RKO Warner Twin Theatre
1579 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
1579 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
41 people
favorited this theater
Showing 251 - 275 of 378 comments
There is an ad here for “Krakatoa East of Java” in Cinerama.
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When visting Macy’s you could buy fashions inspired by “Song of Norway”. Plus long before theatres took charge cards you could buy roadshow tickets for the RKO Cinerama and put them on your Macy’s charge.
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Here are pages from a souvenir program for the third Cinerama film, “Seven Wonders of the World.†It opened at the Warner on 10 April, 1956, displacing the second Cinerama film, “Cinerama Holiday,†which had run for over a year. By now the travelogue formula was becoming a bit pat, and it would meet serious and imaginative competition the following October when Michael Todd’s “Around the World in Eighty Days†opened at the Rivoli across the street two blocks to the north.
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I was surprised to find that Tay Garnett had a hand in the direction, less surprised to find that Andrew Marton did. Garnett’s career ended shortly afterwards with “Night Fighters.†Marton is perhaps best known for his work on the astonishing location sequences of the 1950 “King Solomon’s Mines.â€
According to this 1982 ad the re-release of the House of Wax played the Cinerama in 70mm.
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1957 “Search for Paradise"
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Casablanca was a Thanksgiving release that played at the Hollywood for ten weeks going right through Christmas and New Year and then moving to the Strand for another five weeks. Even at that, five weeks was a long run for the Strand though the Hollywood generally held movies for much longer.
Warren, I thought of that too, but on the Hollywood page, a poster refers to that engagement of Casablanca as a pre-release engagement. Perhaps it did move over to the Strand.
In his Memoirs, famed playwright Tennessee Williams wrote amusingly of working as an usher at the Strand in 1943:
“A friend was employed in 1943 at the old Strand Theatre on Broadway as an usher, and, knowing that I was between profitable engagements, he told me that the Strand was in need of a new usher and that I might get the job provided I fit the uniform of my predecessor. Luckily it happened that this former usher was about my height and of similar build. I was put on the job. The attraction at the Strand was that World War II classic, Casablanca, which was an early starring vehicle for Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, both hot as blazes; the cast also included that fabulously charismatic ‘Fat Man,’ Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre and Paul Henreid, and there was Dooley Wilson playing and singing that immortal oldie, ‘As Time Goes By.’ In those days, with an attraction like that, the movie houses of Broadway were literally mobbed and aisles had to be roped off by the ushers to restrain the patrons till they could be seated. It was my job, at first, to guard the entrance to one of these aisles, and at an evening performance an enormously fat lady broke through the velvet rope and started to charge down the aisle, evidently intending to occupy a seat on the screen, and when I attempted to restrain her, she struck me over the head with a handbag that seemed to contain gold bricks. The next thing I remember I was still employed at the Strand but I was now situated near the entrance, in a spot of light, and directing traffic with white-gloved hands. ‘This way, ladies and gentlemen, this way, please,’ and ‘There will be a short wait for all seats.’ And somehow, during the several months' run of Casablanca, I was always able to catch Dooley Wilson and ‘As Time Goes By.’
“The pay was seventeen dollars a week, which covered my room at the ‘Y’ and left me seven dollars for meals. And I loved it…”
Thanks for the tip, BobT.
Warren—
Yes. I read that ad differently to imply that O and J actually performed in it. Caveat lector emptorque! I wonder how many were fooled by the wording. The next time I’ve got access to Variety in the library, I’ll check the house review for that stage show to see just what it offered.
Last 26 March above, I commented on the Strand’s presentation of recently-closed B'way musicals in abridged versions during that Fall of ‘49. On 30 September '49, with Gary Cooper in “Task Force” on screen, it staged “with a cast of forty” a version of “High Button Shoes,” which Phil Silvers had starred in at the Winter Garden the previous season. On 20 October '49, with Bette Davis in “Beyond the Forest” on screen, it brought in the just-closed review “Make Mine Manhattan,” with another “cast of forty.” I wonder how many of these forty cast-members were in-house Strand performers and how many were veterans of the original productions? And how many of the sets were hold-overs from the legits?
Warren—
Yes. I read that ad differently to imply that O and J actually performed in it. Caveat lector emptorque! I wonder how many were fooled by the wording. The next time I’ve got access to Variety in the library, I’ll check the house review for that stage show to see just what it offered.
Last 26 March above, I commented on the Strand’s presentation of recently-closed B'way musicals in abridged versions during that Fall of ‘49. On 30 September '49, with Gary Cooper in “Task Force” on screen, it staged “with a cast of forty” a version of “High Button Shoes,” which Phil Silvers had starred in at the Winter Garden the previous season. On 20 October '49, with Bette Davis in “Beyond the Forest” on screen, it brought in the just-closed review “Make Mine Manhattan,” with another “cast of forty.” I wonder how many of these forty cast-members were in-house Strand performers and how many were veterans of the original productions? And how many of the sets were hold-overs from the legits?
