Here’s a Showbill Program from the Guild in November 1959. 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 the print-out won’t be so clear.
As a kid in the late ‘40s, I remember the Guild as a Newsreel house around the corner from RCMH. I became aware of it as a first-run foreign-film house in December ’51 when, standing on line for RCMH’s Christmas show, I noted that the Guild was premiering Alastair Sims’s “A Christmas Carol,†the London Tower Film that has become television’s archetypal holiday version over the years. Memorable films that I remember seeing at the Guild include Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai†and Truffaut’s “Jules et Jim.â€
“The Mouse That Roared†became Peter Sellers’s break-away hit in the USA. Three years earlier I’d seen Alec Guinness’s “Ladykillers†at the Sutton. Sellers played a small part in that film, but I didn’t remember it. “The Mouse†was deeply funny at the time (when Cold War jitters still prevailed in full force), and Sellers’s multiple-role acting was truly astonishing. One of my friends whom I’d seen it with didn’t believe that Sellers acted all three major parts. It’s a good thing that the Guild provided a Showbill to prove it. A year later, the Guild premiered “I’m All Right Jack.â€
Here’s a Playbill from the Lunt-Fontanne in June 1964. 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 the print-out won’t be so clear.
The show presented the celebrated Richard Burton performance of “Hamlet.†As directed by John Gielgud (whose off-stage voice supplied the part of the Ghost), the play unfolded on a bare-wall stage with the actors dressed in rehearsal tights, as though it were a first run-through. The performance was subsequently filmed live with the Electronovision process.
I saw the production, but I didn’t see Burton. It was a hot ticket for a limited engagement at a time when Burton-Taylor celebrity mania was still at its height. I showed up at the box office practically at dawn for day-of-sale standing room tickets. That evening as the house lights dimmed, the dreaded theater manager stepped out before the curtain to announceâ€"horrors!â€"that Mr. Burton would be indisposed that evening, to be replaced by his understudy Robert Burr.
Next day, the NYC newspapers ran headlines on the panic at the Lunt-Fontanne that evening as angry patrons rushed up the aisles demanding refunds for their tickets. I stayed on in a less-than-half empty house, guided by the belief that the rest of the cast would turn in especially good performances to compensate the faithful who remained. That, plus the electricity in the air with an unknown actor filling the shoes of the then-most-famous actor in the Anglophone world.
It turned out, I believe, to have been the only performance that Burton missed during the run. Years passed (imagine calendar pages flipping). Just last April on a visit to Indiana, I met a fellow roughly my age, and it turned out that he too had been in the audience that evening. Small world after forty-one years. We both shoudda sat down and watched the thing on Electronovision.
Yes, as CConnolly writes above, Warren’s expert posting about CineMiracle on 13 Feb. ‘04 offers much more than I could about details.
Last 27 November, I weighed in with some impressions:
The huge CineMiracle screen sat in front of the proscenium, over the orchestra pit, on an extended thrust stage. It had a temporary look to it, not at all like the subsequently remodelled Capitol or Loew’s State, which appeared as though management had planned for the long haul. Upon exiting from “Windjammer,” I remember signs in the lobby announcing the next CineMiracle film then in production, the disasterous “The Miracle” with Carroll Baker. The latter, of course, was finally released in a shrunken Technirama in November ‘59, when it had a brief three-week run as the Thanksgiving show at RCMH.
Last 16 April, I offered a photo of the Roxy’s 1952 drapery treatment, which CineMiracle thrust did not seem to affect.
My present memory of seeing “Windjammer” is that its projection and sound were both terrific—better than Cinerama ever had been at the Broadway or Warner or Capitol. I recall a storm sequence that was knuckle-whitening. I also recall that, even with reduced seating, the theater was sparsely populated. I was surprised to find it so, since I believe I had attended a matinee during busy Easter Week, close to the opening of its run.
RobertR: Last July 24 I recounted my memory of the Roxy’s stage show with “Peter Pan”:
I remember that the Ice Colorama stage show featured a clone of the Wizard-of-Oz narrative, concerning a Wicked Witch (performed by a male ice-skater) who hurtled across the stage at enormous speed, pursued by the good-guy Ice Blades and Roxyettes, with flashing flourescent lights in tempestuous neon hues, accompanied by off-stage thunder and a crashing orchestral score (it might have been “A Night on Bald Mountain,†no?). We stayed to see the stage show a second time, moving up to the vast balcony for a better view of the Colorama effects.
The Fox’s showing of “Bwana Devil” opened on 18 Feb. ‘53 and day-dated with Loew’s State for two weeks. Arch Obler insisted that the polaroid 3-D process be projected on to a plastic screen for added luminosity. The Fox promptly installed such a screen according to his specifications, but the State did not. Instead, the Loew’s management simply applied a commercial shellac to its existing screen, arousing Obler’s ire. “If you want to see real 3-D,” he fumed, “then go to the Fox.” It may well be that the State was already planning for the first conventionally curved wide-screen in NYC, premiered with “Thunder Bay” on 20 May '53, and was unwilling to invest in a new interim screen for the short haul.
