Yes, Warren, absolutely: and hundreds of good original scripts, too. The Roxy meanwhile showed few high-minded films, largely because its chief fare was 20C-Fox mainstream product(the higher-minded 20C-Fox films went to the Rivoli or the Mayfair). “Forever Amber” and “Peyton Place” were glitz-lit successes at the Roxy. In ‘56, however, “Bus Stop,” “Giant,” and “Anastasia” (following one another in succession) raised the bar a bit.
Quite stately, with its high-class marble, mirrors, and crystal chandeliers. The lobby has the look of a Rapp and Rapp design. The features at the beginning of October were “The Terminal,†A Song for Bobby Long†(has this opened yet in USA?), “L’Amore ritrovato†(dir. Carlo Mazzacurati), and “Fahrenheit 911†(to judge from the overwhelming anti-Bush sentiment in Italy, it must be a hit; it’s playing on five other screens in Rome; “Bowling for Columbine†meanwhile plays at the marvelous Azzurro Scipione). The admission charge of 7 euros is a bit higher than the 6 euros charged at other theaters in Rome. You pay more for the marble and crystal?
I should add that in Nov. ‘48, Victor Fleming’s “Joan of Arc” with Ingrid Bergman opened at the Victoria (for this site, Embassy Five)day-dating on a two-a-day reserved-seat policy at the Fulton (latterly the Helen Hayes) around the corner. But the run at the Fulton folded quickly, leaving the Victoria to show it on a grind for several months. The Bijou, around the corner from the Astor, alternated between small live shows and reserved-seat films such as “The Red Shoes,” “Tales of Hoffmann,” “Cry the Beloved Country,” and “Outcast of the Islands.” The Ambassador on W. 49 served mostly as a radio- and telecast studio, but occasionally showed “B” films on grind. The Winter Garden on B'way showed films from time to time, notably Chaplin’s “Monsieur Verdoux” on two-a-day reserved seats in '47. The Broadway premiered Disney’s “Fantasia” on two-a-day in '40 and, I believe, “Dumbo” a year later. The most famous convert from theater to film to theater was of course the Mark Hellenger, across W. 51 Street from the Capitol, known as the “Hollywood” when it showed Warner Bros. product on grind in the late '30s and '40s. Distribution patterns were more adventurous in those days.
RobertR— In June ‘53, the Bard-of-Avon’s “Julius Caesar” (with Gielgud and Brando! and Mason and Calhern! and Garson and Kerr!) opened at the Booth on a cuirved wide screen with sterophonic sound (the prelude was the MGM orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio italien”)with two-a-day reserved-seat policy at a price scale of 90 cents to $1.50. My grandmother, who hadn’t seen a film in years, wanted to get box seats, until I advised her that the curved screen would invite distortion. We settled for the cheapest seats, which were in the first three orchestra rows per my eleven-year-older’s trick to get as close to the giant screen as possible. (On this site’s page for the Criterion, Vincent remarks that the latter charged its cheapest prices for the front row seats—so it was and should be for the misshapen images from that perspective.) In the early '60s, Fellini’s “La dolce vita” opened at the Henry Miller (now recently toppled after “Utinetown”) with the same policy. It was followed by Vadim’s “Les liaaisons dangereuses” (with Gerard Philippe!). Both these sub-titled European films then went into mass distribution on the RKO neighborhood circuit. Yes, as you imply, “Gigi” should have played at the Capitol. After its run at the Royale, it went to the Sutton with continuous performances, where I saw it on a chilly November evening. My biggest disappointment with “Julius Caesar” at the Booth was that it was filmed in black and white—I had expected a Technicolor spectacular. That the script was Gentle Will’s struck me as terrific: Classics Illustrated Comics had already introduced me to its sonorous verse.
Yes, Ernie, that’s a precise description of how most Paramount stage shows began. The band was the centerpiece feature. The last act was the “star” singer, who entered the platform stage from one of the curtained doorframes on either side of the proscenium.
My random memories of the Center include a couple of visits to the ice shows staged there in the late ‘40s (I estimate in and after Fall, 1946, when I was four years old). By that time, I had already seen a few shows at RCMH with which to compare those at the Center. My most vivid recollection is of one scene deploying a transparent skrim, a revelation to my childish imagination as I wondered how we were able to “see through†an apparently tangible curtain.
