The Metropole was a good jazz bar, though not a great one. After all, W. 52 Street was only a few blocks north. The Metropole caught the out-of-town tourist who didn’t know better. Behind the Mayfair on W. 47 Street stood the Steuben House, a once-decent Theater District restaurant for German food und ersatze Gemutlichkeit. Other reasonable restaurants lined W. 48 Street before Sam Ash grew elephantine.
Jim and Warren—
I retrieved the photo (and yesterday’s photo of the Mayfair that Warren cited) by going to the “United States” page, then to the “Editorial” listings, then to the “Search All Editorial” thumbnail, and finally entered the photo number in the Search Box — a clumsy trail, but one that got me there. Thanks, Warren, for the posting of this valuable resource.
BklynRob— 4 Ave and 29 Street on the west side of 4 and south side of 29? Ja, you’re really jogging my memory. Perhaps. But a third- or fourth-run emporium in any case, at least in the mid-1940s when my memory begins. I’ll consult FDYB.
Yes— On 4 Avenue in the 60s, there was also a used car dealership owned by Jack D'Amico. I always thought it odd that, aside from the Coliseum on 52 Street and the Terminal on Dean Street, 4 Avenue sported no movie theaters. As a kid, I held the firm belief that every major avenue should be lined with movie palaces.
The Vanity: yes! That was there then, and likely the theater that I confused with the Sunset. If it was on the south-west corner of 5 and 56, then, yes, that was the Vanity.
The CLOD might have been pathologically obsessed with visual suggestiveness in the ‘50s. Today the obsession would be with the social-values concept of extra-marital relations (i love that idea of “extra”—a good thing if it trickles down your way). Same difference if you call it family values, I guess. People were doing it then and are doing it now (thank God, deo gratias, kyrie eleison).
Here’s a photo of the Dyker in 1971. It comes from Brian Merlis and Lee A. Rosenzweig, “Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton: A Photographic Journey†(Brooklyn: Israelowitz Publishing, 2000), p. 155.
Here’s a photo of the Alpine in 1946. It comes from Brian Merlis and Lee A. Rosenzweig, “Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton: A Photographic Journey†(Brooklyn: Israelowitz Publishing, 2000), p. 131.
The double feature on the marquee lists “Gilda†and “Blondie’s Lucky Day.†Since the Rita Hayworth classic opened at RCMH on 14 March of that year, the photo was likely shot in the following May.
The cranky kid at the extreme right could very well have been me, since I was approximately his age at the time, and defiantly in character. I would have been pestering my mom to take me to the Alpine, even though we had already seen the feature film some weeks earlier at Loew’s State, where it had moved after RCMH. At the State, “Gilda†was accompanied by a stage show that featured a memorable puppet act, the chief reason (I think) why my parents (bless their hearts) took me to see that steamy film (and people wonder why I behave the way I do).
I believe that the CLOD objected to “The Greatest Shoe on Earth” for James Stewart’s role as a doctor on the lamb for having killed someone (remember how the FBI agents eye him suspiciously during his clown act, and how he nobly reveals his medical skills after the train crash). The CLOD objected to films that “took a light view of human life,” meaning films that depicted or implied acts of murder.
The CLOD objected to “Singin' in the Rain” for “suggestive costuming,” specifically for Cyd Charisse’s high-profile tights in the “Broadway Melody” number.
The CLOD always objected to films that presented “suggestive situations” (“The Moon is Blue”) or that “took a light view of marriage” (any film depicting or implying divorce).
Here’s a photo of the Stanley in 1944. It comes from Brian Merlis and Lee A. Rosenzweig, “Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton: A Photographic Journey†(Brooklyn: Israelowitz Publishing, 2000), p. 126.
The double feature on the marquee lists “Up in Arms†and “Yellow Canary.†Since the Danny Kaye feature opened at RCMH on 2 March of that year, the photo was likely shot in the following May or June.
Here’s a weekly program from the Stanley Theater in Brooklyn, from 1955, dated exactly fifty years ago today, 24 April, 2005. This is exactly the kind of program that Warren described yesterday.
“The Racers,†“The Country Girl,†and “Jupiter’s Darling†with their co-features were arriving at the Stanley at the very end of their initial release, as the first booking had already traveled through the RKO circuit and the other two through the Loew’s circuit. The remaining features were all revivals or “return engagements†of films ranging from one to ten or more years old. In the age before VCR or DVD, the Stanley and theaters like it were great places to catch up on classics.