In any case, the episode points to my memory of the Fox’s superb projection—that, despite a red glow which suffused the screen from residual house illumination and which was especially noticeable during black-and-white films. On the other hand, the Fox had a poor sound system. It seemed sometimes to me that the sound track was barely audible. The resonance seemed to get lost in the sheer height of the auditorium. Films I remember seeing there include “The Jolson Story,” “All the King’s Men,” “Captain Horatio Hornblower,” “On the Waterfront,” “No Time for Sergeants,” and “Pal Joey.”
Here’s a Program from May ’73. 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.
My kids were three and four years old, we were visiting our families in NYC, and my mom wanted to take them to RCMH. I had never seen “Mary Poppins.†So I joined the pack. I will never forget my kids’ amazement upon entering the auditorium. I’d already dragged them to dozens of movies in small theaters on two continents, but they were not prepared for the vast space that encountered them (or they it). Beneath the tall shadowy arches, my hyperactive son stopped short in his tracks, and my fearless daughter stopped altogether, both in awe.
The stage show was the last that I saw with the Corps de Ballet (it was disbanded a year later) and the full line-up of Rockettes (subsequently cut from thirty-six to thirty). Disney augmented the cast with dozens of extras costumed in the Magic Kingdom fashion. My mom loved the show (and well she should have, after shepherding me to dozens of them when I was a kid), and my offspring relived it for months afterward with a 33 1/3 LP recording and comic books of the movie. I don’t think their trips to Disneyland would ever impress them so much.
Don Rosen— I first use ProQuest, then I print the page, scan it, and submit to PhotoBucket.com. Ron Newman: thanks for your magnificent postings on the pages for Boston’s theaters.
Here’s the ad from the NY Times announcing the Beekman’s opening on 28 April, 1952. If you wanted to see a movie that evening, there were plenty of good offerings to choose from at other theaters, too.
I will always associate the Beekman with gain and loss. In the late ‘60s, its bookings turned more and more to Hollywood product. On a cold January Saturday in ’68 on a pre-marital date with my now-wife who then lived nearby, we walked to the Beekman to see “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,†which was day-dating at the Victoria. The line stretched around the block and would have convinced a fool that we couldn’t get in by show-time, so we proceeded south toward the Victoria. On E 57 Street, a strong gust blew a twenty-dollar bill into my hands, a genuine windfall since I was then unemployed. The outcome paid for the show on Times Square and for manicotti afterward at Luigino’s. We felt like a couple o’ swells.
Win some, lose some. In Fall ’68 we returned to the Beekman to see Joanne Woodward in “Rachel, Rachel,†having tied the knot meanwhile. My wedding gift to M. was an inexpensive but tasteful bracelet whose sentiment we counted on to mature over the years. As luck would have it, the band came undone and the bracelet fell away during the film. In ensuing days, I returned repeatedly to the Beekman to inquire whether it had been found, but with no success. I wonder whether it’s still hidden between the seats? I’d prefer that to the likelihood that an East Side yuppie found it and tossed it away for being so spare. When this theater is razedâ€"all good ones eventually are, and bad ones tooâ€"perhaps someone will find that bracelet beneath the carpeting among all the lost or discarded ticket stubs, espresso cups, and Showbill Programs.
BillHuelbig— Thanks for the programs. I too saw “Butterflies Are Free” there, but have lost that program and am glad to see it in your post.
I was alone in NYC on a business trip. Following an afternoon of bar-crawling, I tumbled into RCMH upon some sort of atavistic reflex. Quite tipsy, I sat in the front row for the stage show and hoped that a Rockette would kick her tap-shoe into my lap, just as had happened to old geezers in 20C-Fox films two decades earlier (I was all of thirty-years-old at the time, but prematurely grey-haired and fairly depraved, so I felt ripe for the part).
As it happened, the Rockettes performed the final high kicks in their “Hawaiian Heat Wave” number on the narrow walk-way in front of the orchestra pit, and so were as close as possible to my waiting lap. As it also happened, none of them lost a shoe. I stayed for a second stage show hoping against hope for an extra-high punt that would land me some leather. No such luck. I then returned to my bar crawl and to this day do not know what occurred later. It’s a wonder I didn’t lose more than my program.
Ahhh — except for “The Cockeyed World” (August ‘29) and “Alexander’s RTB” (August '38), the others played between September '41 and August '44, largely the War Years and, consequently, until the mid-'50s the Roxy’s glory years.
And is it true that Alice Faye : Roxy :: Greer Garson :: RCMH + Tyrone Power : Roxy :: Cary Grant : RCMH, so that “Alexander’s RTB” and “Yank in the RAF” emerge as the Roxy’s archetypal films?
Thanks, Warren, for your wonderful listings of the Roxy’s shows. If I’ve got them straight, you’ve offered the following:
1941, posted on 18 April ‘05
1942, posted on 16 May '05, with comparative cross-reference to RCMH on 9 May '05
1943, posted on 29 May '05
1947 in part, posted on 24 April and 6 May '05
What were the six pre-‘44 films that hit six-week runs? I take it that the standard three-week run might have had somethng to do with signing up big-name performers for a contracted period of time. After '52, “Call Me Madam,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “The Robe,” “Carousel,” “The Kink and I,” “Bus Stop,” “Giant,” and “Anastasia” reached or surpassed that limit, no?
Here’s a Program from August ’74. 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.
