printed in late January '65. When RCMH held over its Christmas film past mid-Jan., it dropped the Nativity section from its stage show (while unseasonably retaining the rest). The bit of “Marriage Italian Style” at the bottom of your post portends RCMH’s bookings of Sophia Loren’s next three films: “Operation Crossbow,” “Judith,” and “Arabesque” (and of “Sunflower” later on).
Warren: That’s a highly stylized trade ad from Dazian’s!
Compare the photo that I posted above last 18 April (from “Marquee” 2.3 [1979]: 16, depicting the Fred Waring stage show with “Wilson” in ‘44): the frame for the valance is inverted, the valance swags differ in number (three vs. two) and drape, and the choral stairways remain yet uncovered.
My memory of the Roxy from the late ‘40s is hazy, but the photo bears out most of it. Did Dazan keep adding and adjusting drapery until it swathed the entire proscenium? It’s hard to imagine the theater would have kept the same dusty drapes in place from '39 to '52. A visit to the Roxy would have brought on an allergy attack.
“Stage show direct from the Capitol”: I like that: a subway series.
Great photo, Warren— your post of 14 March ‘04 explains the modernization.
Yes, “Monpti” as “Mon petit” makes all the sense in the world (though I don’t recall the film). I had misread the correct title.
That’s a great photo of today’s Steinway and 28th Street. I recently circumnavigated the neighborhood looking for the great Titan Greek Supermarket, all the while wondering where the Triboro had once stood. This block of rowhouses would never have occured to me as the location.
yes, yes, exactly—these photos are great, from the aerial view of the street corner showing the two marquees, to the view of the audio=torium from up-front and rear. But no photo can capture the dusky glow of the house while a film was showing. It had marvelous lighting.
wow—if Gae’s girls weren’t balancing themselves on bouncing balls, they were perched on precarious pinnacles. RCMH’s Rockettes led a comparatively risk-free existence.
That’s a terrific image of the Casino! I don’t recognize the films, “Confess, Dr. Korda” and “Monpii(?),” but they are typical of the fare there in ‘63. I saw Gustav Grundgens’s “Faust” there around that time. Shortly afterwards (mid-'60s, no?) the theater was modernized and switched to current Hollywood product, first playing subsequent runs to the RKO and Loew’s houses on the other side of the block, and then joining one or another of the Showcase presentations for first-run offerings. I’d practically forgotten the steps up to the auditorium, and even the Tuxedo Ballroom next door. Across the street, above the Automat next to Loew’s, was a fencing studio where you could study (and practice) your swordsmanship. Colorful neighborhood. Thanks for the picture!
Here’s a Program from March ‘67. If you want to read the fine print, after you click on the URL you must click the image itself so that it enlarges on your screen. I’m sorry that a print-out won’t be so clear.
View link
View link
At the time, I was pursuing the shelf-contents through a trail of libraries that stretched from Morningside Heights to Washington Square. One balmy Spring morning, bound on the subway toward the NYPL, I alighted at 50 Street intending to walk eastwards to Fifth and then down that sunny avenue to 42 Street. Compulsion drove me to the box-office of RCMH and then into the theater’s deep, dark recesses for the day’s first show.
I hadn’t particularly wanted to see the film or the stage review (it proved to be the last Easter show I’d see there), but once inside, I fell under their spell. In addition to the cathedral pageant, the live production offered the theater’s classic Cherry Blossom ballet and a fabulous rainstorm-water finale. That afternoon, having greeted the Twin Lions and become deeply immersed in decipherment, I couldn’t erase the energizing glow from the morning’s entertainment. I had played hooky for a few hours, but the pay-back more than made up for it. It had been a great show.
That’s a wonderful program! “Anna” received a big distribution in (was it?) ‘54 when it had been dubbed and circulated across the RKO nabes circuit. I remember seeing it at the RKO Dyker, against my parents’ wishes (“All those Italian films are immoral”—that about the land of the popes). I told them I was going to the Alpine to see “I Love Melvin,” or something like it, but went to the steamy Dyker instead. Hot stuff. A clip from it surfaced in “Cinema Paradiso” decades later, suggesting that it was a big hit in the papal territories as well. By the time “Umberto D” came to Brooklyn (to the venerable Astor on Flatbush Avenue), I was in h.s. and a regular patron of that theater.
That “Someone” was Warren, whose comprehensive knowledge, research skills, and pitch-perfect accuracy are legendary on these pages, and his list appeared on 25 Feb ‘05 above.
Warren: you’re up to ‘45 now; bring us to '53, and then from '56 to closing. Finally: pre-'41? Would that be saving the best till last?