I’m tickled that I put my hands on this program exactly fifty years after picking it up in the theater. But, then, yet stranger co-incidences have happened.
Oh, and one of my aunts worked upstairs, in a mail-order buisness just over the marquee (Necchi sewing machines, which advertised exclusively on TV via the Dumont channel 5 network).
On 16 December 1961, two airliners collided over New York Harbor, one falling to the ground in Staten Island, the other around the corner from the Carlton on Sterling Place between 6 and 7 Avenues. The sole survivor among forty or so passengers was a young boy, tossed from the wreckage into a bank of snow.
CharlesVanBibber— thanks — excellent photos. The Carlton offered quality presentation and classy showmanship. I remember it as the only neighborhood theater in Brooklyn that closed the curtain for a brief intermission after each of the co-features.
Several of my high school friends lived in the neighborhood, and with them I saw a bunch of films there in 1956-59, most memorably “Touch of Evil,” which opened directly at the RKO and other neighborhood chains without an initial Broadway booking.
Among other films there, I recall seeing Alec Guinness in “The Prisoner,” “Doctor in the House” and several others in the “Doctors” series (just right for teen-age double entendre), and “Pillow Talk” (despite my pathological aversion to the two stars, a film I greatly enjoyed at the time).
“The Racers,†“The Country Girl,†and “Jupiter’s Darling†with their co-features were arriving at the Stanley at the very end of their initial release, as the first booking had already traveled through the RKO circuit and the other two through the Loew’s circuit. The remaining features were all revivals or “return engagements†of films ranging from one to ten or more years old. In the age before VCR or DVD, the Stanley was a great place to catch up on classics.
I just consulted Film Daily Year Book of 1950 again, and found that the Alben is indeed listed (I missed it because, in scanning the columns for a theater on 3 Ave, I failed to see its address printed off-center on the right side). Its address was 5406 3 Avenue (ergo between 54 and 55 Streets) and it held 447 seats. It is not listed in the FDYB of 1954, so it surely did not survive the introduction of widescreen in ‘53.
Yes— I’ve been following your postings on the Ratz, and have realized that the hole-in-the-wall on 3 Avenue in the 40’s could not have been named the Ritz. That’s was a curious conflation on my part, mixing two theaters in the 40’s, one on 3 Ave, the other on 8 Avenue. But I still retain their images as distinct in my mind’s eye.
Alben: I would never have recalled that name (it’s either cognate with the ancient name for Britain, “Albin” or “Alban,” or else it commemorates a partnership between two guys, Al and Ben? likely the latter, given that time and place). There’s no listing in the Film Daily Year Book of 1950 (I’m certain that it was still operating then).
I dimly recall the Center, but not the Berkshire. I’ll check on them in the Film Daily Year Book when I’m in the library. PhilPhil sounds up to speed on all of it. I moved from Brooklyn in the late 1960s, so have only a phantasized recall of it, enhanced by bookish data.
Ja, ja, ja, die 40’s verr a Nordisk neighborhood — great delicatessens, and a Norwegian language newspaper, Nordisk Tidende, printed on 63 Street and Ft. Hamilton Pkwy, no?
Ernie Nagy— scroll upwards to 27 and 28 Feb and 2, 8, and 23 March ‘05, where Warren has eloquently chronicled the end of stage shows at the Paramount.
The only other VistaVision films that I recall having played at the Paramount besides “Strategic Air Command” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” were “To Catch a Thief,” “Artists and Models,” and “Anything Goes”—a perfect waste of terrific VV equipment, especially if the exhibitors went all the way with horizontal projection. The Paramount in those days was chiefly a showcase for Warner Bros. films. I believe that “We’re No Angels” and “Desperate Hours” opened at the Criterion. “The Trouble with Harry” premiered at the Paris, a highly unusual booking for a Hollywood studio film at the time. From my previous account of VV films that I’d seen in their first runs, I left out “Funny Face,” the sublime Easter show at RCMH in ‘57.
VistaVision at the Paramount was superior to its projection at any other theater in NYC.
At RCMH, where “White Chritmas,” High Society,“ and "North by Northwest” were projected on to the theater’s standard flat wide screen, it looked hardly different from any 35mm film in the auditorium’s vast expanse.
