Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
116 people
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Frederic Kellers, who was Vice President of House Operations for the Hall, and involved with the film selection, told me that the most complaints they ever received about a film were about “Charade” particularly as a Christmas show. He said the most mentioned scene was where James Coburn takes out a pin and stabs the corpse of Hepburn’s husband while it is lying in state in the church.
Vincent, I agree with you about “Charade” as the Christmas show. I like it and all, but some of those murders were pretty gruesome for their time. I’m surprised the Music Hall made that choice, but they did love to show Audrey Hepburn films.
According to Ben Olevsky, the Hall ran the pre-Christmas run of “White Christmas” in horizontal VistaVision with the track run interlocked on one of the four projectors in the booth. (The VistaVision projectors were put on either side of the booth in the slide projector/effect spots openings. This created a sound problem, since those rooms also contained follow spots, and there was no glass in the ports. They put Duveteen over the openings which was used to cut down the noise. According to Ben, you could hear the machines running as you came up to the booth on the Executive elevator when it reached the First Mezzanine! He didn’t mention the sound being Perspecta, although I had Perspecta schematics in my filing cabinet, and some perspecta test reels. It probably was used for MGM releases at the time rather than “White Christmas”. Since the VistaVision heads were put together in very little time, the intermittents which were running at double speed (180'/minute)took a beating, and Ben said Larry Davee from Century was in almost every day with a replacement. The machines were removed at the end of the “White Christmas” run. According to Theo Gluck of Disney in a paper he wrote on wide screen processes there is some evidence to suggest that horizontal VistaVision prints (including some Hitchcock pictures) were run in London after we had stopped using the machines here in the States for theatrical exhibition.
I’d hardly single out Moon Pilot as an early contributor to the Music Halls downfall simply because it was a so so picture(it’s very pleasant in its own way though it’s not what you want it to be) but the stage show pictures I’ve seen look great and after all the Hall chose Green Mansions as the Easter film a few years before so you could probably go back to that. Also what in the world was Charade doing as a Christmas film?
I don’t think I ever heard of “Moon Pilot”, I have to look that one up.
Vincent, I believe the new regime (Dore Schary) at MGM wanted to bring prestige to their new policy of low-budget “message” pictures, so “The Next Voice You Hear” was the kickoff. It also played the lower half of double bills soon after. Except for “Sunset Boulevard” and “King Solomon’s MInes,” 1950 had such notable bombs as “A Woman of Distinction,” and “No Sad Songs for Me.”
The Father of the Bride was fine. The Music Hall mystery of all time was the Nancy Reagan film that followed it.
Warren, speaking of logical bookings, it would have seemed appropriate for the Hall to book “Annie Get Your Gun” (which went to Loew’s State rather than “Father of the Bride.”(although it was a hit there for 6 weeks. Go figure.
They only used VistaVision for large format (horizontal Eastmancolor eight sprocket prints) from 1954-1956. Among the last films to be shown in that format were “The Ten Commandments” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. All Paramount VistaVision films contained the Perspecta encoding which generated directional sound between three speakers behind the screen but no surround. The exception was “The Ten Commandments” which did have a magnetic stereo mix. I don’t believe any other VV title had a stereo mix other that this film.
Curiously, some of the Hitchcock titles were released in Perspecta
sound include the above mentioned “MWHTM” as well as “To Catch a Thief” and “The Trouble with Harry”. When Hitchcock was involved with the Perspecta encoding is unknown since he never mentioned it in any of his interviews. I did hear original 35mm Technicolor reels of Harry and Thief and they definately had the encoding although it wasn’t used too much. On the thief reel, the only section that used the directional sound was when they were driving around the hills in the car. Otherwise, everything came out of the center speaker. Harry only had music cues on the other speakers. The dialogue was center channel. In comparison the Perspecta prints of Universal’s “This Island Earth” were very lively with sound bouncing around the front three speakers at different volume.
Very few cinemas were actually set up for horizontal VV projection.
It was noticed early on that it generated a dramatically sharper
reduction print in 1.85. One of the problems theaters were having is that when they took standard flat 1.33 movies and artifically
made them into ‘widescreen’ by cropping the top and bottom of the frame and enlarging them (i.e. “Shame”), the image fell apart and became grainy. VistaVision addressed this problem and the Technicolor or B&W print downs generated an ultra sharp and grain free image when enlarged in this fashion. VistaVision negatives were also A&B rolled so that the optical effects like fades and dissolves were the same first generation as the rest of the film. In contrast, CinemaScope films had extremelly grainy and contrasty opticals on dupe stock.
