So where did My Fair Lady play in Atlantic City? It had to have been 70mm. And all those Todd AO films and Ben Hur. And Cinerama? They couldn’t all have been at the Virginia.
Now BOB that’s enough. Leave such comments to the Roxy or Paramount page. What would the women in hats and gloves in the first mezz at the latest Greer Garson movie say?
Pablo,
I thought that the proscenium was somewhat wider and the traveler curtains overlapped the corners when it became a 70mm roadshow house. I could be wrong but I believe that when South Pacific opened there it had a huge curved screen which would have needed a new opening and curtains.
Anybody else who was there during the roadshow era remember if it was the same as in Warren’s photo or if it had been remodeled?
BOB other than the Rockette do you remember anything else about the stage show? That Santa of the Sea finale seems somewhat bizarre. I know that the Kirby flying ballet was often used for the Undersea Ballet. So was the ballet underwater and did they manage to submerge Santa as well? What I would give for films or even photos of some of these stage shows!
Recently TCM has been showing a short Robert Redford tribute to Natalie Wood. One gets to see beautiful letterboxed images from Inside Daisy Clover. This used to play fairly frequently on TV years ago and it never looked like this. While I remember that it was not an especially good movie projected at the Music Hall in Panavision it must have been something to see. Of course at the time everyone probably took it for granted.
Is there any screen couple today as beautiful as Wood and Redford?
The great photo of the Music Hall’s cinemascope screen makes it look as though it were one sheet. However on previous posts people have said that the screen was in several horizontal strips and that they were quite noticable to the film viewer. Was this the case and does that mean that all those widescreen features shown in ‘54 and '55 had that flaw which I would assume would have been pretty distracting? Also if the Hall had it doesn’t that mean that the Roxy and other theaters had it as well?
Warren that’s a wonderful photo(boy do I miss this theater, it sould have been treated like the Ziegfeld.) Do you have one just as good from when it was a 70mm roadshow house?
Speaking of glowing in the dark I believe I saw this effect used on the Rockettes in the ‘70 Christmas show when all the lights in the Hall were shut off and one could see the high kicking legs aglow. Also there is a photo from a very old Music Hall souvenir book with the the former Missouri Rockets in Halloween skeleton costumes!
I am sure the glow in the dark effect was used for this.
Richard Foreman would have loved it.
As for the Producers as a Christmas film knowing Brooks penchant for crudeness, potty humor and homophobia which reaches some sort of apotheosis in this work(full disclosure I haven’t seen the stage show) its hardly what I would like to think of as a Music Hall Christmas film.(how many times is the F word used? does the movie get a PG 13 or an R rating?)
Is Zaza that bad or were people so Goodman crazy that they could have shown a blue movie with Hedy Lamarr, Paulette Godard and Tyrone Power and they still would have been yelling for Benny?
A piano is far preferable to some of the bad instrumental accompaniments I’ve heard which seem designed to totally destroy the mood of so many silent films. Especially when you see silents on DVD or TCM. The soundtracks are guaranteed to be abysmal making the films unwatchable.
I wish we had a place like the Castro in New York.
Only one is a genuine 70mm film but Sweet Charity, Chips and Sixpence I think are 3 very underrated films and certainly deserving of a reevalution with a roadshow type presentation.
Well this past year I was hoping for 70mm anniversary presentations of Lady and SOM but neither came to pass.
I’m still waiting for a cinephile like Scorsese who has a passion for widesceen films to join in the fray and begin to raise funds for a desperately needed widescreen museum. Just lets make it a real one. 50 ft just doesn’t cut it.
Mother Carey’s Chickens?
Who owed who a favor?
As much as I love the Paramount, Capitol, Roxy and Old Met(from pictures)the crime of all time in my est. is the destruction of Penn Station. If there is any indictment of New York politicos and real estate developers that is it.
Truly one of the great architectural wonders of the modern world.
So why don’t they just go and tear down the Pyramids, St Peters, and the Cappella degli Scivegni while they’re at it?
Well they maybe have to start thinking in terms of showmanship again if they want to start bringing people back into movie theaters. With movie companies considering releasing films simultaneously on DVD’s why in the world should anyone go to a theater when you make up for the(relatively) larger screen in the comfort and convenience of your own home. The audience that was collectively enthralled by a new film is a thing of the past.
Maybe cinema as a public experience is about to become as extinct as vaudeville.
So why doesn’t the Clearview make the Ziegfeld a real presentation house and install a real 140 degree curved 80 ft screen which would be adaptable to show everything from 1:85 to panavision to 70MM like the old times Square houses. Thereby utilizing the theater a lot more than it is being used now and garnering a lot of publicity for itself. The way theaters used to years ago when they were modernized.