At the Criterion, whose screen was slightly more curved than most but not at all so deeply curved as those at the Rivoli, Warner, or Loew’s State, the viewing surface sat well inside the limited proscenium and deeply behind the red traveler curtain; for “The Ten Commandments” its size seemed unexceptional and even unimpressive.
At the Capitol, the framing and projection were first-rate for its gently curved screen, but the VistaVision look for “War and Peace” and “Vertigo” carried no special distinction.
The Brooklyn Paramount projected the medium onto a flat and somewhat squarish screen.
I was a flabbergastingly opinionated, movie-mad, camera-toting teen-ager when I saw those films at these theaters in the ‘50s. Only the Times Square Paramount impressed me for its VistaVision presentation. It’s a wonder people didn’t kick me in the pants for my ad hoc critiques.
Here’s a photo of the Paramount’s deeply curved VistaVision screen, which made its debut with the showing of “Strategic Air Command” in April 1955. It comes from Theatre Catalog, 12th ed. (1954-55).
You can see that the original proscenium columns were cut off and removed just above the screen so as to make use of the entire but cramped stage width. The dark midnight-blue house curtain traveled into wing spaces beyond the proscenium, past the audience’s sightlines. For CinemaScope films, masking dropped several feet to frame the 2.6 ratio (I recall seeing “Inn of the Sixth Happiness” there on New Year’s Eve, ‘58). For conventional widescreen, masking moved down at the top and in at the sides to reduce the exaggerated size (I recall seeing “Love in the Afternoon” there in August '57). I remember the Paramount’s VistaVision screen in its full glory—and it was glorious—for “The Man Who Knew Too Much” in May '56. My friends and I sat in the fifth row or thereabout.
My memory is that, instead of using the projection room at the front of the balcony, the Roxy used one at the top rear, perhaps for the very reasons of ghosting that you cite.
I recall rear projection for Disney’s “Peter Pan” in Feb. ‘53, “Call Me Madam” in April '53, and “Bus Stop” in Sept. '56, when I sat in that vast balcony. But I also recollect claims that CinemaScope55 was projected from the front booth for “Carousel” in Feb. '56 and “The King and I” in June '56. I saw the latter there then and I remember an elongated flood of light issuing from the front booth.
The contour arrangement produced an impressive effect, especially when accompanied by traveler curtains behind it. As I strain to recall the pre-‘52 old days, I believe that the great red curttain parted in opera-style fashion, with tewo giant swags. But I might be confusing it with the drapery treatment that framed the stage throughout the forties..
Here’s a photo of RCMH’s CinemaScope screen and masking, taken upon its debut in Jan. ‘54. It comes from Theatre Catalog magazine, 12th edition, 1954-55, p. 266.
The screen is fully exposed in this photo. The top mask moved downwards a few feet to produce a 2.5 ratio for Cinemascope. Side masks moved in several feet to produce a ratio of 1.8 for standard widescreen. At this time, RCMH still projected its newsreels and short subjects on its original-size 1.33 screen, roughly one-third of the surface seen here (you can glimpse its effect in Hitchcock’s 1942 “Saboteur” when Robert Cummings chases the villain across RCMH’s stage while a film is in progress). During newsreels, the framing arches were illuminated with dark-blue back-lighting to provide some visibility for patrons arriving or departing between the film and the stage show.
If you strain, you can also see a lamppost at each side of the proscenium, used as props for the Rockette’s spectacular Stage-door Johnny routine that accompanied “Knights of the Round Table” in Jan. ‘54.
The photo was taken between the Roxy’s remodelling in Dec. ‘52 and the advent of CinemaScope in Sept. '53. The screen is shaped in the conventional old 1.33 ratio. You can see the ruber mat on the ice stage beneath it.
And you can see that the Roxy did not use standard screen masking at this time. The picture sheet, framed in the thinnest of black borders, descended in front of softly lit blue curtains, and was advertised as reducing harsh contrasts and being soothing for the eyes. Upon introducing CinemaScope, the Roxy adopted conventional black adjustable masking for the new medium.
The Metropole was a good jazz bar, though not a great one. After all, W. 52 Street was only a few blocks north. The Metropole caught the out-of-town tourist who didn’t know better. Behind the Mayfair on W. 47 Street stood the Steuben House, a once-decent Theater District restaurant for German food und ersatze Gemutlichkeit. Other reasonable restaurants lined W. 48 Street before Sam Ash grew elephantine.