Another fluke. On a visit to NYC, my spouse took over the dept stores and our parents took over their grandkids. That left me with the options of a bar-crawl, a library-raid, or hunkering down to some leftover work. On the other hand, how could you go wrong with a Blake Edwards movie starring Julie Andrews? Boy, did I find out. I don’t remember a single act from the stage show. The Corps de Ballet had recently been disbanded, and the Rockettes were reduced from thirty-six to thirty kickers. A fair amount of choral work appears to have taken up the slack. Of course, times were bad in general, with rampant inflation, energy shortages, and political corruption: the day after I saw this show, Richard Nixon resigned from office.
Here’s a Showbill Program from the Beekman in July 1961. 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 the print-out won’t be so clear.
In that annus mirabilis, “Rocco†was preceded at the Beekman by “L’avventura†(all of Antonioni’s films opened there, for which I have no Showbill Programs today: the publication was erratic), “Il generale della Rovere†occupied the Paris, and “La dolce vita†played at Henry Miller’s Theater on reserved seats.
My friends and I argued incessantly about which of these was the best. I opted for the intellectualism of “L’avventura.†“Rovere†seemed old-fashioned, while “La dolce vita†won popular acclaim (after its roadshow run, it traveled through the RKO circuit in a dubbed version).
Today, I’d choose “Rocco†for its operatic intensity. Thirty-seven years after seeing it, I reenacted the opening scene when my wife and I arrived at the Milan railroad station with umpteen pieces of luggage in tow. There was no score by Nino Rota to help us on.
Yes, Warren, “Blondie’s Lucky Day” must have been the nabes' way of drawing kids and families with their kids to see “Gilda.” On 26 April ‘05, I posted a photo of Loew’s Alpine on that theater’s page, and the double-bill you mention is listed on the marquee (be sure to enlarge the photo by clicking the image). I’m amazed that “Gilda” bored you. No film ever bored me, then or later. Whenever the footlights dim, I find all the movie stars strong, all the writerr, directors, and cinematographers good-looking, and all the films above-average.
I’m singing jubilant arias! A few months ago, I reported on posts for RCMH and Loew’s Alpine that I remember having seen Rita Hayworth’s “Gilda†at Loew’s State in Spring 1946, with a stage show featuring a puppet act that spurred my parents to bring me to just around the time of my fourth birthday. Several wonderfully reasonable responses to my posts expressed surprise at pairing such a steamy film with a live program geared for kids. I saw their logic and began to doubt my power of recall. True, we had a family friend who worked in the Loew’s offices above the State (just under Marilyn Monroe’s panties in my post of 23 July ’04), and I can imagine her luring my folks with the promise that Young BoxOfficeBilly would just love the puppet show. True, my parents never flinched from trying out all kinds of entertainment, especially if accessed with a back-door pass. And true, BoxOfficeBillyWorld held no holds barred for learning experiences: gotta toughen the kid up. But this particular memory of Putting-the-Blame-on-Mame and taking pure delight in a handful of puppets really did challenge credibility. I resolved to plunge into the archives.
Here’s a Program from Oct. ’76. 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 was the next-to-last show that I had seen at RCMH, and I happened upon it as a fluke: a business trip to NYC left me alone for an afternoon, and what better to do than to take in a Liza Minnelli-Ingrid Bergman film directed by Vincente Minnelli, with a stage show at RCMH. Bah. The film was sad enough (but, Ingrid, it was only a movie). The stage show lacked even a spark of life.
For the first time ever at RCMH, I remember hearing the shutters on the spot lights as they clicked on and off: the house held barely a few hundred patrons. And I recall hearing the cable chains clanking as the contour curtain rose and fellâ€"a sound I retained from the half-empty Roxy before it closed in the early 60’s, but never at the Showplace of the Nation. For the “Rhapsody in Blue†finale, the circular table tilted and spun with barely a handful of dancers on it. Another negative review from me, I’m afraid; but this too was a special case: I now knew that the great theater had passed the point of no return.
Here’s a Showbill Program from the Beekman in November 1960. 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 film needs no explanation. Here’s the Showbill’s masthead page with its mention of Bogdanovich and the beginning of a bloviated article about dubbed dialogue by Bosley Crowther:
Yes, that film with the amazing Pierre Fresnay closed the theater after an eight-week run. Here’s a clip from the NYT 12 Oct. ‘52 announcing the theater’s fate:
The adjoining clip offers an illuminating context. Cinerama had opened two weeks earlier, and already John Ford was champing at the bit to deploy the process “to make the damndest dramatic picture you ever saw.” That portended the end, for a while, of the “small” movie that would have been perfect for the Park Avenue to exhibit (though small movies, in truth, never really went out of fashion in the ensuing revolution). I also like the bit about how, in the event of mechanical failure, Cinerama projectionists would cover the time lapse for repair. I wonder whether anyone at this site experienced such a filler?
Thanks for recalling those co-features— The Shore Road did not deviate from these double billings. Yes, I remember snatches of “Doc Robin” and, yes, of Esther W’s “Island.” Mutatis mutandis, Loew’s Bay Ridge received product from the RKO circuit after it had played at the RKO Dyker. I remember seeing there the nunly-tender “Come to the Stable” and the opera-screamer “Everybody Does It.”
