Understood, Panzer65. Thank YOU ! You never saw even one film at the Madison ?
How many comments does the Ridgewood have posted ? Are the comment counts for the Ridgewood and the Madison a record high for Cinema Tressures ?
Agreed, BklynJim. The Madison, especially in its later years, was almost a “spine-tingling” haunted house itself, haunted by far more than “thirteen” ghosts ! Perfect for those William Castle gimmick B formula shockers !
Jim, I know what you mean about the dubbing. It reminds me of what yet another friend at work, who lent me “Gojira” on VHS, said about it : it lets the Japanese characters speak for themselves, in their own language, rather than let them be “props” talked about by the Greek chorus narration of Raymond Burr in the American release “Godzilla”.
Thanks for the news about “Giant Behemoth” on DVD. That must have been something to see on the Willard’s big screen, in deepest, darkest Queens, so far out on the Jamaica el from lil' ole Bklyn !
I think I first saw it on WOR Channel 9’s “Million Dollar Movie”, fall 1961. I remember my Mom tuning it in, saying, “Oh I hope this is good, and not a lot of British mumbles !”
It’s second in a triad of dinosaur-monster flicks directed by Eugene Lourie, the first and third being “Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” and “Gorgo”. I have all three on VHS, and grew up with all of them on TV.
My dad almost took me to see “Gorgo” at the Ridgewood, in 1961, but didn’t, because he was afraid I would be too scared. He saw it there himself, though. I finally saw it on The Big Preview on Channel 9 on a Sunday night in Spring 1964. Way cool !
Yes, it’s great to have wives that cater to our … interests. My wife figured, at a buck per DVD, she couldn’t go wrong !
That’s all well and good, Ed Solero, but then how do you explain Kong reported as climbing the Empire State Building after heading west after breaking out of the theatre ? Unless he turned around.
Agreed, Bway, about the Madison in its final years being a great place to see a horror film. It may have almost been a horror itself internally in its last few years.
True, in many horror stories, “the bad place” is usually some once-splendid locale that has fallen into disrepair. Like the movie theater in the Clive Barker horror short story, “Son Of Celluloid”.
BklynJim, “The Mysterians” never matching its TV ads doesn’t say much for it. It also shows how misleading and misrepresenting of the films that they advertise, that those ads can be.
“The Mysterians” was one of those Japanese monster flicks that thrilled a certain friend of mine from work as a child, but left him totally cold as an adult. (He’s about two years your junior.) As a result, he passed his VHS of the film on to me. It’s still sitting behind me and to my right in my cube at work. I still haven’t take it home to watch it. But I might, soon, given your recent reaction to the DVD Toho-Scope release you just bought and watched. It’s good those adult sub-texts finally came through.
Honda reads like a good director. I’m recalling another Japanese sci fi flick of that time in which people were reduced to pools of living green ooze, and a man told a woman to “take off all your clothes”. I wonder what I might be remembering : “The H-Man” ?
Incidentally, Sat. Aug 25th, when I got home from our outing in Ridgewood with frankie, my wife had two “Sci Fi Invasion” DVD’s at home waiting for me : so far, I’ve watched Roger Corman’s “Wasp Woman”, and Chiller Theater’s “Killers From Space”, with Peter Graves vs. the bug-eyed aliens in black hoods and cumberbunds that look like Marty Feldman from “Young Frankenstein”.
Panzer65, thanks for the links. I used to have that 1976 King Kong poster on my living room wall in Ridgewood. My mom got it for me on while out shopping on Myrtle Avenue.
Any comments on seeing the 1976 King Kong at the Haven ?
I vaguely remember the 1933 King Kong poster. The posters are designed to get you to come in and see the film, and always make the monster bigger and more monstrous, the disasters more disastrous, etc. than they appear in the films themselves. They also often show scenes that are not in the films they advertise.
For completeness, how about the 2005 King Kong poster ?
