Ziegfeld Theatre
141 W. 54th Street,
New York,
NY
10019
141 W. 54th Street,
New York,
NY
10019
131 people
favorited this theater
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I attend first run films at the Ziegfeld, and do NOT have any problems with the presentation, and I’m picky.
The Godfather was perfect!
It does sound like at least a couple crappy prints were sent by studios: certainly Alien, and possibly this very spliced print of Lawrence of Arabia.
From what I can read, Clearview has learned much & improved for some of these “classics” concerns of intermissions, etc.
So, let’s not get down on Clearview. MANY people appreciated the classic film festival. One matter they can improve- those 2 week passes need more time, even if they happen to be good at their other venues. People need time to find something they want to see.
Sadly this is the way most first run theatres operate now, even in a market like New York.
Bill… none perfect? My goodness, that’s a powerful statement. That’s the point here. They should have all been perfect. Attention to details is important. To give credit where it’s due, yes they’ve run a good slate of films, but if you’re not going to do it right, don’t do it. Is this the kind of presenation they give for regular first run films?
There are two sides to every argument, even the ones going on here. Of course you can see better showmanship on display at the Lafayette (or in Jeff’s basement, where I’ve seen many fine shows), but nowhere else in the New York area can you see “Lawrence of Arabia” in 70mm on a 50 ft. screen. Clearview did not spend the money to hire a DTS tech for the “Lawrence” shows, but they did lower their prices for the classics series from $11.75 to $7.50. The theater could have gone dark like it did during the winter months in years past, but instead this year we got to see “2001”, “Doctor Zhivago”, “Ben-Hur”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “Close Encounters”, etc. I’ve been to 14 shows during the Classics series. None were perfect, all were great.
Gary, what you say is true, but there is still no excuse for poor showmanship and knowingly putting on a show with a graring technical fault such as sound sync. I’m sorry, it’s inexcusable. If they knew that Friday’s performance would be marred by that, why didn’t they say so at the box office and offer tickets at a reduced price? Why did I have to say something to the manager, only to be given a pass good for 2 weeks? I don’t live in the city, I don’t get there often, a 2 week pass is a joke.
I could deal with a film break. It’s fixed, show goes on.
Knowingly showing a film to the paying public with an out of sync track is just piss poor.
I get better showmanship in Suffern NY, and in my basement. Yes, I’m dissapointed, it was my first show there in decades. I don’t hold this against the projectionist, I understand “marvin” probably doesn’t know how to set the digital delay and wouldn’t be allowed to. I hold it against Clearview. They should have had a full staff up there, both projectionist and technical guy for a special show like this. It was a 1 week engagement of a special format, and it was treated as if it was any other 35mm presentation. They should have had the proper people up there all week for this.
I am finally glad that Saps injected a bit of humor into this. If everyone can please calm down for a second. I was in the projection booth Saturday night before the screening of Lawrence. it was my second time there. I introduced CE3K back on 3/17, and I wanted to say hello again to thank him for making it such a special night for me. I had seen the posts about the “out of sync” problem, and was about to address it to him, when he said, stopping me, “Gary, I know what you’re going to say, the film is out of sync.” There was a tech up there on Saturday afternoon working on the DTS decoder-Marvin is not allowed to open it up and touch it-in fact he wouldn’t dare. He isa consummate profesional, a man in his seventies, a projectionist for over 40 years—and he knew that even Saturday night’s showing was not going to be “perfect”, and he was far from happy about it because the print was worn-but it wasn’t “alien” which he previewed and was unwatchable.
In mixing technologies, a 70mm print without mag tracks, DTS, brain wraps-I’m surprised shit doesn’t happen more often. I looked at the way the film was wrapped around all of those rollers from the platters to the projector, and thought, “Oh my God, what a Rube Goldberg,"but Marvin did not bring the platters to the Ziegfeld. I was not at the "Ten Commandments” screening- I was exhausted from “Lawrence” Saturday night-but my friend, who was there, told me that it was great, but not perfect, sometimes, a focus problem, given the age of the movie. Still a great time.
We are really in a transitional period, the Ziegfeld is installing digital equipment shortly, wihin a month—for it to be a first run house and a revival house is not going to be without problems—I still say that it was ballsy of them to even try such a concept for TWO MONTHS. Yeah, I also yearn for the DeMille and the Rivoli, but it ain’t happening.
