What’s historic about this is seeing the nice long runs good audience pictures would get…The Chinatowns and Longest Yards…Pictures had legs then
There were still some good bookings into the late 70s – I was there for an odd double feature in the early 80s..When did the State Twin actually close and what was the last attraction?
Two more quickies – It’s a shame that our need for instant gratification doesn’t allow for a slower rollout of big pictures and I’m thinking largely of Disney’s animation resurgence in the last ten years so that there couldn’t still be exclusives at venues such as RCMH…I am curious in how the Premiere Showcase trend emerged in the 60s and 70s…from studio sponsored showcases we found ourselves in Manhattan with amorphous brands such as Flagship, Red Carpet, Blue Ribbon…if anyone can explain
David S you’re right…The Paramount pretty much daydated with the Sutton for most of its life…occasionally with other Loews Eastside theatres and occasionally with the Coronet/Baronet…the opening attraction was Catch 22…The Great Gatsby did a reserved seat run there daydating with Loews State 1 and Loews Tower East on General Admission not that anyone was breaking down the doors
Vincent is so right about the films he talks about…all of them day dated East and West Side and suburbs except the That’s Entertainments which were exclusive to the Ziegfeld in Manhattan…Sadly in its last few film engagements around 1976 the Music Hall was even daydating with the suburbs on something called Paper Tiger with David Niven and Toshiro Mifune
Well done Rob…I know I was there for Mary,Mary…Mary Poppins…True Grit…What’s Up Doc…Viva Max…The Odd Couple and The Out of Towners though it feels like more than that
A very civilized movie going experience…A coffee bar instead of the usual concessions with generally long runs of international cf Bergman, Pasolini, Malle fare…Took my mom to see Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd St one New Year’s eve (keep in mind that most cinemas in the UK close on NYE)…The cinema has survived over 40 years throwing in the odd revival (2001 2 years ago) when most West End screens wouldnt go near them and was refurbed and twinned last year with the second screen a real mini (under 100 seats) able to second run main features and the main screen still impressive
Both Curzons tend to run great repertory double features on Sunday afternoons
These theatres were great Westside showcases for Columbia, Fox and Universal product until the early 70’s…Easy Rider ran for months in subrun at one or the other theater…do acknowledge they were separate entities and not a twin
Several moviegoing memories of this complex over the years…dating back to the two screen Concorde – Marignan days. Remember seeing a real Eurotrash potboiler starring Orson Welles The Battle of the Neretva here, as well The Elephant Man, Down & Out in Beverly Hills, True Confessions here in first run and more recently Die Another Day shortly after first run in one of the smaller screens. The complex could really stand an update. The Champs deserves 4 stadium seating screens instead of 6 irregular ones
This was a big part of my teenage years as I lived around the block at 315 East 68th…It was really more functional than plush in my memory with not much at all of a lobby but a large marquee with a vertical 72…Part of the AIT group – most of the chains theatres were on Long Island and sistered with the Kips Bay (listed here as Bay Cinema)…The 72nd did some foreign, some first run (notably the first Planet of the Apes daydating with Loews Capitol, and the first Shaft daydating with the DeMille) and a long stint in the early to mid 70s as the East Side’s lone $1.00 house where I spent many a Saturday night…In various stages, I saw a double bill of Frenzy/Play Misty for Me, State of Siege, SlapShot, Sounder, The Seduction of Mimi, The Long Goodbye, The Sting (notable for its two week $1 stint here, Z, and probably quite a few others here…It finished its life bouncing between the Cinema 5 and Walter Reade chains
I was fortunate to live in Ojai a truly magical place in 1987-8 helping to reopen the Ojai Valley Inn & CC…the Playhouse was a great refuge in a great little hideaway…caught The Living Daylights, Stakeout there amongst others in this little single aisled jewelbox…It is rumored that Roger Ebert has used it to preview films there from time to time
60s memories of the Criterion include roadshows such as Is Paris Burning and Patton…later memories include Rambo III on the main screen at ground level, The World According to Garp and A Cry in the Dark in Number 2 upstairs and Sharkey’s Machine and sin of sins not to have seen in first run at the Sutton Raging Bull in the smaller basement screens…the latter was notable for simultaneous translation going on behind me in Spanish…Remember in the summer of 88 trying to see Die Hard in first run here and the air conditioning being down…they closed the theatre I think that night
