The right side theater of the old watts house had a wonderful cinemascope screen where the screen doubled in size. Now the screen is reduced by half when scope is done.
I know I keep whining about this but when is New York going to have a true widescreen theater to show classic films?
It would be wonderful to have a seating plan from the original Capitol to see how cut down the roadshow theater was. Also when GWTW played there in 39 was the mezz reserved seats or was the entire theater general seating?
Lucky you Vito.
You’re right about Carousel. It was never, ever shown in Cinemascope 55.(I believe there is a thread on that somewhere.)
Also the 30 frames was far superior to the 24 frames image so its too bad it was only used for two films.
Also interesting is that 80 Days had a much longer theatrical history than OK. Yet OK still exists in the Todd AO format and 80 Days does not.
I believe it was Carousel Sinatra walked off of. Boy did he get bad advice from his agent. Though neither he nor Macrae were right for this musical perhaps the worst adaptation of a R and H show. But then there was nobody. You would have needed a Brando who could sing magnificently. A very young Raitt from a kinescope is tremendous but he did not have star quality on the screen.
By the way the Todd AO Oklahoma is far superior to the Cinemascope version.
Upcoming DVD anniversary release of Oklahoma and Todd AO.
Wouldn’t it have shown an ounce of ingenuity to show all of this on a specially installed screen at the Ziegfeld?
So ironic that Todd AO was meant to get people away from TV and now its the only place you can see it.
1955 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical film with Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones, Gloria Grahame, Gene Nelson, Charlotte Greenwood, Eddie Albert, Rod Steiger. Includes Cinemascope and Todd AO versions that were filmed simultaneously in 1955. Extras: commentary by Ted Chapin and Hugh Fordin, Sing Along Subtitles, the trailer and a separate chapter list for songs only with a play-all feature, commentary by Shirley Jones and Nick Redman, “Cinemascope vs. Todd AO,” “The Miracle of Todd-AO” and “The March of Todd-AO” featurettes, vintage stage excerpts “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'” performed by Gordon MacRae and “People Will Say We’re in Love” performed by Gordon MacRae & Florence Henderson (from the 1954 General Foods 25th Anniversary TV Special), still galleries. Both versions in widescreen
Anybody see the film Penelope at the Hall? About as archtypal a New York 60’s comedy as you can get. Natalie Wood at her most beautiful. Lensed in Panavision and glorious 60’s Technicolor(or is it Metrocolor?) With New York looking scrubbed and very glamourous in a way it would never look again. It must have looked great within that sunburst procenium. According to Variety it broke house records.
Then it went wide release and its failure almost cost Wood a breakdown.
While people bash the 70mm version of GWTW it was great seeing this at the Rivoli in ‘74. What I would give to see it like this again!
Is it really any better seeing it on DVD?
(Of course the original at the Capitol, Astor or Atlanta Loew’s Grand would be best of all.)
BOB I’m glad you finally got to see a stage show.
Does this mean you never saw Serenade to the Stars?
Andrew Sarris said he saw Sunset Boulevard at the Hall 21 times.
North would have been a film I would have seen multiple times at the Hall and preferably with a packed house.
Aren’t people sick of artie indie movies? And Hollywood teenage boy comic book blockbusters? What happened to just good entertaining movies for adults that if you wanted to you could bring your children to(in other words the kind of movies I went to when I was a kid in the 60’s.)
No Gustave is right. 1776 did play in the summer of 76 at the Hall. I don’t know when Harry opened exactly but it is probable on 7/4 1776 was still there. I was ushering at the time and it replaced The Blue Bird which people literally could not sit through and would leave or wait in the lobby until it was over. I could never watch the whole thing myself. In the 70’s even the greats had lost their talent.
Harry was the first Music Hall film to open simultaneiously in the local suburbs. That was it for the Hall as a presentation house.
But Vito you are speaking of a time when having a naked screen in front of you was as unseemly as having a completely naked individual on stage in front of you.
We have gone 180 degrees.
(yet ironically people in general are more physically prudish and uncomfortable with themselves than ever.)
BOB I hope you got to see Home From the Hill at the Music Hall. One of the films I most want to see. The Walter Reade was going to show it during a Minnelli festival(or was it Mitchum?) but then they canceled it. Maybe a good print no longer exists.
Well if they do go ahead with it it will eventually mean the end of the multiplex sooner rather than later and then we can have more middle income housing.
I wonder if people will fight to keep them from being torn down.
Has anybody heard anything about film producers who are now talking about releasing films simultaneously in theaters, on DVD and/or Pay Per View? Saw this on a theater chat line.
Therefore Robin would be in true widescreen covering a third less screen space than High Society in Vistavision which today is not really widescreen at all. Just another 1:85 aperture.
