Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
118 people
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GREAT recollection, thanks Robbie.
I feel as if I were there!
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.
As a side note, the New York Theater Organ Society is sponsoring a concert on “The Grand Radio City Music Hall 4/58 Mighty Wurlitzer” on Saturday afternoon, February 19th.
Check the NYTOS web page at http://www.nytos.org/ for details.
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?
Judging by the demand for extra 3-D prints, I would say it was more successful than anticipated.
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?
Contrary to urban legend, KISS ME KATE had a very wide 3-D release. Despite the Music Hall’s flat presentation, the film opened wide on the Loew’s circuit in 3-D just in time for Christmas, 1953. It even played sub-run engagements in its depth version.
In fact, MGM had to strike additional left/right 3-D pairs to meet exhibitors demand for prints.
Bob
For the Christmas show, they give you the glasses with each program and they did a good job ensuring that everyone had them. The announced repeatedly that everyone should have the glasses and the attendents were very good about getting them out. You could keep them at the end.
Like I said, the movie was fine and I understand why it was short. I was just a little surprised that they did not utilize more 3D effects. Again, I think I’m expecting too much now…
The opening effect is intended as a prologue, and one of the reasons they decided to go ahead with a 3-D effect is that it is short. There are still problems when using the gain screen necessary for 3-D at Radio City. The downward angle is about 19 degrees, and the auditorium is a block wide. Thus there are still some places where the light and polarization may not be optimum even with a 70' wide screen. It was gutsy of them to go ahead (and yes — deal with all those 3-D glasses). Vito, in answer to your question — I started as Head Projectionist at Radio City in January of 1974 and left in 2000. Long enough to get a 25 year gold ring from Madison Square Garden.
Re: the 3D film at the beginning of this year’s Christmas show. It’s mediocre. It’s not very long and it’s way skimpy on the 3D effects. I thought it was/is a great idea to open the show but it’s not very imaginatively done. You will see much better 3D shows at Disney. (I know…I’m stomping on the Christmas show again….)
Right— “On Demand,” not “No Down”— sorry for the slip. The date is accurate. Is the story about the projection booth true?
The Bette Davis film that BoxOfficBill refers to is “Payment on Demand” (not “No Down Payment). Also the original and long publicized title of the Davis film was "Story of a Divorce.” It was changed just before the opening.
It was planned to run “Kiss Me Kate” at the Hall in 3-D, and in fact, it was announced that it would run without the intermission as the Hall had four projectors. Ben Olevsky, who was Head Projectionist at the time, told me that everythng was set up, and they did indeed run a test run in 3-D, where it was discovered that they would lose about 2,000 seats because of the light drop off from the gain screen in the corners of the auditorium. At that point the Hall was still filling its seats, and it was felt that the economic loss would be too great. Theatres in the rest of the country took the attitiude, “Well if Radio City won’t bother with 3-D why should we?” I always thought that the Radio City rejection might have been the turning point that killed 3-D. Ironically, the current Christmas show at Radio City starts with a 3-D segment, projected on two projectors with 7,000 watt lamps,and from 70mm film running at 30 frames per second. Its a short segment, but everyone I’ve talked to who has seen it says its very impressive.
Kiss Me Kate looked great when I showed it in double-system 3-D last year at the Lafayette, Vincent. There are many good depth effects and few off-screen gimmicks (other than one 30 second section). The projection angle of the Jersey might make 3-D presentations difficult down there.
It would have been pretty bizarre for the Hall to have presented Kate in 3D. The logistics of handing out the thousands of glasses and then collecting them for each performance and then dealing with all the people who have no idea it’s in 3D and then disturb the others to complain. What a nightmare.
KMK is a very good George Sidney MGM musical and on the whole makes little use of the 3D effects. While it’s enormous fun to see it with a two projector system it stands on it’s own.
That all being said how about it being included on a 3D festival at the Loew’s Jersey?
One story might concern “No Down Payment,” with Bette Davis, which opened at RCMH on 15 Feb. ‘51. The film had been made much earlier and then shelved, but upon the success of “All About Eve” was hastily released, though with a new ending that RKO finished on the eve of opening day. The new final reel was reportedly still in flight from LA when the projectionist had started the first screening on W 50 Street, and it arrived in the booth just minutes before it was due on the screen.
I think that Kiss Me Kate did not show in 3-D at the Music Hall. I’ll ask Bob Furmanek to add his expertise about 3-D to this thread.
Can any of the projectionists remember this. I seem to remember (or am I dreaming?) that showings of “Kiss Me Kate” were projected in both 3-D and regular…either alternately on the same day or every other day.
And I am so happy that you are still with us.I got a number of questions to ask of you, if you don’t mind.
Also, which years did you work the booth?
REndres, Nice to hear fom you, as a projectionist for many many years I always wondered about any projection horror storys at RCMH. Would you share any? I can still hear the guys in thr booth calling out the changeover cues.