Which theatre worked better as a twin the Strand/Warner/Cinerama or Loew’s State? How did the downstair theatres compare and the balcony theatres? brucec
With Shirley Temple, Barry Fitzgerald, and Lon McAllister holding the screen in “The Story of Seabiscuit,†the Strand’s stage show was Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson’s “Laffz-a-poppin of 1949,†a review that had toured nationally with “Forty Mad Merrymakers … and a Glamour Chorus of Dancing De-Lovelys.†Its young male singer was Bill Hayes, who went on to strike several hit singles in the ‘50s (notably Disney’s “Song of Davy Crockettâ€) and then to act for thirty-four years as “Doug Williams†on TV’s “Days of Our Lives.†His songs in “Laffz-a-poppin†included “It’s a Big, Wide, Wonderful World†and “Brazil.â€
Here, from Hayes’s website, is the singer-actor’s description of Olsen and Johnson’s “old-fashioned vaudeville/burlesque-style showâ€: “All the very broad comedy centered around Chic and Ole, using endless props and funny costumes, stooges, outrageous puns, crossovers and hilarious sight gags. No profanity or smut, just silly, home-spun Midwestern humor. The female lead was Chic’s daughter June Johnson. The craziest stooge was Ole’s son J. C. Olsen. Marty May, husband of June Johnson, did his Palace Theatre act and worked in all the sketches. Stooges included six Eastern European little people (adult midgets, former acrobats), Nina Varela (former opera singer turned baggy-pants comic), Billy Kaye and Barone Hopper (musical hall performers from Australia), Maurice Millard (female impersonator from South Africa), two second-bananas from burlesque, and six stuntmen from Hollywood doing the big fight sequence in the Western Sketch. Also there were several circus clowns, vaudeville acts (Mata & Hari, Nirska, Gloria Gilbert, one-legged tap-dancer Jack Robbins), “flash acts†(Step Brothers, Clark Brothers). Mayhem! But all planned and timed to perfection.â€
Yum. Around this time, the RKO nabe circuit ran a revival of Olsen and Johnson’s “Hellzapoppin†(1941, with Martha Raye), and the team made a personal live appearance at my local RKO Dyker. My folks couldn’t resist bringing me to see it.
But “Mildred†and “The Three Stoogesâ€: now that’s an inspired pairing. The show opened on 28 Sept. 1945. I truly wish I had been there.
Saps—
You beat me to the Dump while I was busy looking up the election results of ‘49. Sorry to repeat your post. The line still remains fresh as a daisy.
Warren—
That’s an excellent guess for the date. The election of NYS Democrat Senator Herbert Lehman and NYC Democrat Mayor John O'Dwyer on 8 Nov. ‘49 was widely viewed as a bellweather for the future of both parties after the Dems’ dominance during the war years. The Republican candidates conceded defeat by 10:45 pm on Election Night, headline-flashed at Times Square.
I’m intrigued that the NY Times supported both Republicans, John Foster Dulles for Senator on grounds of his expertise in foreign affairs, and Newbold Morris for Mayor on grounds of his opposition to Tammany Hall.
All that seems so remote now, but Bette Davis’s signature line from “Beyond the Forest” at the Strand that night remains fresh as a daisy, and not just through its transmogrification by Edward Albee: “What a dump!”
“Beyond the Forest” was Bette Davis' last movie under her Warner Bros. contract. She hated everytinbg about the movie; I thnk it got bad reviews, but it has since become a camp classic. It contains the memorable line, “What a dump!” which was memorably quoted in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe.
Maybe a lot of it remained at the end. Remember that when theaters were reduced in size in the fifties to change them to roadshow houses they in effect built smaller cinemas within the larger ones almost reducing seating by half. Therefore it would be perfectly feasable and cheaper just to cover up the old decorative walls and not destroy them. In fact it would seem to me from the way the screen covered the original procenium in the Rivoli for it to have been intact until the theater was split in two and the store built on 7th av. Now if before the era of wide screen the theater had been modernized that would be a different story.
Does anyone remember the Strand pre Cinerama?
Darn it. go to www.gettyimages.com and search for image number 3233117.
Here is a 1940 image:
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Caption:
circa 1940: Moviegoers queue up around the block, outside the Stand Theater in Times Square, New York City. Director Raoul Walsh’s film, ‘They Drive By Night,’ is billed on the marquee. (Photo by A. E. French/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
1968 “Finians Rainbow” opened roadshow upstairs
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I can still hear him playing The Hot Canary at rehearsals. It was fabulous, the best version I have ever heard
Florian Zabach’s great show-stopping solo was “The Hot Canary.” It brought the house down every time he performed it.
On the second floor of the Strand Theatre there were rehearsal rooms where I rehearsed with the Kaye Gorham Dancers and if anyone out there remembers, the terrific violinist Florian Zabach rehearsed there.
Ah, the Cine Orleans. That’s where I, as a lad of 15 saw my first adult movie. At the time I was going to some of the Times Square houses to look over the archtiecture, and revel in its past glories (no I really did). But what an experience. Due to an incident I would rather not discuss, my first trip to the Orleans was also my last.
Here is an area directory of theaters from the Aug. 11, 1965 issue of the New York Journal-American. Considering most of the titles on view here, the concept of the “summer movie” had not yet taken hold.
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