Which is why if they get a 70mm projector it would be wonderful if they got a larger screen expanding rather than reducing the screen size. And yes I know they are not going to do it due to money and logistics.
Bob to be perfectly honest the two films I mentioned are not among my favorites either but they would be great at the Loew’s.
I get the impression they don’t like musicals at the Loew’s. I’m still waiting for my double bills of Singin in the Rain and Funny Face and Bye Bye Birdie and Viva Las Vegas.
Those two bills would be spectacular.
I guess in another life.
I remember seeing that trailer as well but thinking it odd that they didn’t schedule a showing of the film itself.
You know another thing I love about this theater is the slap. It reminds me of going to the theater as a kid and hearing that echo which was never bothersome.
I have had another stroke of programming genius which will of course be ignored by everyone but considering that Sinatra hearing Crosby sing at this theater had an influence on his career how about a double bill of Sinatra and Crosby?
Robin and the Seven Hoods and High Society.
Would Nancy or Tina like to attend?
Well go ahead and laugh but I think it would be terrific.
I believe even the great Eugene Ormandy conducted the Capitol orchestra in the 20’s. What a great period for American popular culture and classical music!
Due to its length and importance I just wish Godfather had opened road show. This only hastened the death of exclusive downtown city engagements for major hollywood films. Helping to hasten the rundown abandoned state of many american cities in the 70’s.
Their revival in recent years has only turned them into themeparks and depressing shopping malls.
I look at photos of the American cities from the teens to the 60’s and I think how magnificent. Now they all look boring and exactly like one another.
Maybe a lot of it remained at the end. Remember that when theaters were reduced in size in the fifties to change them to roadshow houses they in effect built smaller cinemas within the larger ones almost reducing seating by half. Therefore it would be perfectly feasable and cheaper just to cover up the old decorative walls and not destroy them. In fact it would seem to me from the way the screen covered the original procenium in the Rivoli for it to have been intact until the theater was split in two and the store built on 7th av. Now if before the era of wide screen the theater had been modernized that would be a different story.
Does anyone remember the Strand pre Cinerama?
The right side theater of the old watts house had a wonderful cinemascope screen where the screen doubled in size. Now the screen is reduced by half when scope is done.
I know I keep whining about this but when is New York going to have a true widescreen theater to show classic films?
It would be wonderful to have a seating plan from the original Capitol to see how cut down the roadshow theater was. Also when GWTW played there in 39 was the mezz reserved seats or was the entire theater general seating?
Lucky you Vito.
You’re right about Carousel. It was never, ever shown in Cinemascope 55.(I believe there is a thread on that somewhere.)
Also the 30 frames was far superior to the 24 frames image so its too bad it was only used for two films.
Also interesting is that 80 Days had a much longer theatrical history than OK. Yet OK still exists in the Todd AO format and 80 Days does not.
I believe it was Carousel Sinatra walked off of. Boy did he get bad advice from his agent. Though neither he nor Macrae were right for this musical perhaps the worst adaptation of a R and H show. But then there was nobody. You would have needed a Brando who could sing magnificently. A very young Raitt from a kinescope is tremendous but he did not have star quality on the screen.
By the way the Todd AO Oklahoma is far superior to the Cinemascope version.
Upcoming DVD anniversary release of Oklahoma and Todd AO.
Wouldn’t it have shown an ounce of ingenuity to show all of this on a specially installed screen at the Ziegfeld?
So ironic that Todd AO was meant to get people away from TV and now its the only place you can see it.
1955 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical film with Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones, Gloria Grahame, Gene Nelson, Charlotte Greenwood, Eddie Albert, Rod Steiger. Includes Cinemascope and Todd AO versions that were filmed simultaneously in 1955. Extras: commentary by Ted Chapin and Hugh Fordin, Sing Along Subtitles, the trailer and a separate chapter list for songs only with a play-all feature, commentary by Shirley Jones and Nick Redman, “Cinemascope vs. Todd AO,” “The Miracle of Todd-AO” and “The March of Todd-AO” featurettes, vintage stage excerpts “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'” performed by Gordon MacRae and “People Will Say We’re in Love” performed by Gordon MacRae & Florence Henderson (from the 1954 General Foods 25th Anniversary TV Special), still galleries. Both versions in widescreen
Anybody see the film Penelope at the Hall? About as archtypal a New York 60’s comedy as you can get. Natalie Wood at her most beautiful. Lensed in Panavision and glorious 60’s Technicolor(or is it Metrocolor?) With New York looking scrubbed and very glamourous in a way it would never look again. It must have looked great within that sunburst procenium. According to Variety it broke house records.