To get this back on topic, by contrast to the lurid, exaggerated posters, the Madison had posted outside, on two glassed-in panels on either side of the entrance and ticket booth, framed stills from the films that were showing. I remember them from “Three Stooges In Orbit” and “Mothra” in 1961, “Tales From The Crypt” in March 1972 (especially the skull-faced Grim Reaper riding a motorcycle !)and even the re-re-release of “The Exorcist” in August 1976. I didn’t go in and see that, as I’d had a sleepless night from having seen the film in Manhattan (the Paris ?) April 2 1974, and didn’t want a repeat, but that must have been awesome on that huge still-single screen, the guttural voice of the demon, booming out into that huge, decaying shell of what had once been such an elegant and beautiful show house !
Philly Santella, you’re welcome to the welcome. Hope you like it here. It was the full moon shining through the opening in one of the Blessed Sacrament towers, as though through the eye of a needle.
Yes, it would have made a great camera shot.
There’s lots of great neighborhood chat, by me and Marian and tapeshare and BrooklynJim and others, on this page, and I hope you enjoy it all !
Where was Liberty Park ? Glendale, Queens, or a park in Cypress Hills, Bklyn ?
Panzer65, you’re welcome. I knew the ‘76 Kong was filmed near the BMT el in Astoria, I just wasn’t sure WHERE on that el. Thanks.
Before that, he’s exhibited by Petrox on Roosevelt Island, between Queens and Manhattan. Then he steps on the Charles Grodin characterm the Petrox oil mogul.
I didn’t see any of the filming in Queens, but when I was atop the WTC in summer 1976, and looked down, I saw a life-sized Kong face down in the Plaza between the two towers !
I’ve always thought Kong was featured in a midtown East Side theater, because, after he breaks out of the theater, he is described on police radio as heading west towards the Empire State Building, which is on West 34th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. That would make the el he demolishes either the 2nd or 3rd Avenue el, or the extension thereof on East 34th Street.
Thanks, Panzer65. I was wondering what that “now classic movie” was. Most of the links posted here are blocked at my PC, so I couldn’t see it for myself. I, too, can picture what you’ve mentioned, almost as though King Kong himself had appeared at the RKO Madison, and had gone on a rampage through Ridgewood, tearing down the Myrtle Avenue el.
The vertical sign was still on the Madison in 1948, as shown in a brown-tinted photo of the Madison from that year. By 1975 it was gone. I’m not sure if it was removed during my experience of the Madison before then, starting around 1960 or 61.
Thanks, Warren. Do you know why the name changed from the original B.S. Moss Madison to Keith-Albee Madison on February 6th, 1928, then to RKO Madison on September 7th of that same year ?
Marian, I just googled Sheridan St. Its northern end is at Atlantic Avenue, right where you grew up. The two people of my age I know from that area are Joe Bettinger, of 16 Grant Avenue, near Jamaica Avenue, later at 195 Lincoln Avenue, and Laura Messina, of Autumn Avenue. Familiar ?
My family and I passed by not far from where you grew up many times by car, en route from Ridgewood to the Rockaways or Long Island. We’d come south on Euclid Avenue to Atlantic Avenue on our way to Conduit Blvd., then have to turn left on Atlantic, right on Crescent, to a right on Liberty, then a sharp left from Liberty Avenue to Conduit Blvd. eastbound, because Euclid is one way north from Conduit to Atlantic. How inconvenient ! It was a straight shot north on Euclid from Conduit to Cypress Hills Street and Cypress Avenue through all the cemeteries back to Ridgewood on the return trip.
Did your grandparents live on Central Avenue near Halsey St. until they died, or did they move ?
You, too, might enjoy the Bushwick Buddies website ! You would be most welcome there. The lady who runs the site, Eleanor, has been on Cinema Treasures as “bushwickbuddy” and lived at Central Avenue and Eldert St. (one block from your family) until she and her parents moved to Glendale in 1962.
My father’s best boyhood and young manhood friend, Vincent Ferro, attended Fourteen Holy Martyrs. There’s lots of FHM talk and photos on Bushwick Buddies. Where was the House Of The Good Shepherd ?
When my dad was about ten ro eleven, around 1930, and lived at Evergreen and Moffat, he heard cattle drives at four in the morning from the LIRR, northwest on Evergreen Avenue, to the slaughterhouses near the Brooklyn waterfront, probably including the one on Johnson Avenue.