Thanks for the updates. I rarely attended this theater as a toddler, since its fare hit the Alpine first and lured me and my family to that venue; but I do remember seeing there some remarkable films.
One was Cecil B. DeMille’s “Unconquered,” which had opened at the Rivoli on 10 Oct. ‘47, and so must have made its way to the Shore Road early in 1948: the climactic escape down the river and over the waterfall scared me under the seat. Another was Zinnemann’s “The Search,” which had opened at the Victoria on 23 March '48, and so must have played at the SR during the following summer: the unbearably painful separation of the child from his mother deeply affected me at the age of six, and haunts me still—what a vulnerable age I was to see that film.
The confusion of the theater’s name with that of the nearby Cantonese restaurant (earlier located at a site closer to 5 Avenue than its present location near 4 Avenue) also caused heartache. One fine Spring day, my mom spontaneously proposed, “Let’s go the Shore Road today!” I leapt with joy. It turned out that she had meant the eatery, not the movie palace. That afternoon, I sobbed woefully in my chop suey.
Here’s a Program from Dec. ’76. 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 was the last show that I had seen at RCMH. (Well, not exactly. In Oct. ’95, I attended a performance of “Riverdance.â€) I brought my kids to it, then at ages 6 and 7, and was fairly disappointed. (They were, too.) The film proved mediocre and the stage show threadbare.
In “The Nativity,†baubles, bangles, and swirling lights replaced what Leonidoff had once staged as a dimly lit starry night by a Bethlehem stable. The effect of itâ€"and the rest of the showâ€"came across as static and mechanical, rather like the Christmas display windows at Lord and Taylor, full of gestural action and no real life. “Build the Snowman†was just that: a couple of dozen Victorian mannequins pretending to, um, build a styrofoam snowman. The “All Skating†routine deployed the circular table as a permafrost ice stage for a dozen or so skaters. Barry Busse, a Wagnerian tenor of some distinction who had sung internationally with Leonie Rysanek, trolled Christmas carols. The Rockettes performed their “Wooden Soldiers†routine, one that included none of their high-kicks (I always ached for out-of-towners when they did that, because the visitors missed seeing what the dancers were most famous for doing). The finale offered a stage full of an enormous Tannenbaum. Full, but empty. I never publish negative reviews (almost never, anyway) and will not do so again (at least not often). But this, my last visit to a stage-and-screen show at RCMH, was a special case.
Thanks, Gerald. I’d forgotten how closely this film opened upon “La dolce vita” (19 April ‘61, at the Henry Miller’s) and “I soliti ignoti” (22 Nov. '60, at the Fine Arts), cementing Marcello Mastroianni’s fame on this side of the pond. And I’d forgotten that Jean Marais acted in it, too. I’ve long since discarded the Showbills for each—a mistake since, as you say, they were classy booklets. Does the May issue have Eugene Archer’s report on the Cannes Film Festival for '61? What a year that was for films!
Here’s a Showbill Program from the Beekman in March 1960. 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.
In the early ‘60’s, the twelve-to-sixteen-page Showbill was distributed in NYC’s first-run “art†houses, though somewhat inconsistently, as it was published on a shoestring tied to capricious advertising. Between Fall ’60 and Spring ’61, Peter Bogdanovich served as editor of the program section. It was distributed at the Paris, Sutton, Beekman, Fifth Avenue Cinema, Murray Hill, Fine Arts, Baronet, Guild, Normandie, Plaza, Trans-Lux 52nd Street, Little Carnegie, and 55th Street PlayhouseTheaters.
As a German Lit major in my undergrad days, I ate up this feature as one of the few current cinematic events from east of the Rhine available at the time. German film had not yet taken off with Herzog, Fassbinder, Wenders, usw., but this offering proved a big draw at the Beekman. I remember seeing it on a snowy day: a ten-inch blanket closed NYC schools, and what better way to celebrate than by taking the subway to the Beekman to see a Brechtian satire.
Here’s a Showbill Program from the Guild in November 1959. 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 the print-out won’t be so clear.
View link
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As a kid in the late ‘40s, I remember the Guild as a Newsreel house around the corner from RCMH. I became aware of it as a first-run foreign-film house in December ’51 when, standing on line for RCMH’s Christmas show, I noted that the Guild was premiering Alastair Sims’s “A Christmas Carol,†the London Tower Film that has become television’s archetypal holiday version over the years. Memorable films that I remember seeing at the Guild include Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai†and Truffaut’s “Jules et Jim.â€
“The Mouse That Roared†became Peter Sellers’s break-away hit in the USA. Three years earlier I’d seen Alec Guinness’s “Ladykillers†at the Sutton. Sellers played a small part in that film, but I didn’t remember it. “The Mouse†was deeply funny at the time (when Cold War jitters still prevailed in full force), and Sellers’s multiple-role acting was truly astonishing. One of my friends whom I’d seen it with didn’t believe that Sellers acted all three major parts. It’s a good thing that the Guild provided a Showbill to prove it. A year later, the Guild premiered “I’m All Right Jack.â€
I’ve just posted my Playbill program from that famous production on the page for the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, where the run took place in June 1964.
Here’s a Playbill from the Lunt-Fontanne in June 1964. 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 the print-out won’t be so clear.
