Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
118 people
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i saw the original at RCMH with daddy coppola conducting an orchestra. my question is: i have heard that there was another engagement sometime later – either with 3 projectors, or in single projector 70mm – that used a massive screen, presumably the widest possible inside the proscenium. is this true?
Re: airport 70mm. not in philadelphia. also, “napoleon,” also only 35mm in the city of cant-be-bothered-with-70mm-love. “airport” opened in philly in a 70mm-equipped house, but with an anamorphic 35mm print. “napoleon” opened in a 35mm-only house.
vince
***“Regarding the previous posts about "Airport” at RCMH, does anyone know what other theaters in the U.S. showed 70mm prints of this film. I’ve always heard there were very few. If you answer, please give your source."
Slightly off-topic, but you asked…
Initial March 1970 release: New York, Los Angeles, Kansas City, and, I believe, Chicago. Later that year as the release expanded: San Diego and San Francisco. I haven’t researched this beyond those cities, but I imagine most major cities ran a 70mm print.
OK, now it’s my turn to ask a question. Who saw “Napoleon” at Radio City? How many return engagements to New York City did it have?
Every December 8th (a Catholic holiday and my children had no school), I would take my young son and daughter to the Music Hall, stand on line in the often freezing weather, to give them the experience of a lifetime, the Christmas show. I did this throughout the 1960s and to this day my children share those memories with their children.
The movie theaters of yesteryear were truly glorious palaces, as important to us as the great palaces across the seas.
And if you saw Love Me or Leave Me in the summer of 55 you could go back to see Mister Roberts which followed. Has a greater heaven on earth ever existed?
I saw Napoleon there also with my dad in the 80’s.
I saw Napoleon there also with my dad in the 80’s.
oops, sorry, John, my husband (who was my date back then) reminds me that the year was 1955.
John Keating, your post brings back memories. I also saw Love Me or Leave Me at the Music Hall in May of 1953. The stage show was Ravel’s Bolero. I remember the it as if it were yesterday. Thanks for the memory!
Carmen Coppolla, usually credited as Carmine Coppola.
Pyrrhic victory \PIR-ik\, noun:
A victory achieved at great or excessive cost; a ruinous victory.
Example: Technically it was a victory for the British, who attacked the patriot fortifications — but a Pyrrhic victory if ever there was: out of 2,200 British soldiers 1,034 were killed or wounded, including one in nine of all the officers the British lost in the whole war.
I remember in the late 1980s/early 1990s going to see the Abel Gance’s “Napolean” at RCMH. Carmen Coppolla conducted a full ochestra if memory serves me correctly.
And I remember attending that same film series that ran in the summer of ‘97 that someone above mentioned. The only film I caught in that series was “The Blues Brothers,” but if memory serves me correctly that screening was very well attended.
I remember in the late 1980s/early 1990s going to see the Abel Gance’s “Napolean” at RCMH. Carmen Coppolla conducted a full ochestra if memory serves me correctly.
And I remember attending that same film series that ran in the summer of ‘97 that someone above mentioned. The only film I caught in that series was “The Blues Brothers,” but if memory serves me correctly that screening was very well attended.
The Music Hall’s survival is a Pyrrhic victory at best.
Vincent: I see your point. I assume you’re saying that the days of the Hall’s holding itself above the ordinary and only booking extraordinary (or merely family oriented) material is long gone. They do show a somewhat eclectic mix (Dora the Explorer, Yanni, Maroon 5). I guess if the price is right, anything goes. This place is now managed (owned?) by the same folks who manage the Garden so I assume their tastes are not exactly high end. But they probably want the most $$$$$.
I don’t know. It’s a mixed blessing at best. We get the Hall to stay open and used (which is good…) but at times it’s used by less than stellar stuff (which is bad…).
Which I am sure will utilize the Hall’s magnificent facilities with equal skill and flair.
CC I’m personally waiting for Playboy’s topless mud wrestling.
“Talk about selling your soul to the devil.”
Vincent: why do you say that? Ok, so it’s not your kind of music (for the record, it’s not mine either…) but the Hall is being used constantly. I work where I can see the Marquee every day and the sucker is booked every week. Thank God venues are being booked there from Yanni(!!!) to rap/hip-hop to mild rock (Maroon 5). It’s usage is what keeps the place vital.
Talk about selling your soul to the devil.
I recall seeing it at the 2nd run Stanley-Warner Orpheum in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, PA in late 1959. Maybe we were jaded, but it got a big laugh there. Even though not in VistaVision :)
Thanks for your reponses. I was hoping that those audiences in ‘59 always gave that a huge laugh as it’s a great joke and not at all subtle. So I guess Hitchcock was laughing to himself.
I don’t remember hearing any laughter or any audible signs of “getting it” re: the final scenes, during the many times I saw “North by Northwest” in my position as an usher.
I didn’t get it at the time, but I was an innocent 16 year…so innocent that I could sit on the second balcony and smoke cigarettes… Needles to say I am no longer an innocent and I haven’t had a cigarette in years. I don’t remember any tittering rippling through the great hall during phallic and sensual finale. I think the patrons didn’t get it.
Does anybody who saw North by Norwest at the Music Hall(perhaps multiple times?) remember if the final shot got a laugh? Or were the Music Hall patrons of the era too staid and conservative to get the joke(or if they did they kept it to themselves?)
From what I’ve seen of that website there is just a cursory nod to the Music Halls history as a presentation house solely for pr purposes. The current management seems to have done as much as possible to eradicate the Hall’s pre-1978 existence and has absolutely no interest in or sensitivity to its historical place in New York’s cultural life.
Sombody really needs to put together a book of photos from the Hall stage shows with a description of the perennials. The pictures for the most part from the souvenir books until the early 60’s contain photos which are fairly grainy and washed out. However I have seen color photos from as early as the 50’s in souvenir slides and reproduced in encyclopedias which give you a great sense of what these production numbers really looked like. Otherwise you are stuck with that book that came out on the Music Hall about 25 years ago which was sloppily edited with snapshot photos that did no justice to the great stage.
In the early 70’s the Hall had set up on 50th street color photos of old stage shows from a studio called Impact. They looked great. There must be quite a few of them somewhere. Anybody know what happened to them? If they were stored at the Hall I’m afraid that one of the dim bulbs that works there now would have thrown them out already.