Like RCMH, the Center had a cream-tan velvet contour curtain, but with ten folds rather than the fourteen at the larger theater. The walls were of mahogany veneer. The proscenium opening was 60’ with a stage depth of 44’. Like the one at RCMH, its stage had three elevators and a revolving platform. And like RCMH, the Center had three shallow mezzanines, with respective seating capacities of 406, 655, and 559. The orchestra accommodated 1,890. Total capacity was 3,509. Like the Grand Foyer at RCMH, it had a wide staircase and elevators to the top mezzanine, and its basement had a Grand Lounge. Its lobby had three ticket offices.
The preceding statistics come from the American Memory web page at the Library of Congress, Digital ID: ppmsca 05843 (I’ll later supply a precise URL if I can find it). I’m certainly not recalling them from childhood memory, but I definitely do retain vivid images of the Center and its impressive ambience. In 1950 I saw a live telecast of the Milton Berle Show there, and remember the stage as being too cluttered with camera equipment to get a good view of the action. I also attended a few radio broadcasts of NBC’s “The Big Show†on Sunday evenings there, hosted by Tallulah Bankhead. One took place in Spring ’51, with Ethel Merman and Edgar Bergen as guest stars.
The last time I remember seeing its façade was in December ’53 after seeing the Christmas show at RCMH; I took photographs of its lighted marquee. The theater was converted into office space and an indoor garage shortly after that.
I assume that this restaurant space, under the name “World,†has also served as a techno-music night Club. My son is a techno musician who has played gigs there. I never envied his hard work, because the business is fiercely competitive. But when I learned of World’s connection with the Paramount, and so with the shades of Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Stafford, Como, Dorsey, Vaughan, Lee, and a host of others past, in however attenuated a fashion, my admiration brimmed over. Kudos to sites like this for strengthening generational bonds.
In the ‘40s as the “Gotham,” it showed mostly B-films. In the early '50s, one of its live reviews was “Bagels and Yox,†for which patrons were treated to fresh bagels during the intermission (the yox was up to the audience to provide). As the “Holiday” with an early ‘50s widescreen for the Tony Curtis/Janet Leigh “Houdini†film, it advertised “NY’s largest screen (from our seating perspective),” meaning that in this small house, the screen overwhelmed the viewer’s vision, though it was by no means the largest one anywhere. In the late '50s, I remember seeing Olivier’s “Henry V” there, retooled and grotesquely cropped as it opened up to fill a CinemaScope ratio. In the '60s after its name had changed to the “Forum,” I remember seeing the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” during its first run there. With “Chariots of Fire” and “ET” mentioned above, its movie product appears to have improved in its final years, though the name “Movieland†strikes me as tacky.
In the ‘40s, a stage-play-converted-to-movie theater at the SW corner of 47 Street and B'way was named “Gotham.” It showed mostly B-films. In the early '50s, its name changed to “Holiday.” With the coming of widescreen, it advertised “NY’s largest wide screen (from our seating perspective),” meaning that in that small house, the screen overwhelmed the viewer’s vision, though it was by no means the largest one in NY. In the late '50s, I remember seeing Olivier’s “Henry V” there, retooled and grotesquly cropped as it opened up to fill a CinemaScope ratio. In the '60s, its name again changed to “Forum.” I remember seeing “Yellow Submarine” there during its first run. With so many changes, I’ve lost track of its final name and can’t locate it on this site. So: Under what rubric is the former E. 47 Street “Gotham” listed here? Warren, I’ll bet you know the answer.
According to The Ithaca Journal, the State’s original Link organ console, removed from the theater in 1968, has just been returned to its former location. It had been stored in an unheated garage in Syracuse, where Historic Ithaca’s Preservation Services located it last Spring. Binghamton’s Link Organ Company (1916-1929) built it in 1925 with the services of master organist Charles Sharpe Minor (with a name like that, he was destined for such mastery). The State purchased it for $26,000, and used it regularly throughout the 1930s and 1940s, until it fell into disrepair sometime after World War II. It’s believed to be the first portable theater pipe organ and the only known Link organ still associated with its original installation. In 1968, Robert Engel, a Syracuse-based organ restorer, removed the console, blower motor, two tremolos, and four sets of pipes from the stage left chamber. They’ve remained in Syracuse since then, among a collection of historic theater and church organs. Other pipes were disassembled, but were kept in the chamber. Last June, Historic Ithaca’s volunteer staff successfully located and identified the console and its parts. Now in place, the console needs to acclimate to its heated environment, while the Historic Ithaca Society initiates a $165,000 fund-raising drive to restore the instrument to its 1928 condition.