View link
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The show presented the celebrated Richard Burton performance of “Hamlet.†As directed by John Gielgud (whose off-stage voice supplied the part of the Ghost), the play unfolded on a bare-wall stage with the actors dressed in rehearsal tights, as though it were a first run-through. The performance was subsequently filmed live with the Electronovision process.
I saw the production, but I didn’t see Burton. It was a hot ticket for a limited engagement at a time when Burton-Taylor celebrity mania was still at its height. I showed up at the box office practically at dawn for day-of-sale standing room tickets. That evening as the house lights dimmed, the dreaded theater manager stepped out before the curtain to announceâ€"horrors!â€"that Mr. Burton would be indisposed that evening, to be replaced by his understudy Robert Burr.
Next day, the NYC newspapers ran headlines on the panic at the Lunt-Fontanne that evening as angry patrons rushed up the aisles demanding refunds for their tickets. I stayed on in a less-than-half empty house, guided by the belief that the rest of the cast would turn in especially good performances to compensate the faithful who remained. That, plus the electricity in the air with an unknown actor filling the shoes of the then-most-famous actor in the Anglophone world.
It turned out, I believe, to have been the only performance that Burton missed during the run. Years passed (imagine calendar pages flipping). Just last April on a visit to Indiana, I met a fellow roughly my age, and it turned out that he too had been in the audience that evening. Small world after forty-one years. We both shoudda sat down and watched the thing on Electronovision.
Bob Furmanek and veyoung—
Yes, as CConnolly writes above, Warren’s expert posting about CineMiracle on 13 Feb. ‘04 offers much more than I could about details.
Last 27 November, I weighed in with some impressions:
The huge CineMiracle screen sat in front of the proscenium, over the orchestra pit, on an extended thrust stage. It had a temporary look to it, not at all like the subsequently remodelled Capitol or Loew’s State, which appeared as though management had planned for the long haul. Upon exiting from “Windjammer,” I remember signs in the lobby announcing the next CineMiracle film then in production, the disasterous “The Miracle” with Carroll Baker. The latter, of course, was finally released in a shrunken Technirama in November ‘59, when it had a brief three-week run as the Thanksgiving show at RCMH.
Last 16 April, I offered a photo of the Roxy’s 1952 drapery treatment, which CineMiracle thrust did not seem to affect.
View link
My present memory of seeing “Windjammer” is that its projection and sound were both terrific—better than Cinerama ever had been at the Broadway or Warner or Capitol. I recall a storm sequence that was knuckle-whitening. I also recall that, even with reduced seating, the theater was sparsely populated. I was surprised to find it so, since I believe I had attended a matinee during busy Easter Week, close to the opening of its run.
RobertR: Last July 24 I recounted my memory of the Roxy’s stage show with “Peter Pan”:
I remember that the Ice Colorama stage show featured a clone of the Wizard-of-Oz narrative, concerning a Wicked Witch (performed by a male ice-skater) who hurtled across the stage at enormous speed, pursued by the good-guy Ice Blades and Roxyettes, with flashing flourescent lights in tempestuous neon hues, accompanied by off-stage thunder and a crashing orchestral score (it might have been “A Night on Bald Mountain,†no?). We stayed to see the stage show a second time, moving up to the vast balcony for a better view of the Colorama effects.
And add “A Star Is Born” to the preceding list—the Cuckor-Garland, not the Gaynor or Streisand ones.
The Fox’s showing of “Bwana Devil” opened on 18 Feb. ‘53 and day-dated with Loew’s State for two weeks. Arch Obler insisted that the polaroid 3-D process be projected on to a plastic screen for added luminosity. The Fox promptly installed such a screen according to his specifications, but the State did not. Instead, the Loew’s management simply applied a commercial shellac to its existing screen, arousing Obler’s ire. “If you want to see real 3-D,” he fumed, “then go to the Fox.” It may well be that the State was already planning for the first conventionally curved wide-screen in NYC, premiered with “Thunder Bay” on 20 May '53, and was unwilling to invest in a new interim screen for the short haul.
In any case, the episode points to my memory of the Fox’s superb projection—that, despite a red glow which suffused the screen from residual house illumination and which was especially noticeable during black-and-white films. On the other hand, the Fox had a poor sound system. It seemed sometimes to me that the sound track was barely audible. The resonance seemed to get lost in the sheer height of the auditorium. Films I remember seeing there include “The Jolson Story,” “All the King’s Men,” “Captain Horatio Hornblower,” “On the Waterfront,” “No Time for Sergeants,” and “Pal Joey.”
Do I ever.
Here’s a Program from May ’73. 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
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My kids were three and four years old, we were visiting our families in NYC, and my mom wanted to take them to RCMH. I had never seen “Mary Poppins.†So I joined the pack. I will never forget my kids’ amazement upon entering the auditorium. I’d already dragged them to dozens of movies in small theaters on two continents, but they were not prepared for the vast space that encountered them (or they it). Beneath the tall shadowy arches, my hyperactive son stopped short in his tracks, and my fearless daughter stopped altogether, both in awe.
The stage show was the last that I saw with the Corps de Ballet (it was disbanded a year later) and the full line-up of Rockettes (subsequently cut from thirty-six to thirty). Disney augmented the cast with dozens of extras costumed in the Magic Kingdom fashion. My mom loved the show (and well she should have, after shepherding me to dozens of them when I was a kid), and my offspring relived it for months afterward with a 33 1/3 LP recording and comic books of the movie. I don’t think their trips to Disneyland would ever impress them so much.
