Ziegfeld Theatre

ED: The picture isn’t bad at all – a couple reels are a little scratched. The soundtrack is unforgivable though…

I wonder if it was the same woman who ruined “Doctor Zhivago” in February by complaining about the volume? I hope they respond so quickly to me if I complain that today’s “Citizen Kane” show is not loud enough!

I will be checking out “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” which I’ve never seen. Also looking forward to “Cabaret,” which originally opened at the Ziegfeld, and the “Grease” sing-a-long should be a lot of fun.

Hey, listen… it certainly isn’t the most thrilling of schedules, but after all, it is a viewer’s choice affair, having been culled from all those request cards we were asked to fill out during the last festival. And I’m no spring chicken, but any chance I get to see a classic like “Citizen Kane” or “Casablanca” on a big screen in a facility such as the Ziegfeld (rather than the closet sized screening rooms at most revival houses in NYC) is an opportunity to good to pass up. And when’s the last time “Jaws” was seen on a silver screen in NY? This festival, like it or not, represents the “popular vote” and will just have to do since the Ziegfeld is not a revival house. And until such time as the Ziegfeld decides to seriously make the commitment towards a bona fide revival program (hiring a full time programmer, ensuring that a union pro is in the booth at all times and abandoning platter for reel-to-reel changeover), that’s all we can reasonably expect from these festivals.

Meanwhile, my biggest fears are that the prints are in poor shape or that improper plates and screen masks are used for the old Academy ratio films.

I look forward to hearing comments from those members who attend the festival this weekend as to the quality of prints and presentation. I plan on checking out “Kane” and “Casablanca” on Thursday afternoon, barring any scathing notices on this forum.

RobertR… What is the Olympia Theater advertised at the bottom of the clipping playing what looks like revival/art with “Strangers on a Train” and “Contempt”? Could it be the venerable theater at B'way and 107th that was torn down a couple of years back?

Thanks for the great ad, RobertR. I’d forgotten how much I missed those great old New York critics. Starting October 6th, we can all re-create that day in 1972 by going to the Ziegfeld.

Focus drift is one of the problems you will get when you show older used prints. Sometimes you have to sit and ride the focus during the show. What also makes a platter show boring in the booth is that the show is run using automation. So when you inspect and build-up the print the projectionists places cue tape pieces on the print. So at show time he just pushes start and the automation does the rest.

The recommended industry sound level is FAR too loud for most multiplexes causing customer complaints and sound bleed to other screens. It is not uncommon for managers and projectionists to lower sound levels once the run gets going as a result. In some cases low dialogue scenes get lost in order to avoid clearing the house everytime the music swells to idiotic levels or something explodes on screen. A recent example of this bad mixing is SUPERMAN RETURNS, which goes back and forth for no apparent reason since the dramatic fluctuations cannot justify the dialogue spoken nor action scenes, though it does keep one awake when there is no real plot unfolding and no has anything interesting to say. The thing is better watched in mono. You may experience the same thing at home on DVD on some films where you keep having to raise and lower the sound.

A footnote on the now legendary BACKDRAFT story, reel change misses were daily events at the Ziegfeld. Only BACKDRAFT made international news because the wrong reel went on and Billy Baldwin had a fit in front of the press.

If you do a professional sound check, tie the curtain up, put in a new lamp and run a platter built-up show through on a dry run, chances are you will not get embarrassed by an incompetent projectionist or gremlins at a premiere. That (and my little story above) is how the Ziegfeld ended showing movies the way it does.

Vito: I guess we won’t be seeing you at the Ziegfeld this fall. But we can still, as Jesse Jackson used to say, keep hope alive. They already have those two 35/70mm projectors up there – what’s wrong with giving them a little workout once in a while?

Yes, Vito… Then march up to the projection booth and give the operator a good shaming ear-full. Of course, he’s probably just a victim of circumstance himself. Maybe you can commiserate with him and then report back to us if the guy seems like a pro who would rise to the challenge of a proper road show presentation, if given the opportunity.

They did have a curtain at the Rivoli, but they didn’t always use it. They kept it open with the lights down during the overture for “Cleopatra”, and I had no idea why all those yellow scratch marks were squiggling around up there on the screen. I was around 10 then, and didn’t know that the music was actually printed on the film itself. But it made for a good memory (which I haven’t thought about in many years).

Vito, hope you can make it into NYC for a Ziegfeld show when the classics start again.

Nice hearing from you Bill, Oh and yes, I miss that too. Did the Rivoli have a curtain? If so did they ever do a Delux, meaning the curtain would close at the end of the first feature and then open to the start of the second feature. As for that renegade reel end alarm, that actually happened to me on more than one occasion. I can still hear that damm bell ringing in my head.

Gee William, five changeovers a day. I’ll bet you did not miss any. I had a similar situation at Century’s Green Acres on Long Island when it was a triplex, we were running “War Games” in 70mm on a platter and the Will Rogers collection trailer was in 35mm. So I also had five changeovers a day. By the way, The Green Acres, when it was a single screen, was one of a few locations on Long Island with three projectors in the booth. Century had three at, Green Acres, Plainview and Route 110 drive-in. UA had three projectors at the Calderone. Now-a-days must theatres have only one.
I would agree with you, I’d love to see them fire up the #2 machine at the Ziegfeld, run a show reel-to-reel and see what happens. Can ya hear the ding-ding-ding? Oh for those of you who may not be aware of what we are writing about, ding-ding-ding refers to the sound of the reel end alarm which would sound about 2 minutes before the end of the reel to alert (wake up?) the projectionist to an upcoming changeover.
I also do not understand, as Jeff has stated, how they missed all those changeovers, it just seems so hard to comprehend. Of course in the roadshow days, after running a print for several weeks and up to a year, you pretty well knew when the cues were coming. Oh how I remember the butterflies in my stomach the first couple of times we ran a print to a packed house waiting for those cues, afraid to blink. Good times!