Radio City Music Hall

Digital projection solves a number of problems, especially during the Christmas run where all of the five booth film projectors may be in use in that show. The film projectors are pointed at different areas of the stage depending what “screen” or set piece they are projecting on. Those pieces are struck at the end of the show. When a premiere takes place the house picture sheet comes in electrically, so there is no fly floor crew present to bring in the set pieces to re-set the projectors. I had worked out a way to get the machines back to their positions without having to bring the pieces in, but understandably, and especially with the 3-D sequence, its better not to change the booth projector set up.
The new digital projectors also have the advantage of being much more efficient in terms of light output, since you’re not projecting through film, but reflecting from a mirror surface which doesn’t buckle or deform from the heat of the lamp. The advantage of the use of two (and these weren’t the full sized units which mount on a standard projector base), is that not only do you double the light, but you also have 100% back-up, albeit at half brightness if one fails. (The legend when I was a kid was that the Hall always ran two film prints interlocked for brightness and back-up. I did a couple of premieres that way, but you can’t superimpose the imgages because of the difference in projector angle. With digital projectors you can electronically correct keystone, and actually make the legend true.) In addition, since they have a relatively small footprint, the projectors may be located at an almost zero degree angle in the First Mezzanine.
Radio City has been doing video projection for years, even before I started there in 1974, and by the time I left we were doing far more video projection in our concerts and stage presentations than we were film projection. Digital feature presentation is a logical extension of that trend, and it is rapidly getting better.

They played the organ before the Christmas show started. At first, it was just one on the left hand side. Then, as a finale, the one on the right came out and finished things up with a kind of organ duet. My daughter LOVED it! She thought it was part of the show.

Also trying to arrange my schedule to attend the one-hour organ concert at RCMH. It always chokes me up as “sense memory” immediately churns up all the days and nights thrilling to the organ interludes, films and stage shows. Perhaps Vincent, you remember that if you went to the first show on Sunday, the doors opened around 11:15 am and the film didn’t start until noon. Dick, Ashley, or Ray would play for more than 30 minutes with a stop (no pun intended). Otherwise you had to be content with the five-minute breaks.

Vincent, you are a purist and as such to be commended. Did you by any chance see “Young Bess” at the Music Hall in 1953 when the breathtaking stage show recreated the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Meanwhile the Guild Theater (next door) was showing the gorgeous Technicolor documentary “A Queen is Crowned.” What a time for anglophiles.

Vincent, you must not be watching the TCM channel. “H.M Pulham,Esq” is a charming and witty film directed by King Vidor and based on a story by John P. Marquand. It stars the gorgeous Hedy Lamarr as the woman who encourages proper Bostonion Robert Young out of his shell. It received rave reviews and did excellent business.

Hey Vincent, this will clear up your question whether the Christmas show always played through the New Year. In 1935, “The Littlest Rebel” played only 11 days (split week)Dec 19 -29 with “Magnificent Obsession” opening on the 30th, also playing 10 days (another rare split week). In 1936, “Rainbow on the River” played Dec 17 – 30. The Girl from Paris (Lili Pons) opened on the 31st. In 1937, “I’ll Take Romance (Grace Moore) played Dec 16 – 29. "Tovarich” opened on the 30th. In 1938, “A Christmas Carol” played one hot week Dec. 22 – 28. “Topper Takes a Trip” opened Dec 29 also for just one week. In 1939, “Balalaika” played Dec 14 – 27. “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” opened on Dec 28. That of course, brings us back to “No No Nanette.” However, in 1941, “ HM Pulham Esq” played Dec 18 – 30. “Babes on Broadway” opened on Dec 31. Anyway that sort of establishes that the Christmas show didn’t always make it into the New Year.