David Robertson— The most famous sepia sequence from 1939 is, of course, the beginning and end of “The Wizard of Oz,” which some (most?) modern prints represent in black-and-white. I remember the sequences projected in sepia for the reissue of “The W of O” that I saw as a kid in 1949 at the Mayfair (aka Embassy 234), but when I took my own kids to see it at a multiplex in the ‘70s, the sequence stock was black-and-white. I recall a few B-features in sepia in the late '40s at the Loew’s chain (ergo MGM), notably “Lust for Gold” with Glenn Ford and Ida Lupino, now shown on TV in black-and-white.
“Niagara” opened at the recently remodeled Roxy on 21 January 1953, where it ran for three weeks with the theater’s innovative flourescent ice-stage show, “Ice Colorama.” Its competition at the Capitol was Red Skelton in “The Clown” (quickly to be followed by “Moulin Rouge”)and at RCMH “The Bad and the Beautiful,” with a “Dancing Waters” stage show. The Capitol had given up its stage shows two years earlier, but the Paramount still offered them: in January, the feature there was Danny Thomas’s remake of “The Jazz Singer.”
Right—that was the same year that “The Great Caruso” broke records with a nine-week run at RCMH. The latter had booked “A Streetcar Named Desire” for Fall, then withdrew it (no doubt after viewing it belatedly with lips together, teeth apart) on the grounds that “Caruso”’s hold-over had preempted it. “An American in Paris” ran seven weeks, and the “Too Young” filler opened on Thanksgiving Day. With a schedule like that, what box could they have stuffed “Pandora” into?
For the Brooklyn College crowd in the late ‘50s and early '60s, this theater showed some sophisticated imports and revivals. Before then, it featured subsequent runs; afterwards, a mix of fare. I remember seeing reissues of “The Lavender Hill Mob” and Hitchcock’s “Rope” there in the late '50s.
As the Normandie, this theater opened on 6 December 1951 with MGM’s arty “Pandora and the Flying Dutchman” (Ava Gardner, James Mason; dir and writer Albert Lewin). For the next fifteen years, it had a spotty record of showing minor-Hollywood/flashy-EuroTrash. I remember it as a comfortable theater when I saw a reissue of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” in the late ‘50s. That was a terrific program on 31 March 1964. There was an Automat next door, where one could have grabbed a bite in between the reels, no?
PS— the book “Times Square Style†provides a rare color photo of a stage show at the Roxy, on page 35, upper right, with sixteen Roxyettes balancing themselves on beach balls, while a jazz band (Louis Armstrong?) plays behind them; as a kid, I had a post-card of that image in my collection, which identified it as a Roxy performance.
Warren— About movie attendance in Manhattan: I found a few leads (though nothing specific to Manhattan by browsing under the following Subject Headings in the Library of Congress, on-line catalogue: “Motion picture audiences—United States†and “Motion picture industryâ€"United Statesâ€"Finance—Statistics†(though the latter focuses mostly on studio production) and “Motion picture theatersâ€"United Statesâ€"History.†The trick is to type in “Motion picture†rather than “Movie.†Ahh, yes, the Motion Picture!
Two older books are: Leo Handel, Hollywood Looks at Its Audience: A Report of Film Audience Research, Univ of Illinois P, 1950; and Bruce Austin, The Film Audience: An International Bibliography of Research, Scarecrow Press, 1983. Both are likely outdated. But there’s been a flurry of academic publications on movie attendance in the past few years.
Here are some recent titles:
Michael Putnam, Silent Screens: The Decline and Transformation of the American Movie Theater, Johns Hopkins UP, 2000
Tom Stempel, American Audiences on Movies and Movie-going, Univ Press of Kentucky, 2001
Douglas Gomery, Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation in the US, Univ of Wisconsin P, 1992
Richard Haines, The Moviegoing Experience, McFarland Press, 2003
Barbara Wilinsky, Sure Seaters: The Emergence of the Art House Cinema, Univ of Minnesota P, 2001
Charles Acland, Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture, Duke Univ P, 2003
Personally, I wouldn’t celebrate much that issues from Duke Univ P these days. Whoever thought that the plateresque Roxy and so many gothic halls of ivy could wind up on the same web page?