I would classify VistaVision as the best of the ‘cropped’ widescreen processes. Much better than conventional 1.85 or SuperScope. Unfortunately, it was phased out in the sixties along with most of the other technology introduced in the sixties with the exception of 70mm and Panavision. Now only Panavision is left which is certainly better than CinemaScope (less distortion in the anamorphic lenses) but no match for the large format systems. I guess technically SuperScope is still around too although it’s now called “Super 35”.
Perhaps REndres can answer the question about VistaVision. I have always wondered what the history of that process was. I recall Century projector did not have enough time to build the complete projector, and supplied only the picture head for “White Christmas” so the sound had to be interlocked on a second projector. How true is that story, was a perspecta(s)optical sound format used? and how long did RCMH project actual VistaVision before switching to the reduction prints.Lastly, I believe the line up of the five projectors is, #1 and #5 are Simplex XL 35mm projectors with RCA Photophone sound heads, and #2 #3 and #4 are Simplex 35/70 with penthouse Dolby Digital sound reproducers mouted above the magnetic penthouse. Educate us please.
The most impressive shows I saw at RCMH were the special event presentations after they stopped screening first run fare.
I saw “Napoleon” with the live orchestra and triptych sequence and
“A Star is Born” in Technicolor, CinemaScope and magnetic stereo sound with the extra scenes spliced into the print.
When I was very young my family took me there three times in 1966.
The theater was impressive as were the stage shows but unfortunately, the movies I saw were bad. “The Singing Nun”, “The Glass Bottom Boat” and “Inside Daisy Clover”. I saw the last official release, “Crossed Swords” and that was medicore too. I wish I had seen some of the good pictures they played there over the years. Just my bad luck attending turkeys.
In terms of the projection booth, I believe I read that they installed the lazy 8 horizontal projectors for “White Christmas” but later removed them when VistaVision was used to generate a finer grain reduction print in 1.85 Technicolor rather than using it to project a horizontal Eastmancolor print.
70mm projectors were installed for “Airport” at the director’s request. They later had a 70mm festival at the Hall and showed
“Gone with the Wind” and others in that format. I wish I had attended them.
Although “Gone with the Wind” looked awful in it’s pan/scan blow up print, it was a smash hit in that format and revived several times including a playdate at the Rivoli in 70mm. They didn’t derive it from the 3 strip B&W negative or a Technicolor print. They made a color Interpositive from the seps, then pan scanned it by cropping the tops and bottoms of the color IN and enlarging that part of the frame to 65mm.
3-D would not have been appropriate for RCMH since the distance to the screen would’ve required a lot more luminance from the lamphouse to compensate for the loss of light from polarization. They also would’ve had to install an enormous custom made silver screen. The trouble with silver screens is they lose gain from balconies and from off center seating. The place is too big for so many people to have seen it properly.
The reason RCMH and many Roadshow large screen houses folded in the seventies was the lack of quality mainstream product. After the demise of the production code in 1968, more and more restricted films were released each year. By 1980 there were more R rated films than PG which posed a problem for large theaters that needed general audiences to fill their seats.
Does anyone know if I’ll See You in My Dreams was in color. I remember seeing it a long time ago on TV and thinking that it was a really good choice for a Christmas film except for the fact that it was in B and W but I might have seen it on a black and white TV. It seems odd that the Hall which only had shown color films for Christmas since ‘46 would then in 51 pick a black and white one. The black and white '61 Easter show was even more surprising. Though in and of themselves the films were good choices they both would have been better if they had been filmed in color and considering when they were made the choice to save money on color seems pretty strange(though in the case of Professor this might have been due to the special effects.)
This seems to have been the case until the mid 60’s when road show fever took over. Fall ‘61 had Flower Drum Song, '62 had Gypsy and '64 had Mary Poppins. From this point on except for Bullitt the autumn bookings were pretty poor. The summer bookings held up though until 71 when what once was one of the most profitable times of the year became a wasteland.
Look at the opening day ads for the Music Hall during the late 1940s and 1950s and you’ll see at the bottom: Special Pre-release engagement. Getting a Music Hall date was so prestigious that many films would get booked there well before their carefully scheduled general release. The major Christmas release would often play the Hall in October such as “An American in Paris,” “White Christmas.”