I’ll have to check with Brad Hohle of Dolby when he gets back from the Coast as to which recent premieres have been run from a platter. Brad who was on the MH crew when I was there was also instrumental in designing the “Lion King” motion-picture sound system, which put a full set of surround speakers in the Hall for the first time. He usually is the Dolby rep for premieres. I do know that the last few have been digital rather than on film. The HBO premiere of “The Sopranos” was presented digitally for obvious reasons. This Christmas the “Christmas With the Kranks” premiere was done with two Texas Instrument DLP projectors superimposed from the First Mezzanine. I think the program source was a server and not D-5 tape(which is also used for premiere presentations). The two projectors put out about the same light as the 70mm machines in the booth, and ran on the same 65' wide “Scope” ratio screen as the 35mm image. That would have been an advantage for the booth crew, since the booth set-up for the Christmas Show would not have to be disturbed. (When we did the “101 Dalmations” premiere for Disney, we again locked a 70mm machine with platter to a 35mm machine with plaatter for Dolby Digital sound. The other two 70mm machines were run “reel-to-reel” as back-up as was the case for the premiere of “Lion King”. Everything had to then be put back and the projectors repositioned for the next morning’s Christmas Show). Radio City doesn’t have a platter in the booth, but brings them in as needed, although I think you’ll be seeing more and more premieres done digitally.

Is this the only example of a movie at the Hall having two different stage shows during the same run? Could it be that Nanette was such a disappointment that they rushed in Philadelphia story and felt it was too early to change the Christmas show? I believe up until then the Nativity was always still playing at New Years. This might be the only time it wasn’t.
The last time Bolero was done was in 70 which much to my regret I did not see. In 71 they did the last Rhapsody in Blue and in 72 they did the last Undersea Ballet. When I worked there I remember somebody saying that the huge revolving mirrored disc which was the centerpeice of Blue had been dismantled and given out and somebody using it for his house. From within they were destroying everything that made the Hall great. I wonder if the Glory of Easter set and costumes still exist.

With Mary Queen of Scots the stage show was Winter Cruise where half way through the stage was transformed into the image of an ocean at night with a small model of a ship in the distance floating across the stage. On the Twentieth Century utilized this concept for the great Imogene Coca train chase in the second half to show two trains going past each other in the middle of the night as the cast chased Coca all over inside and outside the train. It always got a big hand.
This effect must go back to the beginning of presentation house stage shows.

Mogambo! Wow, Clark Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly…how could you top a cast like that.
As a wide-eyed, impressionable eight year old, the movie was always lost on me, completely overwhelmed by the Music Hall itself.
A small part of that “Salute to Air-Travel” stage show has stayed with me all these years and if I close my eyes and think about it now, I’m there.
Picture it: On stage, a mock-up of what seemed to be a DC-3 Gooney Bird. Passengers and stewardeses (this was long before there were flight attendents) running across the “tarmac”, going up the gangway whilst waving frenetically to imaginaries in the wings. House lights dimmer and dimmer, and, and, WHOA! what’s that hiss? A curtain of steam rises before the proscenium as the house gets darker and darker, almost pitch dark. In the blackness before us floats the fantastic illusion of clouds and behind them, with running lights blinking and cabin lights ablaze, lost in those clouds, a distant DC-3 flys across the stage.
I think, though I’m not sure, that this was the finale of the stage presentation. Don’t remember what happened next, but do remember the stage hand with the mop, scooting across the stage apron mopping up the remenents of fantasy.

So convinceing this stage-craft, witch-craft, trompe l'oeil, that a half century later it still plays well to me and evokes warm nostalgia.
Oh, glorious, mighty hall…I’ll stop now.

The opening of “Kiss Me Kate” was very well timed and thought out. It played 4 very satisfactory weeks during November 1953 and over the traditionally slow Thanksgiving season. That primed it for its wide Christmas release. It followed a hugely successful 5 week run of “Mogambo.” The stage show with “Mogombo” was a salute to air-travel and featured the simulated flight of a huge jet liner across the stage. Does anyone remember more detail?

Interesting because according to Variety grosses KMK doesn’t seem to have done all that well at the Hall being a fall film. I think at this point in 53 the Hall while still in the black was beginning to feel the effects of TV. The MGM films that came out in 54 in cinemascope certainly look like they were made on a tight budget as compared to films like Band Wagon and KMK which are first class all the way. In terms of production values Knights, Seven Brides and Brigadoon look as if the original budgets were cut in half(Ansco color!)Did Kate do better in the burbs in 3D?