Remember what Craig said above, “I think it’s a great program
that can only grow in time. Let’s see what happens….”
Yeah, I would love so see a perfect “Lawrence,” but disregarding, for the moment, the synch issues, the print was not perfect. So, can we all calm down, lose the attitude a bit, work towards KEEPING THE PROGRAM GOING, realize and state there are very important issues to deal with, and move on toan even better program next time.
Thanks for listening,
Gary
That print had a fair number of tape splices on it. You couldn’t hear them because of the DTS, but I could see the tape on the frames. Somewhere in the second part there was a section that had a very large number of taped areas in close sucession, lasting maybe 10-15 seconds. Is this perhaps the portion that wrapped around the int sprocket? I know what poorly made tape splices that ‘hinge’ do when they go through my projector and I tend to remake those with a slight overlap to prevent problems. I can only imagine what a hinged tape splice on a 70mm print looks like when traveling faster through a projector can cause. Doesn’t the int sprocket on a Century have a ‘stripper’ to prevent windup wraps? It’s good the show was able to continue, but now future audiences have a 10 second jump splice to deal with. That’s a big hole.
Thanks, Saps. As I leave the house to go to work, it’s a good feeling to go out laughing.
Thanks movieman for that info, I was hoping someone could tell us what actually happened. It’s like they say, there as always two sides to every story. When film wraps around the intermittent sprocket,especially 70mm, it is very difficult to undue. As to runnung reel-to-reel, I would not think it would be very difficult to pick up another reader for the second projector. The whole 70mm DTS idea never really took off, and I’ll bet they have a few readers sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust that could be bought cheaply. I too have spent a lot of time in the booth (50 years) and still can’t understand why the classic old roadshow movies are shown
using a platter when there are two projectors in the booth. Would you have spliced the two parts to a movie with intermission and allowed the intrermission tag and entre'act music to play in a dark theatre with the curtain open, or would you have gotten up and performed a little showmanship magic? Come on now, that’s just a lazy, who gives a darn attitude, that does not belong in the Ziegfeld.
Good one, saps.
I know someone who once saw an imperfect presentation of Lawrence of Arabia, and she died.
O K guys I am one of the guys that ran up to the booth sunday night, I have been a projectionist for obout 34 years,the other two guys are projectionists/ service tecks, It was not a wrap, it was a patch that opend up right below the intermitted and wraped around the sprocket,Marvin did stop it in time, 2 more seconds and gears would have blown, Poor Marvin could not get the film out of the the projector… IT took my friend quite a bit of pull to get it out!
It was not his fault , it is an old print with a lot of splices, The booth does have 2 projectors (JJ 35/70) one is set uo for 35 for the clearview reel and the other one 70 mm , They can not run reel to reel (W/70mm DTS) because the only have 1 70mm dts reader, by the way 70 mm Mag does not have sound back up…no opical sound on 70 mm. One more thing, only about 10 seconds of film was damaged beyond repair not the whole reel.
Yes Ed, a while back I asked REndres what equipment was in the booth and I believe he wrote both 35/70 projectors were still in the booth along with a platter and of course a digital projector as well.
This is probably how they are running the commercials, using the second projector set up for 35mm. If that is the case running reel-to reel is something they most certainly should be doing with these valuable prints. It is especially shocking to me that the operator (he’s no ptojectionist) could not fix the problem with the film break. The man has no business being in that booth, he should instead collect tickets at the door.
Stan, I hear what you are saying, but sometimes when the print sticks and several layers of film try to pass thru feed plate at the same time, you have to be quick and try to prevent the film from wrapping, it just makes matters worse the operator is not paying
attention to what is going on in the booth. As posted, he could not even start the second half properly but ran the commercials again.
Good grief! Sorry Clearview, you need to clean house in the booth,
and demand local 306 supply you with compatant professional projectionist.
I wrote from ignorant assumption, Vito. Thanks for straightening me out on the point. If there is no cost involved, then perhaps suggesting the use of reels over the platter is a point worth pushing with management for future series.
I attended the Sunday matinee of Lawrence yesterday and the first half went off without a hitch. Then as the entre act music was about to begin the curtain opened and the Clearview commercials that were shown prior to part 1 started and played for about 2 minutes. The projectionist must have realized it and shut it off, closed the curtain and started the entre act. Not the end of the world maybe but in a Manhattan house that was once a class act, it was sad to see. Imagaine if a projectionist did something like this in the Rivoli or Criterion in the great years?