Now its just being used as another screening room along with all the other multiplexes in Manhattan.
Maybe this can be the East Coast American Cinemateque.
Warren I didn’t know the office space was for the Times. Another reason to dislike that dreadful paper that has done as much as anything to destroy the glory that was midtown Manhattan.
Interesting that when the Paramount was being torn down there was no public outcry when at the same time the old Met and Penn Station were being torn down as well with the Astor and Capitol and Times Tower to quickly follow. This immediately let to the deterioration of midtown lasting two decades when the rest of historical Times Square was demolished without so much as a hiccup from the public making the real estate developers and Giuliani very rich(especially with all those tax abatements.)
to frankcan,
I rememhber seeing Superman 2 at the Cinerama 1. Definately not the 2. Perhaps they moved it at some point. You’re right the 2 was huge I always felt that it was the entire Strand Balconey with modern decor. It you see original pictures of the balcony it is exactly the same but with ornate moldings. Stadium seating before the term was coined. You are right about the sound in 1. It was great. there isn’t a theater I’ve been in since the destruction in the late 80’s of the great Times Square houses where the sound is as good. Or maybe its just a different type of sound that I do not like. Too glassy, not enough warmth and richness. And geez is it loud.
But then following you had two hit them out of the ball park with steroids home runs. I would have been thrilled with the equivilant of just one in all of the 70’s.
Amen!
Despite my moaning and groaning about screen size it still is a great place(but not for widescreen.) Bruce and Steve are as I have mentioned above two reasons to live in New York at this moment in time if you love film.
By artie-indie I mean the stuff that gets standing ovations at Sundance which means its probably unwatchable. When Bergman dies I don’t think there will be one great director left alive.
His Royal Stockholm productions out in Brooklyn were along with the Prince/Sondheim productions of the ‘70’s the greatest theatrical experiences of my life.
Irv,
I saw it as well at the Lincoln Square and though I saw it a little later in the run and saw it at one of the smaller theaters it was still pretty good. Vistavision is probably great at the Paris. I wish they would get the major revivals like the Rialto films that have extended runs at FF. For instance revivals like Cherbourg, Rochefort,Contempt and Cabiria would have been great at the Paris.
The Gang’s All Here as well!
So where did My Fair Lady play in Atlantic City? It had to have been 70mm. And all those Todd AO films and Ben Hur. And Cinerama? They couldn’t all have been at the Virginia.
Now BOB that’s enough. Leave such comments to the Roxy or Paramount page. What would the women in hats and gloves in the first mezz at the latest Greer Garson movie say?
Pablo,
I thought that the proscenium was somewhat wider and the traveler curtains overlapped the corners when it became a 70mm roadshow house. I could be wrong but I believe that when South Pacific opened there it had a huge curved screen which would have needed a new opening and curtains.
Anybody else who was there during the roadshow era remember if it was the same as in Warren’s photo or if it had been remodeled?
BOB other than the Rockette do you remember anything else about the stage show? That Santa of the Sea finale seems somewhat bizarre. I know that the Kirby flying ballet was often used for the Undersea Ballet. So was the ballet underwater and did they manage to submerge Santa as well? What I would give for films or even photos of some of these stage shows!
This theater roadshowed Sound of Music in ‘65. Does anybody know if it was in Todd AO?
Recently TCM has been showing a short Robert Redford tribute to Natalie Wood. One gets to see beautiful letterboxed images from Inside Daisy Clover. This used to play fairly frequently on TV years ago and it never looked like this. While I remember that it was not an especially good movie projected at the Music Hall in Panavision it must have been something to see. Of course at the time everyone probably took it for granted.
Is there any screen couple today as beautiful as Wood and Redford?
The great photo of the Music Hall’s cinemascope screen makes it look as though it were one sheet. However on previous posts people have said that the screen was in several horizontal strips and that they were quite noticable to the film viewer. Was this the case and does that mean that all those widescreen features shown in ‘54 and '55 had that flaw which I would assume would have been pretty distracting? Also if the Hall had it doesn’t that mean that the Roxy and other theaters had it as well?
Warren that’s a wonderful photo(boy do I miss this theater, it sould have been treated like the Ziegfeld.) Do you have one just as good from when it was a 70mm roadshow house?
Speaking of glowing in the dark I believe I saw this effect used on the Rockettes in the ‘70 Christmas show when all the lights in the Hall were shut off and one could see the high kicking legs aglow. Also there is a photo from a very old Music Hall souvenir book with the the former Missouri Rockets in Halloween skeleton costumes!
I am sure the glow in the dark effect was used for this.
Richard Foreman would have loved it.