There were so many Bohack stores all over Bklyn and Queens. My dad worked in one as a young man until he got a better deal at National Biscuit Company at 1000 Pacific Street, corner Classon Avenue.
The Bohack in Ridgewood that I grew up with was on Seneca Avenue between Hancock and Weirfield Sts.
Welcome, Phil Santella ! Glad to have you aboard here !
I’ve already posted the history of my family in Cypress Hills and Woodhaven in comments above as “PKoch” on this Embassy Theater page. My Aunt Gerry graduated F K Lane in 1947. She and my dad’s parents used to live at 169 Chestnut St., 1957 through 1968. I remember sitting in their kitchen one night in 1966, looking out their kitchen window at the twin towers of Blessed Sacrament, and seeing the full moon shine right through the opening of one of the towers, like through the eye of a giant needle. Beautiful ! Their landlady there was a Mrs. Benvengia.
My dad attended ENY Vocational High, about 1933-1937. The one near the Atlantic Avenue el station of the Canarsie Line and Fulton St. El, and the ENY station of the LIRR, BEFORE the East New York Avenue underpass was built (early 1940’s). Before that, (1931-33) my dad attended Halsey Junior High in Bushwick on Knickerbocker Ave between Weirfield and Halsey Sts.
Yes, Tapeshare has some great stuff. I’ve seen some of it.
Understood, Panzer65. Thank YOU ! You never saw even one film at the Madison ?
How many comments does the Ridgewood have posted ? Are the comment counts for the Ridgewood and the Madison a record high for Cinema Tressures ?
Agreed, BklynJim. The Madison, especially in its later years, was almost a “spine-tingling” haunted house itself, haunted by far more than “thirteen” ghosts ! Perfect for those William Castle gimmick B formula shockers !
Let alone Hitchcock’s “Psycho” !
Jim, I know what you mean about the dubbing. It reminds me of what yet another friend at work, who lent me “Gojira” on VHS, said about it : it lets the Japanese characters speak for themselves, in their own language, rather than let them be “props” talked about by the Greek chorus narration of Raymond Burr in the American release “Godzilla”.
Thanks for the news about “Giant Behemoth” on DVD. That must have been something to see on the Willard’s big screen, in deepest, darkest Queens, so far out on the Jamaica el from lil' ole Bklyn !
I think I first saw it on WOR Channel 9’s “Million Dollar Movie”, fall 1961. I remember my Mom tuning it in, saying, “Oh I hope this is good, and not a lot of British mumbles !”
It’s second in a triad of dinosaur-monster flicks directed by Eugene Lourie, the first and third being “Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” and “Gorgo”. I have all three on VHS, and grew up with all of them on TV.
My dad almost took me to see “Gorgo” at the Ridgewood, in 1961, but didn’t, because he was afraid I would be too scared. He saw it there himself, though. I finally saw it on The Big Preview on Channel 9 on a Sunday night in Spring 1964. Way cool !
Yes, it’s great to have wives that cater to our … interests. My wife figured, at a buck per DVD, she couldn’t go wrong !
Panzer65, do you regret not having seen the 1976 “King Kong” at the Madison ?
BTW, “premiere” seems contradictory to the Haven’s nature as a second-run movie house.
It’s possible, Panzer65.
Thanks, Warren.
That’s all well and good, Ed Solero, but then how do you explain Kong reported as climbing the Empire State Building after heading west after breaking out of the theatre ? Unless he turned around.
Agreed, Bway, about the Madison in its final years being a great place to see a horror film. It may have almost been a horror itself internally in its last few years.
True, in many horror stories, “the bad place” is usually some once-splendid locale that has fallen into disrepair. Like the movie theater in the Clive Barker horror short story, “Son Of Celluloid”.
Thanks, Warren. I just re-read it.
BklynJim, “The Mysterians” never matching its TV ads doesn’t say much for it. It also shows how misleading and misrepresenting of the films that they advertise, that those ads can be.
“The Mysterians” was one of those Japanese monster flicks that thrilled a certain friend of mine from work as a child, but left him totally cold as an adult. (He’s about two years your junior.) As a result, he passed his VHS of the film on to me. It’s still sitting behind me and to my right in my cube at work. I still haven’t take it home to watch it. But I might, soon, given your recent reaction to the DVD Toho-Scope release you just bought and watched. It’s good those adult sub-texts finally came through.