Jim and Warren—
I retrieved the photo (and yesterday’s photo of the Mayfair that Warren cited) by going to the “United States” page, then to the “Editorial” listings, then to the “Search All Editorial” thumbnail, and finally entered the photo number in the Search Box — a clumsy trail, but one that got me there. Thanks, Warren, for the posting of this valuable resource.
BklynRob— 4 Ave and 29 Street on the west side of 4 and south side of 29? Ja, you’re really jogging my memory. Perhaps. But a third- or fourth-run emporium in any case, at least in the mid-1940s when my memory begins. I’ll consult FDYB.
Yes— On 4 Avenue in the 60s, there was also a used car dealership owned by Jack D'Amico. I always thought it odd that, aside from the Coliseum on 52 Street and the Terminal on Dean Street, 4 Avenue sported no movie theaters. As a kid, I held the firm belief that every major avenue should be lined with movie palaces.
The Vanity: yes! That was there then, and likely the theater that I confused with the Sunset. If it was on the south-west corner of 5 and 56, then, yes, that was the Vanity.
The CLOD might have been pathologically obsessed with visual suggestiveness in the ‘50s. Today the obsession would be with the social-values concept of extra-marital relations (i love that idea of “extra”—a good thing if it trickles down your way). Same difference if you call it family values, I guess. People were doing it then and are doing it now (thank God, deo gratias, kyrie eleison).
Here’s a photo of the Dyker in 1971. It comes from Brian Merlis and Lee A. Rosenzweig, “Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton: A Photographic Journey†(Brooklyn: Israelowitz Publishing, 2000), p. 155.
View link
The theater closed exactly twenty-eight years ago.
Here’s a photo of the Alpine in 1946. It comes from Brian Merlis and Lee A. Rosenzweig, “Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton: A Photographic Journey†(Brooklyn: Israelowitz Publishing, 2000), p. 131.
View link
The double feature on the marquee lists “Gilda†and “Blondie’s Lucky Day.†Since the Rita Hayworth classic opened at RCMH on 14 March of that year, the photo was likely shot in the following May.
The cranky kid at the extreme right could very well have been me, since I was approximately his age at the time, and defiantly in character. I would have been pestering my mom to take me to the Alpine, even though we had already seen the feature film some weeks earlier at Loew’s State, where it had moved after RCMH. At the State, “Gilda†was accompanied by a stage show that featured a memorable puppet act, the chief reason (I think) why my parents (bless their hearts) took me to see that steamy film (and people wonder why I behave the way I do).
I believe that the CLOD objected to “The Greatest Shoe on Earth” for James Stewart’s role as a doctor on the lamb for having killed someone (remember how the FBI agents eye him suspiciously during his clown act, and how he nobly reveals his medical skills after the train crash). The CLOD objected to films that “took a light view of human life,” meaning films that depicted or implied acts of murder.
The CLOD objected to “Singin' in the Rain” for “suggestive costuming,” specifically for Cyd Charisse’s high-profile tights in the “Broadway Melody” number.
The CLOD always objected to films that presented “suggestive situations” (“The Moon is Blue”) or that “took a light view of marriage” (any film depicting or implying divorce).
Florian Zabach, the Fiddler. He was a wonderful classically trained violinist who’d make your hair stand on end with his performance of “Hot Canary.”
Here’s a photo of the Stanley in 1944. It comes from Brian Merlis and Lee A. Rosenzweig, “Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton: A Photographic Journey†(Brooklyn: Israelowitz Publishing, 2000), p. 126.
View link
The double feature on the marquee lists “Up in Arms†and “Yellow Canary.†Since the Danny Kaye feature opened at RCMH on 2 March of that year, the photo was likely shot in the following May or June.
Here’s a weekly program from the Stanley Theater in Brooklyn, from 1955, dated exactly fifty years ago today, 24 April, 2005. This is exactly the kind of program that Warren described yesterday.
View link
View link
“The Racers,†“The Country Girl,†and “Jupiter’s Darling†with their co-features were arriving at the Stanley at the very end of their initial release, as the first booking had already traveled through the RKO circuit and the other two through the Loew’s circuit. The remaining features were all revivals or “return engagements†of films ranging from one to ten or more years old. In the age before VCR or DVD, the Stanley and theaters like it were great places to catch up on classics.