Don Rosen— I first use ProQuest, then I print the page, scan it, and submit to PhotoBucket.com. Ron Newman: thanks for your magnificent postings on the pages for Boston’s theaters.
Here’s the ad from the NY Times announcing the Beekman’s opening on 28 April, 1952. If you wanted to see a movie that evening, there were plenty of good offerings to choose from at other theaters, too.
View link
The offerings at live theaters were at least as good:
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I will always associate the Beekman with gain and loss. In the late ‘60s, its bookings turned more and more to Hollywood product. On a cold January Saturday in ’68 on a pre-marital date with my now-wife who then lived nearby, we walked to the Beekman to see “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,†which was day-dating at the Victoria. The line stretched around the block and would have convinced a fool that we couldn’t get in by show-time, so we proceeded south toward the Victoria. On E 57 Street, a strong gust blew a twenty-dollar bill into my hands, a genuine windfall since I was then unemployed. The outcome paid for the show on Times Square and for manicotti afterward at Luigino’s. We felt like a couple o’ swells.
Win some, lose some. In Fall ’68 we returned to the Beekman to see Joanne Woodward in “Rachel, Rachel,†having tied the knot meanwhile. My wedding gift to M. was an inexpensive but tasteful bracelet whose sentiment we counted on to mature over the years. As luck would have it, the band came undone and the bracelet fell away during the film. In ensuing days, I returned repeatedly to the Beekman to inquire whether it had been found, but with no success. I wonder whether it’s still hidden between the seats? I’d prefer that to the likelihood that an East Side yuppie found it and tossed it away for being so spare. When this theater is razedâ€"all good ones eventually are, and bad ones tooâ€"perhaps someone will find that bracelet beneath the carpeting among all the lost or discarded ticket stubs, espresso cups, and Showbill Programs.
BillHuelbig— Thanks for the programs. I too saw “Butterflies Are Free” there, but have lost that program and am glad to see it in your post.
I was alone in NYC on a business trip. Following an afternoon of bar-crawling, I tumbled into RCMH upon some sort of atavistic reflex. Quite tipsy, I sat in the front row for the stage show and hoped that a Rockette would kick her tap-shoe into my lap, just as had happened to old geezers in 20C-Fox films two decades earlier (I was all of thirty-years-old at the time, but prematurely grey-haired and fairly depraved, so I felt ripe for the part).
As it happened, the Rockettes performed the final high kicks in their “Hawaiian Heat Wave” number on the narrow walk-way in front of the orchestra pit, and so were as close as possible to my waiting lap. As it also happened, none of them lost a shoe. I stayed for a second stage show hoping against hope for an extra-high punt that would land me some leather. No such luck. I then returned to my bar crawl and to this day do not know what occurred later. It’s a wonder I didn’t lose more than my program.
Ahhh — except for “The Cockeyed World” (August ‘29) and “Alexander’s RTB” (August '38), the others played between September '41 and August '44, largely the War Years and, consequently, until the mid-'50s the Roxy’s glory years.
And is it true that Alice Faye : Roxy :: Greer Garson :: RCMH + Tyrone Power : Roxy :: Cary Grant : RCMH, so that “Alexander’s RTB” and “Yank in the RAF” emerge as the Roxy’s archetypal films?
Thanks, Warren, for your wonderful listings of the Roxy’s shows. If I’ve got them straight, you’ve offered the following:
1941, posted on 18 April ‘05
1942, posted on 16 May '05, with comparative cross-reference to RCMH on 9 May '05
1943, posted on 29 May '05
1947 in part, posted on 24 April and 6 May '05
What were the six pre-‘44 films that hit six-week runs? I take it that the standard three-week run might have had somethng to do with signing up big-name performers for a contracted period of time. After '52, “Call Me Madam,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “The Robe,” “Carousel,” “The Kink and I,” “Bus Stop,” “Giant,” and “Anastasia” reached or surpassed that limit, no?
Here’s a Program from August ’74. 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.
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Another fluke. On a visit to NYC, my spouse took over the dept stores and our parents took over their grandkids. That left me with the options of a bar-crawl, a library-raid, or hunkering down to some leftover work. On the other hand, how could you go wrong with a Blake Edwards movie starring Julie Andrews? Boy, did I find out. I don’t remember a single act from the stage show. The Corps de Ballet had recently been disbanded, and the Rockettes were reduced from thirty-six to thirty kickers. A fair amount of choral work appears to have taken up the slack. Of course, times were bad in general, with rampant inflation, energy shortages, and political corruption: the day after I saw this show, Richard Nixon resigned from office.
Here’s a Showbill Program from the Beekman in July 1961. 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 the print-out won’t be so clear.
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In that annus mirabilis, “Rocco†was preceded at the Beekman by “L’avventura†(all of Antonioni’s films opened there, for which I have no Showbill Programs today: the publication was erratic), “Il generale della Rovere†occupied the Paris, and “La dolce vita†played at Henry Miller’s Theater on reserved seats.