In answer to veyoung’s question — Yes Robert Endres is still with us — or at least I was when I looked into the mirror this morning (although I still haven’t been booed by 500 drunk army guys on a Friday night)! The room OConnolly is referring to is probably one of the two broadcast booths on either side of the auditorium. Since Roxy was supposed to do a radio show from the broadcast studio over the auditorium, there were extensive broadcast options built into the Hall including tie lines to NBC’s studios across the street. One of the booths in the auditorium became the tape playback room when the Hall changed fomats in 1979.
Since we’re kind of discussing RCMH oddities, I remember back in 1977 when I took the NBC tour which included a backstage tour of RCMH we were shown this odd “room” which overlooked the orchestra level of the auditorium. It was on the right hand side of the auditorium and was about (I’m guessing here) about twelve feet above the auditorium floor and was angled to see the stage though you could clearly see most of the auditorium from it. It was about ¾ down towards the stage. There was soundproof glass in the room and it was small (only fit about four people). The tour guide said that it was impossible to be seen in this room by anyone in the auditorium. I never understood what purpose this room served unless it was for VIP’s or for security.
I wonder if it’s still there. Does anyone else recall seeing or hearing of anything like this?
Is Mr. Rober Enders (sp?) still with us. He was (is) the master RCMH projectionist, who said the famous line: “you aint been boo'ed until you been boo'ed by 6000 people.” And I was the one who, as an Army projectionist in Ft. Totten (Queens, NY), who said, “and you ain’t been boo'ed until you been boo'ed buy 500 drunk army guys on a Friday night.”
I took a quick look at the Krinsky and Loth books to see what they had to say about the underground concourse. I was kind of surprised to see that, at least from a quick glance, they really don’t have much to say about it — most of their comments are actually about the “entry plaza” to the underground concourse (the “entry plaza” is the area that was eventually transformed into a winter ice skating rink) and about the stores that were around the sides of this plaza when it first opened (where the restaurants are now).
It is with regard to these shops that they say business in the pre-subway years was bad. But I suppose it’s fair to assume that the shops further into the concourse were probably even worse off — as they were even more inconveniently accessible.
Some quotes:
Loth (pgs. 100-101) “On the whole, Rockefeller Center was successful in achieving its shop objectives [i.e., renting out to desirable, financially worthy tenants]. But the mortality of such establishments in the 1930’s was high … . Not the least of the difficulties concerned the underground maze of corridors and concourse … . the concourse was planned to link up with the station of a new Sixth Avenue subway. But the rackety old elevated train still ran.”
Loth (pg. 149) “[The Lower Plaza — the site of the skating rink — was] Orphaned by the long delay in the Sixth Avenue subway … [and] failed as a passage bringing pedestrians from the promenade into the shops that originally lined it. After a couple of years of hesitation and debate, the shops were replaced by a couple of restaurants, and the Lower Plaza [where the skating rink is] was no longer even a passage into the concourse.”
As far as I can recall, I first visited the underground concourse in the mid-1960s, and I don’t really remember the box office opposite the underground entry into Radio City Music Hall being used then (although the corridor into the Music Hall was apparently in operation). But, of course, it may have been open other hours, or maybe it was open and I just didn’t notice it, or I noticed it and don’t remember it now. But in my memories, at least, it was a “funny” presence in the underground corridors (like those abandoned stations or corridors that you sometimes see in the subways).
As mentioned in a previous post, I think when I took my tour groups into the Music Hall in the late 1970s we were told to use this entrance.
While it is possible that the Rockefeller Center management may have future plans for the box office, my interpretation of the meaning its presence post-renovation is different.
It seems to me that the one of the main reason the management renovated the underground concourse was to close off corridors and use the space to create new storefronts or enlarge existing ones. (Larger storefronts are seen, I believe, as more appropriate for modern day retailing and easier to rent out to financially sound large companies.) It seems to me that holdovers from the past, like the box office, were left alone if they didn’t interfere with this or other goals of the renovation. I think this would be especially true with a small “oddity” such as the box office and the stairs behind it — why tear them out unless you have something specific in mind to replace them with?
If I recall correctly, the Landmark Preservation Commission did review the changes to the underground concourse (along with other changes that were done all throughout the Center). While it’s possible that they may have protected it, I tend to doubt it, as they let so many other, much more noticeable and more important, features of the Center be demolished. (For instance they allowed management to totally close off some functional, handsome art deco entrances to the buildings on Fifth Ave. in order for these corridors to be incorporated into larger storefronts.) And when you think about it, how aesthetically and historical important can this box office and stairs be if even the cinema enthusiasts of Cinema Treasures know so little about them?
I doubt that a box office would be structurally important. At the very least, it’s easy to imagine them boarding it over or re-paneling it if they wanted to use it and the surrounding stairways differently.