I’m tickled that I put my hands on this program exactly fifty years after picking it up in the theater. But, then, yet stranger co-incidences have happened.
Oh, and one of my aunts worked upstairs, in a mail-order buisness just over the marquee (Necchi sewing machines, which advertised exclusively on TV via the Dumont channel 5 network).
On 16 December 1961, two airliners collided over New York Harbor, one falling to the ground in Staten Island, the other around the corner from the Carlton on Sterling Place between 6 and 7 Avenues. The sole survivor among forty or so passengers was a young boy, tossed from the wreckage into a bank of snow.
CharlesVanBibber— thanks — excellent photos. The Carlton offered quality presentation and classy showmanship. I remember it as the only neighborhood theater in Brooklyn that closed the curtain for a brief intermission after each of the co-features.
Several of my high school friends lived in the neighborhood, and with them I saw a bunch of films there in 1956-59, most memorably “Touch of Evil,” which opened directly at the RKO and other neighborhood chains without an initial Broadway booking.
Among other films there, I recall seeing Alec Guinness in “The Prisoner,” “Doctor in the House” and several others in the “Doctors” series (just right for teen-age double entendre), and “Pillow Talk” (despite my pathological aversion to the two stars, a film I greatly enjoyed at the time).
Here’s a weekly program from the Stanley in 1955, dated exactly fifty years ago today, 24 April, 2005.
View link
View link
“The Racers,†“The Country Girl,†and “Jupiter’s Darling†with their co-features were arriving at the Stanley at the very end of their initial release, as the first booking had already traveled through the RKO circuit and the other two through the Loew’s circuit. The remaining features were all revivals or “return engagements†of films ranging from one to ten or more years old. In the age before VCR or DVD, the Stanley was a great place to catch up on classics.
I just consulted Film Daily Year Book of 1950 again, and found that the Alben is indeed listed (I missed it because, in scanning the columns for a theater on 3 Ave, I failed to see its address printed off-center on the right side). Its address was 5406 3 Avenue (ergo between 54 and 55 Streets) and it held 447 seats. It is not listed in the FDYB of 1954, so it surely did not survive the introduction of widescreen in ‘53.
Theaterat—
Yes— I’ve been following your postings on the Ratz, and have realized that the hole-in-the-wall on 3 Avenue in the 40’s could not have been named the Ritz. That’s was a curious conflation on my part, mixing two theaters in the 40’s, one on 3 Ave, the other on 8 Avenue. But I still retain their images as distinct in my mind’s eye.
Alben: I would never have recalled that name (it’s either cognate with the ancient name for Britain, “Albin” or “Alban,” or else it commemorates a partnership between two guys, Al and Ben? likely the latter, given that time and place). There’s no listing in the Film Daily Year Book of 1950 (I’m certain that it was still operating then).
I dimly recall the Center, but not the Berkshire. I’ll check on them in the Film Daily Year Book when I’m in the library. PhilPhil sounds up to speed on all of it. I moved from Brooklyn in the late 1960s, so have only a phantasized recall of it, enhanced by bookish data.
Ja, ja, ja, die 40’s verr a Nordisk neighborhood — great delicatessens, and a Norwegian language newspaper, Nordisk Tidende, printed on 63 Street and Ft. Hamilton Pkwy, no?
Ernie Nagy— scroll upwards to 27 and 28 Feb and 2, 8, and 23 March ‘05, where Warren has eloquently chronicled the end of stage shows at the Paramount.
The only other VistaVision films that I recall having played at the Paramount besides “Strategic Air Command” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” were “To Catch a Thief,” “Artists and Models,” and “Anything Goes”—a perfect waste of terrific VV equipment, especially if the exhibitors went all the way with horizontal projection. The Paramount in those days was chiefly a showcase for Warner Bros. films. I believe that “We’re No Angels” and “Desperate Hours” opened at the Criterion. “The Trouble with Harry” premiered at the Paris, a highly unusual booking for a Hollywood studio film at the time. From my previous account of VV films that I’d seen in their first runs, I left out “Funny Face,” the sublime Easter show at RCMH in ‘57.
VistaVision at the Paramount was superior to its projection at any other theater in NYC.
At RCMH, where “White Chritmas,” High Society,“ and "North by Northwest” were projected on to the theater’s standard flat wide screen, it looked hardly different from any 35mm film in the auditorium’s vast expanse.