My friends and I argued incessantly about which of these was the best. I opted for the intellectualism of “L’avventura.†“Rovere†seemed old-fashioned, while “La dolce vita†won popular acclaim (after its roadshow run, it traveled through the RKO circuit in a dubbed version).
Today, I’d choose “Rocco†for its operatic intensity. Thirty-seven years after seeing it, I reenacted the opening scene when my wife and I arrived at the Milan railroad station with umpteen pieces of luggage in tow. There was no score by Nino Rota to help us on.
Yes, Warren, “Blondie’s Lucky Day” must have been the nabes' way of drawing kids and families with their kids to see “Gilda.” On 26 April ‘05, I posted a photo of Loew’s Alpine on that theater’s page, and the double-bill you mention is listed on the marquee (be sure to enlarge the photo by clicking the image). I’m amazed that “Gilda” bored you. No film ever bored me, then or later. Whenever the footlights dim, I find all the movie stars strong, all the writerr, directors, and cinematographers good-looking, and all the films above-average.
I’m singing jubilant arias! A few months ago, I reported on posts for RCMH and Loew’s Alpine that I remember having seen Rita Hayworth’s “Gilda†at Loew’s State in Spring 1946, with a stage show featuring a puppet act that spurred my parents to bring me to just around the time of my fourth birthday. Several wonderfully reasonable responses to my posts expressed surprise at pairing such a steamy film with a live program geared for kids. I saw their logic and began to doubt my power of recall. True, we had a family friend who worked in the Loew’s offices above the State (just under Marilyn Monroe’s panties in my post of 23 July ’04), and I can imagine her luring my folks with the promise that Young BoxOfficeBilly would just love the puppet show. True, my parents never flinched from trying out all kinds of entertainment, especially if accessed with a back-door pass. And true, BoxOfficeBillyWorld held no holds barred for learning experiences: gotta toughen the kid up. But this particular memory of Putting-the-Blame-on-Mame and taking pure delight in a handful of puppets really did challenge credibility. I resolved to plunge into the archives.
I finally did just that, and the results proved offputting. The NY Times Directory of the Film revealed that in ’46 “Gilda†had played at RCMH from 14 March to 3 April, suggesting that it might then have moved to the State on Wednesday the 10 or 17 April. The NYT archives for these dates produced no pay dirt (on the 17, a film I’d never heard of, “Miss Susie Slagle’s,†held the screen at the Stateâ€"where did that one come from?). But then on 24 April, smack in the middle of Easter week, “Gilda†opened at the State, and with it, the following stage show: Irene Bordoni, “America’s French Singing Star†(huh?); the Three Smoothies , likely a tap-dance act; Al Cowan and his Musical Madcaps: ‘nuff said; Ladd Lyon: a magician?; Harold Barnes: a ventriloquist? and Block and Sully, Comedy Stars of Stage and Radio. There, say you: no puppets, no gloves, no box, no memory. True, say I; but I wonder just how long this show stayed around. So, I scrolled on to the following week’s pages. The ad for 1 May announced: “Gilda†Held Over Second Week; All New Stage Show Featuring: Johnnie Scot Davis and Orchestra with Garth Andrews; Vic Perry, Toast of England’s Café Society; the Diamond Brothers, Gentlemen Never-the-Less; Diana Berry, Youthful Dancing Comedienne (!); and … finally … the Tommy Trent Puppet Parade. My heart leapt and I began to sing then and there.
For the record, the competition for movie-cum-stage shows in mid-town that Easter season was pretty fierce: at RCMH, “The Green Years†plus Easter show; at the Roxy, “Dragonwyck†with Jackie Miles and Connee Boswell on stage; at the Capitol, “The Ziegfeld Follies†ending a seven-week run with Xavier Cugat and Harvey Stone on stage, to be followed by “The Postman Always Rings Twice†with Guy Lombardo on stage; at the Strand, “Devotion†with Louis Prima on stage; and at the Paramount, “The Virginian†with Eddy Bracken and Johnny Long on stage. I’m still glad that we wound up at “Gilda†and the puppets. Of course, it’s possible that my parents were initially drawn by the Youthful Dancing Comedienne or perhaps by the Toast of England’s Café Society.
Here’s a Program from Oct. ’76. 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.
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This was the next-to-last show that I had seen at RCMH, and I happened upon it as a fluke: a business trip to NYC left me alone for an afternoon, and what better to do than to take in a Liza Minnelli-Ingrid Bergman film directed by Vincente Minnelli, with a stage show at RCMH. Bah. The film was sad enough (but, Ingrid, it was only a movie). The stage show lacked even a spark of life.
For the first time ever at RCMH, I remember hearing the shutters on the spot lights as they clicked on and off: the house held barely a few hundred patrons. And I recall hearing the cable chains clanking as the contour curtain rose and fellâ€"a sound I retained from the half-empty Roxy before it closed in the early 60’s, but never at the Showplace of the Nation. For the “Rhapsody in Blue†finale, the circular table tilted and spun with barely a handful of dancers on it. Another negative review from me, I’m afraid; but this too was a special case: I now knew that the great theater had passed the point of no return.
Here’s a Showbill Program from the Beekman in November 1960. 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.