The Astor Plaza was meant to open as the Reade around December 1971 -the title board for Such Good Friends was on the marquee…Walter Reade lost the lease I believe either to cash flow issues or problems with the union and Loews took the space over opening it I believe with Barbra Streisand in For Pete’s Sake, following it up with Death Wish in mid 1973…I can’t tell you what happened in between and would be happy to be filled in
I remember this theatre well from my youth on the East side in the 60’s and 70s…a precious looking place with a flat marquee and a canopy…dark wood in the lobby…single aisle downstairs and a smallish balcony which still might have added up to 450-500 seats…an interesting mix of first-run and second-run (showcase) programming with the odd foreign film thrown in and often kids' programs on the weekends…this may be one of the few East Side theatres I remember with a matron
Through the years a showcase for various studios (Warner Bros, UA, Fox, Universal) often day-dating with the Trans-Lux East on 58th and 3rd…Remember seeing a double feature of Bonnie & Clyde/Bullitt here, as well as The Secret of Santa Vittoria, The Hot Rock (twice, sold out both times), an Israeli musical called Kazablan (I’m still embarassed about) and probably a few other pictures here
Think that they booked Deep Throat here and had to move it to the 86th St East due to public protest – a one-off hard core porn taken to a silk-stocking residential area…Put simply this theatre, even more than say Loews Tower East (now 72nd St) or 68th St Playhouse would have to be in the highest wealth per capita area of any in NY…perhaps the world ( that may be held now by the Chelsea in London)
There is now a high rise building with I think a Banana Republic on the ground floor but the shop might also be Armani
This had a really distinctive staircase down to the screen and a really spacious enjoyable lobby downstairs…I remember it well as the Playboy in the 70s screening a Rolling Stones concert film and then with a $1 policy seeing Godfather 2 and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore…In the 80’s as the 57th St Playhouse as part of the City Cinemas chain, seeing Kurosawa’s Dreams and an Australian film called Shame here
Rue St Didier is a lovely market street (my sister & her family live nearby)…what is the building now? is it the McDo or the Picard…am trying to picture it all
I lived in DC for a couple of years in the mid 90s and enjoyed a couple of fun trips to the Uptown – to see Twelve Monkeys at a full house right after the great blizzard of 99, and American President and Twister…One of the attractions was also a fantastic 1960s era Chinese restaurant up the block which attests to being a meeting place for Dean Rusk and the Russian delegation during the Cuban Missile Crisis – great sizzling rice soup.
Ron’s list also brought to mind one other sadly lost trend…that even great roadshow houses in the 60s & 70s had to put a double feature on once in a while in a fallow period…Studios would package some classics or a couple picture at the end of their runs and give us another taste…Another casualty of VCR/DVD that we don’t have that anymore…Remember seeing A Touch of Class & Paper Moon on the same bill in New York on wide release and Paul Mazursky’s The Tempest paired with a Richard Pryor concert film at the Loews State 2…we can only dream…Thanks Ron for sharing that great research
It’s great to know a bit more about these Paris houses that I do enjoy frequenting when I get the chance…Remember seeing Louis de Funes & Yves Montand in La Folie des Grandeurs and Apocalypse Now here…The two wide screen stadium screens in the multiplex are called Salles GaumontRama
A great West Side institution both as a repertory house but for some great first runs in the 70s with some Bergman, Claude Berri and Goretta showing here…You can still catch a glimpse of it in the Seinfeld episode where Elaine goes to the movies and buys jujubes instead of running off to see her boyfriend in the hospital
A fabulous place to catch a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers or Buster Keaton classic literally a few steps from the Champs Elysees…Paris used to be full of cinemas like this…There are still a few on the Left Bank but this has always been a Right Bank mainstay! Worth supporting if you’re ever visiting Paris
As the Globe, this was a porn house for most of my memory until it twinned with one near exception – the first run of Terry Southern’s Candy – one of those 70s fiascos with Peter Sellers, Marlon Brando and Ringo Starr
Thanks for that vivid picture of life in a theatre! My memories of this theatre go back to the 60’s even if I only remember seeing two films there After the Fox with Peter Sellers and Altered States with William Hurt in the early 80s…Before multiplexes, this theatre regularly day dated with an Upper East Side or Broadway house on major releases
What’s historic about this is seeing the nice long runs good audience pictures would get…The Chinatowns and Longest Yards…Pictures had legs then
There were still some good bookings into the late 70s – I was there for an odd double feature in the early 80s..When did the State Twin actually close and what was the last attraction?