Also in ‘52, “The Greatest Show on Earth” opened early at RCMH (10 Jan), but didn’t reach the Loew’s nabes until mid-August. Admittedly, it ran for eleven weeks after opening, but an interval of more than four months seems a bit long for its wider circulation. '52 was a dismal, often wild-card year for Hollywood films, as Warren has remarked elsewhere. But it’s fascinating to study for that very reason.
Right— As for “Shane,” I believe that it had been finished early in ‘52, a full year before its release. If it could sit in the cans that long before being shown, it could surely wait a few weeks before jumping into the neighborhood circuit.
Odder delays occurred. “The Glass Menagerie” opened at RCMH in Sept ‘50, but took until mid-Feb '51 to reach the Loew’s circuit. At that, it received second billing to a Van Johnson-Kathryn Grayson frolic, “Grounds for Marriage.” Oddly too, “Menagerie” was released by Warner Bros, whose product always went to the RKO nabes. Were the circuits experimenting with distribution in the wake of the studio breakup decision? Or was “Menagerie” perceived as a huge flop? Gertrude Lawrence, where are you when we need you?
“Ivanhoe” opened at RCMH in August ‘52, but did not reach the Loew’s neighborhood chain until Easter '53. Did RCMH have such pre-release privileges? Was Loew’s trying to build anticipation for its expensive wares? Was the picture thought to be disappointing, so that by holding it back people might forget the tepid reviews? “Ivanhoe” played at RCMH for eight peak weeks in '52 (31 July-24 Sept, and kids like me loved it: there could have been worse ways to be introduced to the twelfth century.
Warren, I believe the faster release of “Young Bess” was prompted by the current interest in the coronation of the Queen as seen with the great success of “A Queen is Crowned” documentary.
Yes, this database is sensational. If you have on-line access to a research library collection, it’s terrific.
Some institutions allow library membership privileges for a fee that may well be worthwhile for access to the rest of the collection. And when Stanford, NYPL, and other institutions collaborate for complete on-line access to all their non-copyrighted collections, we’ll all have a blast. Meanwhile, I enjoy fingering hard-copy library materials. At my library, back issues of Variety are still the original paper product.
Meanwhile, what’s this got to do with RCMH? At midnight last night when I tested out ProQuest on line, I looked up the review of “Shane” at RCMH on 24 April ‘53 (it’s already reprinted in the “NYT Directory of Film” and in the paperback “NYT Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made,” ed. Vincent Canby and Janet Maslin). It includes a notice of the stage show, “a musical review in a Latin mood,” excised from the above. I printed out the page (you can do that, too, though you’ll need a magnifying glass to read it: the one that comes with the OED Dictionary works just fine). There’s a notice next to the stage listings (Danny Kaye at the Palace, Patricia Neal and Kim Hunter in “The Children’s Hour” at the Coronet) that Jascha Heifetz was recovering from an attack “on the right hand by a youth wielding an iron bar. The attack apparently was made because of Mr. Heifetz’s insistence on playing German music, despite threats.” Life imitates art?
Links, please!
Whoa— I take back that comment about accessing previous pages on ProQuest Historical Newspapers: you can do that, and you can access subsequent pages as well. There’s a button at the top of the Page Image that allows you to range through the entire issue. This is great. Thanks again, Benjamin.
Benjamin— Yes, it works.
I went to a university on-line catalogue, then to databases, then to ProQuest Historical Newspapers, then to a hypothetical article based on the release date of a film, then to its review by Crowther, then to full page.
It’s a shame, though, that we can’t access contiguous pages to gather further ads printed on them. Still, it gives us at least a page from the past sans microfilm. I would never have thought of the clever tip you provided. Thanks for sharing it.
Re: accessing old issues of the “New York Times” for info on movies and movie theaters
Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t realize that there is something much, much better than either a) the online archive of the “New York Times” or b) microfilm/microfiche. Apparently university libraries subscribe to online database services which allow the user to not only search a publication like the “New York Times” using keywords in a search engine, but also allow the user to view a) an online photograph (a pdf file?) of the article and/or b) an online photograph of the entire page of the newspaper (including the advertisements).
The first time I ever used such an online database was to look up the article that Warren mentioned in his Feb 6th post on Radio City Music Hall’s underground box office. By typing in “Radio City Music Hall” and specifying the date of the article (12/18/40), I was able to access a photograph of the the original article within seconds! (You can also specific a date range, rather than just a specific date.) If you select “page view,” you get to see not only the article itself, but the advertisements surrounding them.