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This film needs no explanation. Here’s the Showbill’s masthead page with its mention of Bogdanovich and the beginning of a bloviated article about dubbed dialogue by Bosley Crowther:
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And here’s the “Letters to Showbill†page, with a neat listing of contemporaneous films at participating theaters:
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You will see that the Murray Hill and Trans-Lux theaters were playing move-overs after their original B’way openings.
Yes, that film with the amazing Pierre Fresnay closed the theater after an eight-week run. Here’s a clip from the NYT 12 Oct. ‘52 announcing the theater’s fate:
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The adjoining clip offers an illuminating context. Cinerama had opened two weeks earlier, and already John Ford was champing at the bit to deploy the process “to make the damndest dramatic picture you ever saw.” That portended the end, for a while, of the “small” movie that would have been perfect for the Park Avenue to exhibit (though small movies, in truth, never really went out of fashion in the ensuing revolution). I also like the bit about how, in the event of mechanical failure, Cinerama projectionists would cover the time lapse for repair. I wonder whether anyone at this site experienced such a filler?
Warren—
Thanks for recalling those co-features— The Shore Road did not deviate from these double billings. Yes, I remember snatches of “Doc Robin” and, yes, of Esther W’s “Island.” Mutatis mutandis, Loew’s Bay Ridge received product from the RKO circuit after it had played at the RKO Dyker. I remember seeing there the nunly-tender “Come to the Stable” and the opera-screamer “Everybody Does It.”
Jeffrey, Theaterat, and Jody—
Thanks for the updates. I rarely attended this theater as a toddler, since its fare hit the Alpine first and lured me and my family to that venue; but I do remember seeing there some remarkable films.
One was Cecil B. DeMille’s “Unconquered,” which had opened at the Rivoli on 10 Oct. ‘47, and so must have made its way to the Shore Road early in 1948: the climactic escape down the river and over the waterfall scared me under the seat. Another was Zinnemann’s “The Search,” which had opened at the Victoria on 23 March '48, and so must have played at the SR during the following summer: the unbearably painful separation of the child from his mother deeply affected me at the age of six, and haunts me still—what a vulnerable age I was to see that film.
The confusion of the theater’s name with that of the nearby Cantonese restaurant (earlier located at a site closer to 5 Avenue than its present location near 4 Avenue) also caused heartache. One fine Spring day, my mom spontaneously proposed, “Let’s go the Shore Road today!” I leapt with joy. It turned out that she had meant the eatery, not the movie palace. That afternoon, I sobbed woefully in my chop suey.
Here’s a Program from Dec. ’76. 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.
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This was the last show that I had seen at RCMH. (Well, not exactly. In Oct. ’95, I attended a performance of “Riverdance.â€) I brought my kids to it, then at ages 6 and 7, and was fairly disappointed. (They were, too.) The film proved mediocre and the stage show threadbare.
In “The Nativity,†baubles, bangles, and swirling lights replaced what Leonidoff had once staged as a dimly lit starry night by a Bethlehem stable. The effect of itâ€"and the rest of the showâ€"came across as static and mechanical, rather like the Christmas display windows at Lord and Taylor, full of gestural action and no real life. “Build the Snowman†was just that: a couple of dozen Victorian mannequins pretending to, um, build a styrofoam snowman. The “All Skating†routine deployed the circular table as a permafrost ice stage for a dozen or so skaters. Barry Busse, a Wagnerian tenor of some distinction who had sung internationally with Leonie Rysanek, trolled Christmas carols. The Rockettes performed their “Wooden Soldiers†routine, one that included none of their high-kicks (I always ached for out-of-towners when they did that, because the visitors missed seeing what the dancers were most famous for doing). The finale offered a stage full of an enormous Tannenbaum. Full, but empty. I never publish negative reviews (almost never, anyway) and will not do so again (at least not often). But this, my last visit to a stage-and-screen show at RCMH, was a special case.
Thanks, Gerald. I’d forgotten how closely this film opened upon “La dolce vita” (19 April ‘61, at the Henry Miller’s) and “I soliti ignoti” (22 Nov. '60, at the Fine Arts), cementing Marcello Mastroianni’s fame on this side of the pond. And I’d forgotten that Jean Marais acted in it, too. I’ve long since discarded the Showbills for each—a mistake since, as you say, they were classy booklets. Does the May issue have Eugene Archer’s report on the Cannes Film Festival for '61? What a year that was for films!
Here’s a Showbill Program from the Beekman in March 1960. 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.
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In the early ‘60’s, the twelve-to-sixteen-page Showbill was distributed in NYC’s first-run “art†houses, though somewhat inconsistently, as it was published on a shoestring tied to capricious advertising. Between Fall ’60 and Spring ’61, Peter Bogdanovich served as editor of the program section. It was distributed at the Paris, Sutton, Beekman, Fifth Avenue Cinema, Murray Hill, Fine Arts, Baronet, Guild, Normandie, Plaza, Trans-Lux 52nd Street, Little Carnegie, and 55th Street PlayhouseTheaters.
As a German Lit major in my undergrad days, I ate up this feature as one of the few current cinematic events from east of the Rhine available at the time. German film had not yet taken off with Herzog, Fassbinder, Wenders, usw., but this offering proved a big draw at the Beekman. I remember seeing it on a snowy day: a ten-inch blanket closed NYC schools, and what better way to celebrate than by taking the subway to the Beekman to see a Brechtian satire.