Honda reads like a good director. I’m recalling another Japanese sci fi flick of that time in which people were reduced to pools of living green ooze, and a man told a woman to “take off all your clothes”. I wonder what I might be remembering : “The H-Man” ?
Incidentally, Sat. Aug 25th, when I got home from our outing in Ridgewood with frankie, my wife had two “Sci Fi Invasion” DVD’s at home waiting for me : so far, I’ve watched Roger Corman’s “Wasp Woman”, and Chiller Theater’s “Killers From Space”, with Peter Graves vs. the bug-eyed aliens in black hoods and cumberbunds that look like Marty Feldman from “Young Frankenstein”.
phillysantella, I just saw it as a white rectangle on my Bklyn USGS quad sheet map. That was my first thought as to where Liberty Park was.
But, as an ex-Ridgewoodite, I’m not getting between you debating ex-ENY'ers and Cypress-Hillers, or whatever you’d care to call yourselves !
FYI, a section of Glendale, Queens, was once known as Liberty Park.
Thank you, RobertR. I always like to know the relative ages of Cinema Treasures posters and members.
Muzer,
You are probably right. You know your old neighborhood far better than I do. Far be it from me to question your memory of such details.
Thanks.
PKoch
Panzer65, thanks for the links. I used to have that 1976 King Kong poster on my living room wall in Ridgewood. My mom got it for me on while out shopping on Myrtle Avenue.
Any comments on seeing the 1976 King Kong at the Haven ?
I vaguely remember the 1933 King Kong poster. The posters are designed to get you to come in and see the film, and always make the monster bigger and more monstrous, the disasters more disastrous, etc. than they appear in the films themselves. They also often show scenes that are not in the films they advertise.
For completeness, how about the 2005 King Kong poster ?
To get this back on topic, by contrast to the lurid, exaggerated posters, the Madison had posted outside, on two glassed-in panels on either side of the entrance and ticket booth, framed stills from the films that were showing. I remember them from “Three Stooges In Orbit” and “Mothra” in 1961, “Tales From The Crypt” in March 1972 (especially the skull-faced Grim Reaper riding a motorcycle !)and even the re-re-release of “The Exorcist” in August 1976. I didn’t go in and see that, as I’d had a sleepless night from having seen the film in Manhattan (the Paris ?) April 2 1974, and didn’t want a repeat, but that must have been awesome on that huge still-single screen, the guttural voice of the demon, booming out into that huge, decaying shell of what had once been such an elegant and beautiful show house !
Thanks, Marian, for your answer on Iglebrink’s.
Philly Santella, you’re welcome to the welcome. Hope you like it here. It was the full moon shining through the opening in one of the Blessed Sacrament towers, as though through the eye of a needle.
Yes, it would have made a great camera shot.
There’s lots of great neighborhood chat, by me and Marian and tapeshare and BrooklynJim and others, on this page, and I hope you enjoy it all !
Where was Liberty Park ? Glendale, Queens, or a park in Cypress Hills, Bklyn ?
Yes, Panzer65, the way Kong bounces off all the setbacks on his way down.
Panzer65, you’re welcome. I knew the ‘76 Kong was filmed near the BMT el in Astoria, I just wasn’t sure WHERE on that el. Thanks.
Before that, he’s exhibited by Petrox on Roosevelt Island, between Queens and Manhattan. Then he steps on the Charles Grodin characterm the Petrox oil mogul.
I didn’t see any of the filming in Queens, but when I was atop the WTC in summer 1976, and looked down, I saw a life-sized Kong face down in the Plaza between the two towers !
saps, it wasn’t Katherine Hepburn. It was Mariel Hemingway, and that infamous anal rape scene in “Lipstick” (1976) that did in the RKO Madison !
“No, it wasn’t the airplanes …. it was BEAUTY killed the beast !”
I’ve always thought Kong was featured in a midtown East Side theater, because, after he breaks out of the theater, he is described on police radio as heading west towards the Empire State Building, which is on West 34th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. That would make the el he demolishes either the 2nd or 3rd Avenue el, or the extension thereof on East 34th Street.
saps, I think that’s pretty far-fetched about Hepburn being responsible for the closing of the Madison.