Two more quickies – It’s a shame that our need for instant gratification doesn’t allow for a slower rollout of big pictures and I’m thinking largely of Disney’s animation resurgence in the last ten years so that there couldn’t still be exclusives at venues such as RCMH…I am curious in how the Premiere Showcase trend emerged in the 60s and 70s…from studio sponsored showcases we found ourselves in Manhattan with amorphous brands such as Flagship, Red Carpet, Blue Ribbon…if anyone can explain
David S you’re right…The Paramount pretty much daydated with the Sutton for most of its life…occasionally with other Loews Eastside theatres and occasionally with the Coronet/Baronet…the opening attraction was Catch 22…The Great Gatsby did a reserved seat run there daydating with Loews State 1 and Loews Tower East on General Admission not that anyone was breaking down the doors
Vincent is so right about the films he talks about…all of them day dated East and West Side and suburbs except the That’s Entertainments which were exclusive to the Ziegfeld in Manhattan…Sadly in its last few film engagements around 1976 the Music Hall was even daydating with the suburbs on something called Paper Tiger with David Niven and Toshiro Mifune
It ran kung fu flicks for a brief time in the 70s around 73 then went back to porn
Well done Rob…I know I was there for Mary,Mary…Mary Poppins…True Grit…What’s Up Doc…Viva Max…The Odd Couple and The Out of Towners though it feels like more than that
This is great news…I only live up the road…
A very civilized movie going experience…A coffee bar instead of the usual concessions with generally long runs of international cf Bergman, Pasolini, Malle fare…Took my mom to see Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd St one New Year’s eve (keep in mind that most cinemas in the UK close on NYE)…The cinema has survived over 40 years throwing in the odd revival (2001 2 years ago) when most West End screens wouldnt go near them and was refurbed and twinned last year with the second screen a real mini (under 100 seats) able to second run main features and the main screen still impressive
Both Curzons tend to run great repertory double features on Sunday afternoons
These theatres were great Westside showcases for Columbia, Fox and Universal product until the early 70’s…Easy Rider ran for months in subrun at one or the other theater…do acknowledge they were separate entities and not a twin
Several moviegoing memories of this complex over the years…dating back to the two screen Concorde – Marignan days. Remember seeing a real Eurotrash potboiler starring Orson Welles The Battle of the Neretva here, as well The Elephant Man, Down & Out in Beverly Hills, True Confessions here in first run and more recently Die Another Day shortly after first run in one of the smaller screens. The complex could really stand an update. The Champs deserves 4 stadium seating screens instead of 6 irregular ones
This was a big part of my teenage years as I lived around the block at 315 East 68th…It was really more functional than plush in my memory with not much at all of a lobby but a large marquee with a vertical 72…Part of the AIT group – most of the chains theatres were on Long Island and sistered with the Kips Bay (listed here as Bay Cinema)…The 72nd did some foreign, some first run (notably the first Planet of the Apes daydating with Loews Capitol, and the first Shaft daydating with the DeMille) and a long stint in the early to mid 70s as the East Side’s lone $1.00 house where I spent many a Saturday night…In various stages, I saw a double bill of Frenzy/Play Misty for Me, State of Siege, SlapShot, Sounder, The Seduction of Mimi, The Long Goodbye, The Sting (notable for its two week $1 stint here, Z, and probably quite a few others here…It finished its life bouncing between the Cinema 5 and Walter Reade chains
I was fortunate to live in Ojai a truly magical place in 1987-8 helping to reopen the Ojai Valley Inn & CC…the Playhouse was a great refuge in a great little hideaway…caught The Living Daylights, Stakeout there amongst others in this little single aisled jewelbox…It is rumored that Roger Ebert has used it to preview films there from time to time
60s memories of the Criterion include roadshows such as Is Paris Burning and Patton…later memories include Rambo III on the main screen at ground level, The World According to Garp and A Cry in the Dark in Number 2 upstairs and Sharkey’s Machine and sin of sins not to have seen in first run at the Sutton Raging Bull in the smaller basement screens…the latter was notable for simultaneous translation going on behind me in Spanish…Remember in the summer of 88 trying to see Die Hard in first run here and the air conditioning being down…they closed the theatre I think that night