“Times Square Style†also provides a rare color photo of a stage show at the Roxy, on page 35, upper right, with sixteen Roxyettes balancing themselves on beach balls, while a jazz band (Louis Armstrong?) plays behind them; as a kid, I had a post-card of that image, which identified it as a Roxy performance.
Among other memorable films mentioned above (except for “Hiroshima mon amour” and “The 400 Blows,” which opened at the Fine Arts down the block), I remember at the Plaza “Witness for the Prosecution” (day-dating at the Victoria), “The Leopard,” and Kurosawa’s “Ran,” from which I exited the first row of the raised section in a power-locked trance. Yum.
On my first visit to Rome in 1962, I saw Wm Wyler’s “Children’s Hour†at this theater (Italian title: “Quelle due†‘Those two’). I remember it as a formally pleasing but bare house, with long commercial advertisements and in-house refreshment sales in the European manner preceding the feature. Last month on a work trip to Rome, I used an Internet Caffe next door, and one morning took the opportunity to chat up a theater staff member before the house opened at noon. I asked if I could view the theaters. He said he’d have to ask his manager, left, but returned luckless, and was reluctant to let me inside. My Italian is passable, but his Roman dialect was thick, so I missed some nuance in our conversation. He did not know the connection with Rossellini vecchio, and I don’t think he recognized the name of Rossellini giovane (incredibile!), but he did know Ingrid Bergman and thought her greatest film was “Per cui la campana suona†‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.†A block away is the via Rassella, the site of a famous Nazi atrocity in WWII which furnished a prototype for the climax of “Open City.†He drew a blank on that. The theater appears to be divided into balcony twins, orchestra twins, and a fifth small screening room in the orchestra. The ticketing is wonderfully electronic, with a digitalized sign indicating the number of seats left for sale at each performance. The balcony theaters seat 150 and 149 respectively, the orchestra 478 and 297, and the subsection seats fifty. There is an automatic ticket machine that accepts credit cards for payment. Tickets cost 7.50 euros, a tad higher than the 6 euros charged at other theaters. Popcorn (they didn’t sell that there in ’62, though I do remember that they sold ice cream pops) ranges from 2 to 7 euros (mamma mia!). For the record, the current attractions were (1) “King Arthur†(2) “Bourne Supremacy†(3) “Terminal†(4) “Spiderman2†(5) “Due fratelli,†a French naturist film about twin tigers. Seating is not permitted after the film has begun (another European mannerism). (I still pine for the old days in NYC when you could walk in any time during continuous showings.)
Thanks, Warrenâ€"that’s a terrific book. The billboards at the Astor and Victoria were magnificent in the late 40s and early 50s. For the most part, they used bulb-lit block majuscules with a few minimally painted figures behind them. At the Astor, I remember “Enchantment†(Dec. ’47) spelled out three times and blinking on and off in dizzying combinations (at the age of five, I didn’t know what the word meant); “Harvey†(Dec. ’50) spelled out to the right of a thirty-foot representation of James Stewart and the bunny; and “Limelight†(Nov. ’52) spelled out beneath the face of an old, wistful Charles Chaplin. At the Victoria, I recall “The Third Man†(Feb. ’50) spelled out to the right of Orson Welles’s hulking shadow; and a near-copy of the latter for “The Man Between†(Dec. ’53) with a neon-circling bicycle substituting for Welles. The most elaborate one was for “Quo Vadis†at the Astor (Nov. ’51), with a forty-foot high representation of Deborah Kerr tied to a circus stake left of the title, a smaller Peter Ustinov plucking his lyre right of it, and a top and bottom border of flickering neon flames as Rome burned. Nearly as elaborate was one for “Joan of Arc†at the Victoria (Nov. ’48), with the facial representation of an armour-clad Ingrid Bergman calling for infantry over her shoulder, to the left of the title. If I’m right, the much duller block-long painted-ad sign first advertised an automobile trade-show at the Colosseum in Fall, ’55. BTW, “Times Square Style†provides a rare color photo of a stage show at the Roxy, on page 35, upper right, with sixteen Roxyettes balancing themselves on beach balls, while a jazz band (Louis Armstrong?) plays behind them; as a kid, I had a post-card of that image, which identified it as a Roxy performance.