Then it went wide release and its failure almost cost Wood a breakdown.
While people bash the 70mm version of GWTW it was great seeing this at the Rivoli in ‘74. What I would give to see it like this again!
Is it really any better seeing it on DVD?
(Of course the original at the Capitol, Astor or Atlanta Loew’s Grand would be best of all.)
Having not been in the Winter Garden since 42 St before Cats does it still look the same as the bottom picture in Warrens post?
BOB I’m glad you finally got to see a stage show.
Does this mean you never saw Serenade to the Stars?
Andrew Sarris said he saw Sunset Boulevard at the Hall 21 times.
North would have been a film I would have seen multiple times at the Hall and preferably with a packed house.
So then we can assume that the opening shots of the parade were filmed in Nov of ‘46? I always wondered about that.
Aren’t people sick of artie indie movies? And Hollywood teenage boy comic book blockbusters? What happened to just good entertaining movies for adults that if you wanted to you could bring your children to(in other words the kind of movies I went to when I was a kid in the 60’s.)
Sounds like a roadshow to me. Oklahoma, West Side Story and Fiddler had 3 shows a day on weekends at the Rivoli I believe.
No Gustave is right. 1776 did play in the summer of 76 at the Hall. I don’t know when Harry opened exactly but it is probable on 7/4 1776 was still there. I was ushering at the time and it replaced The Blue Bird which people literally could not sit through and would leave or wait in the lobby until it was over. I could never watch the whole thing myself. In the 70’s even the greats had lost their talent.
Harry was the first Music Hall film to open simultaneiously in the local suburbs. That was it for the Hall as a presentation house.
But Vito you are speaking of a time when having a naked screen in front of you was as unseemly as having a completely naked individual on stage in front of you.
We have gone 180 degrees.
(yet ironically people in general are more physically prudish and uncomfortable with themselves than ever.)
BOB I hope you got to see Home From the Hill at the Music Hall. One of the films I most want to see. The Walter Reade was going to show it during a Minnelli festival(or was it Mitchum?) but then they canceled it. Maybe a good print no longer exists.
Well if they do go ahead with it it will eventually mean the end of the multiplex sooner rather than later and then we can have more middle income housing.
I wonder if people will fight to keep them from being torn down.
Has anybody heard anything about film producers who are now talking about releasing films simultaneously in theaters, on DVD and/or Pay Per View? Saw this on a theater chat line.
Well RobertR you certainly have catholic tastes.
Therefore Robin would be in true widescreen covering a third less screen space than High Society in Vistavision which today is not really widescreen at all. Just another 1:85 aperture.
Which is why if they get a 70mm projector it would be wonderful if they got a larger screen expanding rather than reducing the screen size. And yes I know they are not going to do it due to money and logistics.
Bob to be perfectly honest the two films I mentioned are not among my favorites either but they would be great at the Loew’s.
I get the impression they don’t like musicals at the Loew’s. I’m still waiting for my double bills of Singin in the Rain and Funny Face and Bye Bye Birdie and Viva Las Vegas.
Those two bills would be spectacular.
I guess in another life.
I remember seeing that trailer as well but thinking it odd that they didn’t schedule a showing of the film itself.
You know another thing I love about this theater is the slap. It reminds me of going to the theater as a kid and hearing that echo which was never bothersome.
I have had another stroke of programming genius which will of course be ignored by everyone but considering that Sinatra hearing Crosby sing at this theater had an influence on his career how about a double bill of Sinatra and Crosby?
Robin and the Seven Hoods and High Society.
Would Nancy or Tina like to attend?
Well go ahead and laugh but I think it would be terrific.
I believe even the great Eugene Ormandy conducted the Capitol orchestra in the 20’s. What a great period for American popular culture and classical music!
Due to its length and importance I just wish Godfather had opened road show. This only hastened the death of exclusive downtown city engagements for major hollywood films. Helping to hasten the rundown abandoned state of many american cities in the 70’s.
Their revival in recent years has only turned them into themeparks and depressing shopping malls.
I look at photos of the American cities from the teens to the 60’s and I think how magnificent. Now they all look boring and exactly like one another.
Maybe a lot of it remained at the end. Remember that when theaters were reduced in size in the fifties to change them to roadshow houses they in effect built smaller cinemas within the larger ones almost reducing seating by half. Therefore it would be perfectly feasable and cheaper just to cover up the old decorative walls and not destroy them. In fact it would seem to me from the way the screen covered the original procenium in the Rivoli for it to have been intact until the theater was split in two and the store built on 7th av. Now if before the era of wide screen the theater had been modernized that would be a different story.
Does anyone remember the Strand pre Cinerama?