At the Criterion, whose screen was slightly more curved than most but not at all so deeply curved as those at the Rivoli, Warner, or Loew’s State, the viewing surface sat well inside the limited proscenium and deeply behind the red traveler curtain; for “The Ten Commandments” its size seemed unexceptional and even unimpressive.
At the Capitol, the framing and projection were first-rate for its gently curved screen, but the VistaVision look for “War and Peace” and “Vertigo” carried no special distinction.
The Brooklyn Paramount projected the medium onto a flat and somewhat squarish screen.
I was a flabbergastingly opinionated, movie-mad, camera-toting teen-ager when I saw those films at these theaters in the ‘50s. Only the Times Square Paramount impressed me for its VistaVision presentation. It’s a wonder people didn’t kick me in the pants for my ad hoc critiques.
Here’s a photo of the Paramount’s deeply curved VistaVision screen, which made its debut with the showing of “Strategic Air Command” in April 1955. It comes from Theatre Catalog, 12th ed. (1954-55).
View link
You can see that the original proscenium columns were cut off and removed just above the screen so as to make use of the entire but cramped stage width. The dark midnight-blue house curtain traveled into wing spaces beyond the proscenium, past the audience’s sightlines. For CinemaScope films, masking dropped several feet to frame the 2.6 ratio (I recall seeing “Inn of the Sixth Happiness” there on New Year’s Eve, ‘58). For conventional widescreen, masking moved down at the top and in at the sides to reduce the exaggerated size (I recall seeing “Love in the Afternoon” there in August '57). I remember the Paramount’s VistaVision screen in its full glory—and it was glorious—for “The Man Who Knew Too Much” in May '56. My friends and I sat in the fifth row or thereabout.
And here’s a photo of the ‘40’s drapery treatment:
View link
The photo comes from the magazine “Marquee,” vol. 2, no. 3 (1979), p. 16.
My memory is that, instead of using the projection room at the front of the balcony, the Roxy used one at the top rear, perhaps for the very reasons of ghosting that you cite.
I recall rear projection for Disney’s “Peter Pan” in Feb. ‘53, “Call Me Madam” in April '53, and “Bus Stop” in Sept. '56, when I sat in that vast balcony. But I also recollect claims that CinemaScope55 was projected from the front booth for “Carousel” in Feb. '56 and “The King and I” in June '56. I saw the latter there then and I remember an elongated flood of light issuing from the front booth.
The contour arrangement produced an impressive effect, especially when accompanied by traveler curtains behind it. As I strain to recall the pre-‘52 old days, I believe that the great red curttain parted in opera-style fashion, with tewo giant swags. But I might be confusing it with the drapery treatment that framed the stage throughout the forties..
Here’s a photo of RCMH’s CinemaScope screen and masking, taken upon its debut in Jan. ‘54. It comes from Theatre Catalog magazine, 12th edition, 1954-55, p. 266.
View link
The screen is fully exposed in this photo. The top mask moved downwards a few feet to produce a 2.5 ratio for Cinemascope. Side masks moved in several feet to produce a ratio of 1.8 for standard widescreen. At this time, RCMH still projected its newsreels and short subjects on its original-size 1.33 screen, roughly one-third of the surface seen here (you can glimpse its effect in Hitchcock’s 1942 “Saboteur” when Robert Cummings chases the villain across RCMH’s stage while a film is in progress). During newsreels, the framing arches were illuminated with dark-blue back-lighting to provide some visibility for patrons arriving or departing between the film and the stage show.
If you strain, you can also see a lamppost at each side of the proscenium, used as props for the Rockette’s spectacular Stage-door Johnny routine that accompanied “Knights of the Round Table” in Jan. ‘54.
And here’s a photo from Theatre Catalog magazine, 11th ed., 1952-53, p. 212:
View link
The photo was taken between the Roxy’s remodelling in Dec. ‘52 and the advent of CinemaScope in Sept. '53. The screen is shaped in the conventional old 1.33 ratio. You can see the ruber mat on the ice stage beneath it.
And you can see that the Roxy did not use standard screen masking at this time. The picture sheet, framed in the thinnest of black borders, descended in front of softly lit blue curtains, and was advertised as reducing harsh contrasts and being soothing for the eyes. Upon introducing CinemaScope, the Roxy adopted conventional black adjustable masking for the new medium.