The huge CineMiracle screen sat in front of the proscenium, over the orchestra pit, on an extended thrust stage. It had a temporary look to it, not at all like the subsequently remodelled Capitol or Loew’s State, which appeared as though management had planned for the long haul. Upon exiting from “Windjammer,” I remember signs in the lobby announcing the next CineMiracle film then in production, the disasterous “The Miracle” with Carroll Baker. The latter, of course, was finally released in a shrunken Technirama in November ‘59, when it had a brief three-week run as the Thanksgiving show at RCMH.
I saw “Windjammer” at the Roxy during Easter Week just after it opened, and, yes, I’m absolutely certain about the proper use of screen curtains and masking. It was a quality presentation. I had also seen “The King and I” in CinemaScope55 at the Roxy (with a ice-stage show developed on the theme of airplane travel, ice-skates and all) in late Spring ‘56. They used the projection booth at the mezzanine level for a less distorted image. The masking apparatus at the Roxy must have been quite versatile, since the ratio changed for newsreels (projected at 1.33) and wide-screen short subjects (at 1.6; between Sept '53 and Oct '56, the Roixy showed only CinemaScope features; the exception was “Giant” in Oct '56) and no doubt for various small calibrations of CinemaScope as well.
German “oe” sounds like English “er,” and “w” sounds like “v”; so, in the old country, “Loew” would be pronounced “Lerv” (and “aue” = “oi”: as in the famous Bavarian beer, “Lerven-broi,” nicht wahr?). But whoever said, “I’m going to Lerv’s State,” even outside the NY-area? Auf deutsch, “Loew[e]” means ‘lion,’ which is why Leo roared as the curtains parted at every Loweez theater. After all these years, Oy’m not gonna roll back my greater NY version—that’s the way God made it.
Yes, Warren, absolutely: and hundreds of good original scripts, too. The Roxy meanwhile showed few high-minded films, largely because its chief fare was 20C-Fox mainstream product(the higher-minded 20C-Fox films went to the Rivoli or the Mayfair). “Forever Amber” and “Peyton Place” were glitz-lit successes at the Roxy. In ‘56, however, “Bus Stop,” “Giant,” and “Anastasia” (following one another in succession) raised the bar a bit.
Quite stately, with its high-class marble, mirrors, and crystal chandeliers. The lobby has the look of a Rapp and Rapp design. The features at the beginning of October were “The Terminal,†A Song for Bobby Long†(has this opened yet in USA?), “L’Amore ritrovato†(dir. Carlo Mazzacurati), and “Fahrenheit 911†(to judge from the overwhelming anti-Bush sentiment in Italy, it must be a hit; it’s playing on five other screens in Rome; “Bowling for Columbine†meanwhile plays at the marvelous Azzurro Scipione). The admission charge of 7 euros is a bit higher than the 6 euros charged at other theaters in Rome. You pay more for the marble and crystal?
I should add that in Nov. ‘48, Victor Fleming’s “Joan of Arc” with Ingrid Bergman opened at the Victoria (for this site, Embassy Five)day-dating on a two-a-day reserved-seat policy at the Fulton (latterly the Helen Hayes) around the corner. But the run at the Fulton folded quickly, leaving the Victoria to show it on a grind for several months. The Bijou, around the corner from the Astor, alternated between small live shows and reserved-seat films such as “The Red Shoes,” “Tales of Hoffmann,” “Cry the Beloved Country,” and “Outcast of the Islands.” The Ambassador on W. 49 served mostly as a radio- and telecast studio, but occasionally showed “B” films on grind. The Winter Garden on B'way showed films from time to time, notably Chaplin’s “Monsieur Verdoux” on two-a-day reserved seats in '47. The Broadway premiered Disney’s “Fantasia” on two-a-day in '40 and, I believe, “Dumbo” a year later. The most famous convert from theater to film to theater was of course the Mark Hellenger, across W. 51 Street from the Capitol, known as the “Hollywood” when it showed Warner Bros. product on grind in the late '30s and '40s. Distribution patterns were more adventurous in those days.