I’m guessing they did NOT remove the second platter. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that for classics, a platter should never be used? The prints are rare & the studios & archives don’t want theaters to use platters for the rare prints, right? When we retrieved film equipment from the closed Boyd in Philadelphia (to reinstall later in the upstairs original booth), we retrieved the two 35-70 mm movie projectors (and an extra one from an adjoining auditorium) and told management to toss the platter!
I wasn’t at Lawrence, but agree that it was unacceptable to run the sound out of sync with the visuals. The paid projectionist should have known how to put the film back on track after it burned, but since he didn’t, I see nothing wrong with audience members who were
evidently projectionists helping out. Those of us who aren’t projectionists wouldn’t have volunteered.
Yesterday, I enjoyed a collector’s original 1956 print of The Ten Commandments at the Loew’s Jersey in Jersey City. There are comments at that site as to how impressed everybody was. As much as I love the Ziegfeld, it is an even greater experience walking into the Grand Lobby, Auditorium, and other public areas of one of the grandest neoclassic 1920’s movie palaces ever built. The Loews doesn’t have a working curtain, or side and back sound, so we should appreciate those features even more at the Ziegfeld.
Bill, I hope for your sake it IS fixed. You have the conveniance to be able to attend multiple shows, where I do not. I’m left with the memory of a bad show.
The sync problem Jeff and I experienced was during Friday night’s 7:30 show (3/24). I’m glad they fixed the problem – one more reason to go back again on Wednesday 3/29!
I was at the Friday 3/24 show and you couldn’t miss it. I heard from another viewer that the 3/25 show also had sync problems. Maybe you didn’t notice it, but that viewer with projection experience did.
Regarding the sync problem – Are you speaking about the 7:30 show on 3/25? I did not notice anything out of sync at all, all evening. Was there a sync problem last night?
Ed, unless they have removed the second projector, there should be no real cost to stop using the platter. Have they removed the second projector?
Regarding the sync problem – Are you speaking about the 7:30 show on 3/25? I did not notice anything out of sync at all, all evening. Was there a sync problem last night?
Bill, if anything the second part was more out of sync than the first. I don’t know how to explain that. I was told a lot by the manager. Remember the “replacement print” being on the way, only to tell another customer a few minutes later there is no replacement print.
Vito: yea, magnetic. I LOVE MAGNETIC.
Bill, of course we will go to the Ziegfeld again. But they better have better presentation next time.
Well, Jeff and Bill disagree on the sync problem, based on what Bill has written, my experince tells me a problem exsists with the time code, I have seen that before with 35mm, I never ran 70mm DTS but would assume the problems with the time code is similar.
Any techs out there? shed some light for us.
REndres, wanna weigh in on this?
It is troubling that there was a problem with the film and no one on staff was able to rectify the situation. Kudos to the audience members who were able to rise to the occasion and – just like in a corny disaster movie – help land the plane. That’s a nice story that brings a smile to most faces. No one has been happier than I over the fact that Clearview decided to book this program at the Ziegfeld – and then extend it for an additional 3 weeks. But I think Peter and Bob’s criticisms are valid. I hope that this incident doesn’t hinder the theater’s efforts to secure future 70mm prints.
I don’t think we’ll see Clearview go through the expense to switch back from platter to reel-to-reel, so we should probably shelve that argument and just try to encourage the Zeigfeld to concentrate on providing the highest quality presentations possible with what they have. A test run-through to check for the sort of audio sync and image stability issues reported above should be mandatory for a 70mm presentation, given the rarity of such an event and the higher level of audience expectation that comes along with it. The fact that there were several experienced projectionists on hand in the audience for that screening of “Lawrence” should signify to theater management that they are dealing with a very sophisticated patronage that is far more demanding than the usual multiplex crowd. Something tells me that they already have figured this out and are really rallying an effort to improve with each successive booking. I hope that trend continues with future “Classics” programming and that momentum is not lost during the run of “Ice Age 2” and whatever other mainsteam fodder that might follow.
Jeff and I disagree on the sync problem, and we saw the movie together! The reason I described the scene with Feisal’s servant is because Jeff was told by the manager that the second part of the film would be in sync. And so it was – for about 3 minutes.