As for the Producers as a Christmas film knowing Brooks penchant for crudeness, potty humor and homophobia which reaches some sort of apotheosis in this work(full disclosure I haven’t seen the stage show) its hardly what I would like to think of as a Music Hall Christmas film.(how many times is the F word used? does the movie get a PG 13 or an R rating?)
Is Zaza that bad or were people so Goodman crazy that they could have shown a blue movie with Hedy Lamarr, Paulette Godard and Tyrone Power and they still would have been yelling for Benny?
A piano is far preferable to some of the bad instrumental accompaniments I’ve heard which seem designed to totally destroy the mood of so many silent films. Especially when you see silents on DVD or TCM. The soundtracks are guaranteed to be abysmal making the films unwatchable.
I wish we had a place like the Castro in New York.
Only one is a genuine 70mm film but Sweet Charity, Chips and Sixpence I think are 3 very underrated films and certainly deserving of a reevalution with a roadshow type presentation.
Well this past year I was hoping for 70mm anniversary presentations of Lady and SOM but neither came to pass.
I’m still waiting for a cinephile like Scorsese who has a passion for widesceen films to join in the fray and begin to raise funds for a desperately needed widescreen museum. Just lets make it a real one. 50 ft just doesn’t cut it.
Mother Carey’s Chickens?
Who owed who a favor?
As much as I love the Paramount, Capitol, Roxy and Old Met(from pictures)the crime of all time in my est. is the destruction of Penn Station. If there is any indictment of New York politicos and real estate developers that is it.
Truly one of the great architectural wonders of the modern world.
So why don’t they just go and tear down the Pyramids, St Peters, and the Cappella degli Scivegni while they’re at it?
Money. Ever heard of it?
Well they maybe have to start thinking in terms of showmanship again if they want to start bringing people back into movie theaters. With movie companies considering releasing films simultaneously on DVD’s why in the world should anyone go to a theater when you make up for the(relatively) larger screen in the comfort and convenience of your own home. The audience that was collectively enthralled by a new film is a thing of the past.
Maybe cinema as a public experience is about to become as extinct as vaudeville.
So why doesn’t the Clearview make the Ziegfeld a real presentation house and install a real 140 degree curved 80 ft screen which would be adaptable to show everything from 1:85 to panavision to 70MM like the old times Square houses. Thereby utilizing the theater a lot more than it is being used now and garnering a lot of publicity for itself. The way theaters used to years ago when they were modernized.
Now its just being used as another screening room along with all the other multiplexes in Manhattan.
Maybe this can be the East Coast American Cinemateque.
To myrtleave,
Sadie Thompson played in 3D at film forum a number of years ago.
Warren I didn’t know the office space was for the Times. Another reason to dislike that dreadful paper that has done as much as anything to destroy the glory that was midtown Manhattan.
Interesting that when the Paramount was being torn down there was no public outcry when at the same time the old Met and Penn Station were being torn down as well with the Astor and Capitol and Times Tower to quickly follow. This immediately let to the deterioration of midtown lasting two decades when the rest of historical Times Square was demolished without so much as a hiccup from the public making the real estate developers and Giuliani very rich(especially with all those tax abatements.)
to frankcan,
I rememhber seeing Superman 2 at the Cinerama 1. Definately not the 2. Perhaps they moved it at some point. You’re right the 2 was huge I always felt that it was the entire Strand Balconey with modern decor. It you see original pictures of the balcony it is exactly the same but with ornate moldings. Stadium seating before the term was coined. You are right about the sound in 1. It was great. there isn’t a theater I’ve been in since the destruction in the late 80’s of the great Times Square houses where the sound is as good. Or maybe its just a different type of sound that I do not like. Too glassy, not enough warmth and richness. And geez is it loud.
But then following you had two hit them out of the ball park with steroids home runs. I would have been thrilled with the equivilant of just one in all of the 70’s.
Does anyone know how large the roadshow screen was at the State from Ben to Dolittle?
Amen!
Despite my moaning and groaning about screen size it still is a great place(but not for widescreen.) Bruce and Steve are as I have mentioned above two reasons to live in New York at this moment in time if you love film.
By artie-indie I mean the stuff that gets standing ovations at Sundance which means its probably unwatchable. When Bergman dies I don’t think there will be one great director left alive.
His Royal Stockholm productions out in Brooklyn were along with the Prince/Sondheim productions of the ‘70’s the greatest theatrical experiences of my life.
Irv,
I saw it as well at the Lincoln Square and though I saw it a little later in the run and saw it at one of the smaller theaters it was still pretty good. Vistavision is probably great at the Paris. I wish they would get the major revivals like the Rialto films that have extended runs at FF. For instance revivals like Cherbourg, Rochefort,Contempt and Cabiria would have been great at the Paris.
The Gang’s All Here as well!