I’ve since used the database to look up articles and advertisements about the Loew’s “Wonder” Theaters (was able to view the advertisements that listed the “Wonder” theaters, what they were showing and the show times); the original “Lindy’s” restaurant (which, apparently, was next door to the Rivoli); the theater where the original production of the Broadway musical “Gypsy” opened (it was the Broadway, which had been a movie theater, the B.S. Moss Colony); etc.
I assume all university libraries subscribe to this database, called “Proquest,” but don’t know if public research libraries, like the research division of the New York Public Library, do also — but would imagine that they do. (If they do, I suspect you have to access them at the actual library — not over the internet.)
It’s still not clear to me what a database company like “Proquest” does/is, but this is the tentative understanding I got after speaking to the librarian (and another one, later):
A company, like “Proquest,” contracts with a publication, like the “Times,” to photograph all of its issues between certain dates. (“Proquest” has the rights to issues of the “Times” between 1851 and 2001.) I think the company then photographs (pdf?) all the pages that have been published between those dates — or maybe they use existing microfiche?). The company develops software that allows a computer to search through the images for certain words in headlines or text. The company provides this package to libraries for a certain fee.
All in all, it sounds like an amazing undertaking and a wonderful service. (I’m just guessing that this is the way it is set-up, but would be interested in hearing the true story from anyone who knows.)
(Don’t know how many other publications are accessible this way, but “Proquest” also offers historical database searches for the “Chicago Tribune,” the “Los Angeles Times” and the “Washington Post.”)
P.S. — Although I’d seen these databases mentioned before, I had no idea what they were. I guess I thought that they were electronic equivalents of the old “Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature” — I didn’t think that you could also access the articles themselves (and the advertisements around them). A few weeks ago, a librarian gave me a more detailed look at what they could do when I mentioned that I was trying to find out the prices for things like movies in years gone by. He suggested the “Proquest” database as a way of indirectly accessing the advertisements in old issues of the “New York Times” (first you access an article on the entertainment page, and then you select page view to see the ads surrounding it).
Actually, it hasn’t been that helpful for my original purpose (the ads don’t seem to mention prices as much as I thought they would), but it seems to me to be a tremendous research resource nevertheless.
veyoung— what an awful thing, that “constant width” that you mention. I never heard of it, but the words send a knife through me. At least RCMH never contemplated going that route, did it?
SimonL— I know of no web archive or site that offers Variety’s grosses, much less its reviews, articles, and other data.
Variety.com charges an annual subscription rate of $259 for access to its on-line archives— whew, no thanks, can’t go there.
The NY Times on-line archive charges $2.95 per article (or a reduced bulk rate of $25.95 for twenty-five articles)— um, no thanks, unless perhaps the article mentions me by name and I’m feeling vain enough to want it. You can get free previews of the first few lines of many articles. But I find that its key-word cataloguing is spotty.
So, for me (for now) archival work in a good library is the only possibility. Microfilms aren’t all that awkward to use, are they?
For rapid reference to release dates in NYC, I use the NY Times Directory of the Film (up to 1969), and then the NY Times Film Reviews (through 1982), and then Variety Film Reviews (1983-86). From there, I track down the specifics in relevant issues of the NY Times, Variety, or NY Herald Tribune (to its demise in ‘67).
Like the rest of us, I enjoy thumbing through “Marquee.” And I also like the journal “Theatre Catalog” (note the idiosyncratic spelling for this American publication!), which is chock full of data about projection, exhibition, and theater design, with swell pictures of the real stuff up to the mid-1960s.
One of the most enduring myths about widescreen/stereo sound presentation is that the horrid curses of mono sound and incorrect aspect ratios are something new. Not so. As early as December 1953, scarcely 3 months after The Robe premiered, some chains, notably Walter Reade, Jr. steadfastly refused to install stereo screen speakers or surrounds. Reade, in particular, used a “mixer” which mixed the output from the 4 mag tracks into one single signal which went on its way to the one single loudspeaker with no one being any wiser. Likewise, I distinctly remember as far back as 1954 being in a major theatre (Philadelphia, Stanton) with that god-awful “constant width” masking which rendered the anamorphic image actually smaller than the pre-Scope screen. Bad showmanship has been around for decades!