The Astor Plaza was meant to open as the Reade around December 1971 -the title board for Such Good Friends was on the marquee…Walter Reade lost the lease I believe either to cash flow issues or problems with the union and Loews took the space over opening it I believe with Barbra Streisand in For Pete’s Sake, following it up with Death Wish in mid 1973…I can’t tell you what happened in between and would be happy to be filled in
I remember this theatre well from my youth on the East side in the 60’s and 70s…a precious looking place with a flat marquee and a canopy…dark wood in the lobby…single aisle downstairs and a smallish balcony which still might have added up to 450-500 seats…an interesting mix of first-run and second-run (showcase) programming with the odd foreign film thrown in and often kids' programs on the weekends…this may be one of the few East Side theatres I remember with a matron
Through the years a showcase for various studios (Warner Bros, UA, Fox, Universal) often day-dating with the Trans-Lux East on 58th and 3rd…Remember seeing a double feature of Bonnie & Clyde/Bullitt here, as well as The Secret of Santa Vittoria, The Hot Rock (twice, sold out both times), an Israeli musical called Kazablan (I’m still embarassed about) and probably a few other pictures here
Think that they booked Deep Throat here and had to move it to the 86th St East due to public protest – a one-off hard core porn taken to a silk-stocking residential area…Put simply this theatre, even more than say Loews Tower East (now 72nd St) or 68th St Playhouse would have to be in the highest wealth per capita area of any in NY…perhaps the world ( that may be held now by the Chelsea in London)
There is now a high rise building with I think a Banana Republic on the ground floor but the shop might also be Armani
This had a really distinctive staircase down to the screen and a really spacious enjoyable lobby downstairs…I remember it well as the Playboy in the 70s screening a Rolling Stones concert film and then with a $1 policy seeing Godfather 2 and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore…In the 80’s as the 57th St Playhouse as part of the City Cinemas chain, seeing Kurosawa’s Dreams and an Australian film called Shame here
Rue St Didier is a lovely market street (my sister & her family live nearby)…what is the building now? is it the McDo or the Picard…am trying to picture it all
The Cinema Rendezvous was in various incarnations the Playboy and the 57th St Playhouse and is now the DGA screening room I believe
I lived in DC for a couple of years in the mid 90s and enjoyed a couple of fun trips to the Uptown – to see Twelve Monkeys at a full house right after the great blizzard of 99, and American President and Twister…One of the attractions was also a fantastic 1960s era Chinese restaurant up the block which attests to being a meeting place for Dean Rusk and the Russian delegation during the Cuban Missile Crisis – great sizzling rice soup.
Ron’s list also brought to mind one other sadly lost trend…that even great roadshow houses in the 60s & 70s had to put a double feature on once in a while in a fallow period…Studios would package some classics or a couple picture at the end of their runs and give us another taste…Another casualty of VCR/DVD that we don’t have that anymore…Remember seeing A Touch of Class & Paper Moon on the same bill in New York on wide release and Paul Mazursky’s The Tempest paired with a Richard Pryor concert film at the Loews State 2…we can only dream…Thanks Ron for sharing that great research
It’s great to know a bit more about these Paris houses that I do enjoy frequenting when I get the chance…Remember seeing Louis de Funes & Yves Montand in La Folie des Grandeurs and Apocalypse Now here…The two wide screen stadium screens in the multiplex are called Salles GaumontRama
A great West Side institution both as a repertory house but for some great first runs in the 70s with some Bergman, Claude Berri and Goretta showing here…You can still catch a glimpse of it in the Seinfeld episode where Elaine goes to the movies and buys jujubes instead of running off to see her boyfriend in the hospital
A fabulous place to catch a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers or Buster Keaton classic literally a few steps from the Champs Elysees…Paris used to be full of cinemas like this…There are still a few on the Left Bank but this has always been a Right Bank mainstay! Worth supporting if you’re ever visiting Paris
There were a couple of attempts to revive the theatre as a movie house in the 70s…Saw Gone with the Wind here with my dad…the perfect setting
As the Globe, this was a porn house for most of my memory until it twinned with one near exception – the first run of Terry Southern’s Candy – one of those 70s fiascos with Peter Sellers, Marlon Brando and Ringo Starr
Thanks for that vivid picture of life in a theatre! My memories of this theatre go back to the 60’s even if I only remember seeing two films there After the Fox with Peter Sellers and Altered States with William Hurt in the early 80s…Before multiplexes, this theatre regularly day dated with an Upper East Side or Broadway house on major releases