Thanks, Panzer65. I was wondering what that “now classic movie” was. Most of the links posted here are blocked at my PC, so I couldn’t see it for myself. I, too, can picture what you’ve mentioned, almost as though King Kong himself had appeared at the RKO Madison, and had gone on a rampage through Ridgewood, tearing down the Myrtle Avenue el.
Thanks, Warren.
The vertical sign was still on the Madison in 1948, as shown in a brown-tinted photo of the Madison from that year. By 1975 it was gone. I’m not sure if it was removed during my experience of the Madison before then, starting around 1960 or 61.
Thanks, Warren. Do you know why the name changed from the original B.S. Moss Madison to Keith-Albee Madison on February 6th, 1928, then to RKO Madison on September 7th of that same year ?
Thanks, Marian. What was Iglebrink’s ?
Marian, I just googled Sheridan St. Its northern end is at Atlantic Avenue, right where you grew up. The two people of my age I know from that area are Joe Bettinger, of 16 Grant Avenue, near Jamaica Avenue, later at 195 Lincoln Avenue, and Laura Messina, of Autumn Avenue. Familiar ?
My family and I passed by not far from where you grew up many times by car, en route from Ridgewood to the Rockaways or Long Island. We’d come south on Euclid Avenue to Atlantic Avenue on our way to Conduit Blvd., then have to turn left on Atlantic, right on Crescent, to a right on Liberty, then a sharp left from Liberty Avenue to Conduit Blvd. eastbound, because Euclid is one way north from Conduit to Atlantic. How inconvenient ! It was a straight shot north on Euclid from Conduit to Cypress Hills Street and Cypress Avenue through all the cemeteries back to Ridgewood on the return trip.
Hi, Marian ! Good to read you again !
Did your grandparents live on Central Avenue near Halsey St. until they died, or did they move ?
You, too, might enjoy the Bushwick Buddies website ! You would be most welcome there. The lady who runs the site, Eleanor, has been on Cinema Treasures as “bushwickbuddy” and lived at Central Avenue and Eldert St. (one block from your family) until she and her parents moved to Glendale in 1962.
My father’s best boyhood and young manhood friend, Vincent Ferro, attended Fourteen Holy Martyrs. There’s lots of FHM talk and photos on Bushwick Buddies. Where was the House Of The Good Shepherd ?
When my dad was about ten ro eleven, around 1930, and lived at Evergreen and Moffat, he heard cattle drives at four in the morning from the LIRR, northwest on Evergreen Avenue, to the slaughterhouses near the Brooklyn waterfront, probably including the one on Johnson Avenue.
There were so many Bohack stores all over Bklyn and Queens. My dad worked in one as a young man until he got a better deal at National Biscuit Company at 1000 Pacific Street, corner Classon Avenue.
The Bohack in Ridgewood that I grew up with was on Seneca Avenue between Hancock and Weirfield Sts.
Welcome, Phil Santella ! Glad to have you aboard here !
I’ve already posted the history of my family in Cypress Hills and Woodhaven in comments above as “PKoch” on this Embassy Theater page. My Aunt Gerry graduated F K Lane in 1947. She and my dad’s parents used to live at 169 Chestnut St., 1957 through 1968. I remember sitting in their kitchen one night in 1966, looking out their kitchen window at the twin towers of Blessed Sacrament, and seeing the full moon shine right through the opening of one of the towers, like through the eye of a giant needle. Beautiful ! Their landlady there was a Mrs. Benvengia.
My dad attended ENY Vocational High, about 1933-1937. The one near the Atlantic Avenue el station of the Canarsie Line and Fulton St. El, and the ENY station of the LIRR, BEFORE the East New York Avenue underpass was built (early 1940’s). Before that, (1931-33) my dad attended Halsey Junior High in Bushwick on Knickerbocker Ave between Weirfield and Halsey Sts.
Yes, Tapeshare has some great stuff. I’ve seen some of it.
You might enjoy the “Bushwick Buddies” at :
http://www.bushwickbuddies.com/