Like Benjamin, I find a teasing hint of the Paramount in Knef’s description: for me, it’s the reference to flower boxes, which the Paramount had and prominently displayed every Spring in its annual “flower show” (which usually extended over the season through the runs of several films). But there were no chorus girls at the Paramount, nor at the Strand or Capitol. In any case, any of those three were more raucous than the Roxy. Still, the Roxy had the dancing Roxyettes. Did Carl Ravazza croon Spanish songs? Knef changed her name to Neff and did a few films for 20C-Fox, no? That connection points to the Roxy. For me, that’s ‘nuf about Neff.
Here’s a Showbill program from the Plaza in December, 1959:
View link
View link
“Black Orpheus†was a huge hit with college kids who knew enough of the Greek myth to be able to trace the lines of telling and retelling in its modernized Brazilian setting. It was perhaps even more of a hit with cinephiles who could compare it with Jean Cocteau’s symbolist-Orphic trilogy. Though I liked Cocteau’s versions, my friends persuaded me that Camus’s film was more kinetic, more hip, and certainly more musically thrilling than any of his.
I carried the message back to campus, and when the film moved from the Plaza to the Apollo on 42 Street a few months later, I organized a bunch of students who’d never seen a sub-titled film to accompany me. I think it was on Good Friday evening, and it changed more than a few lives by winning converts to the religion of foreign film. The picture’s AA for Best Foreign Film of the Year that Spring seemed to validate the effort.
Ron— That report, available on the page for the Camelback Cinema in Scottsdale AZ on this site, reeks of greed. It’s scandalous. Tisk-tisk, Tisch Tisch.
Warren— Thanks again for your continued efforts to chronicle the Roxy’s presentations. It’s a list I’ve long wanted to compile myself but never found time to do properly.
CConnolly— I wonder whether such 20C-Fox films as “Gentlemen’s Agreement” played at the Mayfair or Rivoli (or sometimes Astor [“Three Came Home,” “Fourteen Hours], Globe ["Don’t BOther to Knock], or Loew’s State ["Seven Year Itch]) because of the possibility for longer runs (three weeks and upwards) that might enable word-of-mouth to build and spread.
The Roxy generally moved its product every two or three weeks because, as Warren implied, the stage-show format with headline performers required definite time commitments from them. (RCMH had the freedom to let the Rockettes kick up a given routine for as many weeks as it pleased; the entr'acte acrobats and magicians could be exchanged and substituted if necessary.) Films that played at the Rivoli, Mayfair, or elsewhere could run as long or as briefly as the crowds mandated. Adult content probably had little to do with the selection.
I remember seeing “Gentlemen’s Agreement” during its nabe run at the RKO Dyker; I was five years old. I also remember the opprobrium that attached to “Forever Amber,” which opened at the Roxy that year. One of my aunts defied the Church and saw it; she also read the book. I was always fascinated by the books she read, and tried to read them, too. The nuns cluck-clucked at me.
Bill Huelbig— I missed seeing that one, there or anywhere. Over the next year, I’ll post on this site whatever I’ve got.
Here’s a Program from August ‘67. If you want to read the fine print, after you click on the URL you must click the image itself so that it enlarges on your screen. I’m sorry that a print-out won’t be so clear.
View link
View link
This show had broken RCMH’s box-office records to date and so, in the last days of its twelve-week run, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. The exuberance of both the screen and stage fare pulverized my skepticismâ€"it provided a real bounce, a spirited lift-me-up, a tiramisù. Iris Bala was a soprano with the NY City Opera, and the Alcettys composed a German acrobat team, but it was the athleticism of the Cowboy Balletâ€"a fleet and funny crowd pleaserâ€"that really wowed me. Great stuff.
It’s a nice touch that Programs in the late ‘60s provided the name of the Head Projectionist, a detail that I don’t recall from those of earlier or subsequent periods.
There were lots of adult films that glittering holiday season, the first after WWII. The Astor had “Spellbound†and the Rivoli opened “Lost Weekend.†Even “They Were Expendable†at the Capitol (with Tommy Dorsey on stage) proved adult fare. The Globe and the Palace offered films noirs (“Johnny Angel†and “Corneredâ€), pictures perhaps more suited than Father Bing’s to “The Godfather†couple who attended RCMH.
The ever-petulant Bosley Crowther began his review for “Leave Her to Heaven†with the complaint that it was “an inauspicious moment†for such “a piece of cheap fiction†(the review gets worse: poor BC!). The ad in the NYT for “The Enchanted Forest†at the Victoria quotes BC’s praise for it as “the only real film for the kiddies this year.†Here’s the page from the NYT:
View link
In 1957, the Christmas film at the Roxy was “Peyton Place,” a huge hit despite its adult material.