RobertR— In June ‘53, the Bard-of-Avon’s “Julius Caesar” (with Gielgud and Brando! and Mason and Calhern! and Garson and Kerr!) opened at the Booth on a cuirved wide screen with sterophonic sound (the prelude was the MGM orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio italien”)with two-a-day reserved-seat policy at a price scale of 90 cents to $1.50. My grandmother, who hadn’t seen a film in years, wanted to get box seats, until I advised her that the curved screen would invite distortion. We settled for the cheapest seats, which were in the first three orchestra rows per my eleven-year-older’s trick to get as close to the giant screen as possible. (On this site’s page for the Criterion, Vincent remarks that the latter charged its cheapest prices for the front row seats—so it was and should be for the misshapen images from that perspective.) In the early '60s, Fellini’s “La dolce vita” opened at the Henry Miller (now recently toppled after “Utinetown”) with the same policy. It was followed by Vadim’s “Les liaaisons dangereuses” (with Gerard Philippe!). Both these sub-titled European films then went into mass distribution on the RKO neighborhood circuit. Yes, as you imply, “Gigi” should have played at the Capitol. After its run at the Royale, it went to the Sutton with continuous performances, where I saw it on a chilly November evening. My biggest disappointment with “Julius Caesar” at the Booth was that it was filmed in black and white—I had expected a Technicolor spectacular. That the script was Gentle Will’s struck me as terrific: Classics Illustrated Comics had already introduced me to its sonorous verse.
Yes, Ernie, that’s a precise description of how most Paramount stage shows began. The band was the centerpiece feature. The last act was the “star” singer, who entered the platform stage from one of the curtained doorframes on either side of the proscenium.
My random memories of the Center include a couple of visits to the ice shows staged there in the late ‘40s (I estimate in and after Fall, 1946, when I was four years old). By that time, I had already seen a few shows at RCMH with which to compare those at the Center. My most vivid recollection is of one scene deploying a transparent skrim, a revelation to my childish imagination as I wondered how we were able to “see through†an apparently tangible curtain.
Like RCMH, the Center had a cream-tan velvet contour curtain, but with ten folds rather than the fourteen at the larger theater. The walls were of mahogany veneer. The proscenium opening was 60’ with a stage depth of 44’. Like the one at RCMH, its stage had three elevators and a revolving platform. And like RCMH, the Center had three shallow mezzanines, with respective seating capacities of 406, 655, and 559. The orchestra accommodated 1,890. Total capacity was 3,509. Like the Grand Foyer at RCMH, it had a wide staircase and elevators to the top mezzanine, and its basement had a Grand Lounge. Its lobby had three ticket offices.
The preceding statistics come from the American Memory web page at the Library of Congress, Digital ID: ppmsca 05843 (I’ll later supply a precise URL if I can find it). I’m certainly not recalling them from childhood memory, but I definitely do retain vivid images of the Center and its impressive ambience. In 1950 I saw a live telecast of the Milton Berle Show there, and remember the stage as being too cluttered with camera equipment to get a good view of the action. I also attended a few radio broadcasts of NBC’s “The Big Show†on Sunday evenings there, hosted by Tallulah Bankhead. One took place in Spring ’51, with Ethel Merman and Edgar Bergen as guest stars.
The last time I remember seeing its façade was in December ’53 after seeing the Christmas show at RCMH; I took photographs of its lighted marquee. The theater was converted into office space and an indoor garage shortly after that.
I assume that this restaurant space, under the name “World,†has also served as a techno-music night Club. My son is a techno musician who has played gigs there. I never envied his hard work, because the business is fiercely competitive. But when I learned of World’s connection with the Paramount, and so with the shades of Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Stafford, Como, Dorsey, Vaughan, Lee, and a host of others past, in however attenuated a fashion, my admiration brimmed over. Kudos to sites like this for strengthening generational bonds.
In the ‘40s as the “Gotham,” it showed mostly B-films. In the early '50s, one of its live reviews was “Bagels and Yox,†for which patrons were treated to fresh bagels during the intermission (the yox was up to the audience to provide). As the “Holiday” with an early ‘50s widescreen for the Tony Curtis/Janet Leigh “Houdini†film, it advertised “NY’s largest screen (from our seating perspective),” meaning that in this small house, the screen overwhelmed the viewer’s vision, though it was by no means the largest one anywhere. In the late '50s, I remember seeing Olivier’s “Henry V” there, retooled and grotesquely cropped as it opened up to fill a CinemaScope ratio. In the '60s after its name had changed to the “Forum,” I remember seeing the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” during its first run there. With “Chariots of Fire” and “ET” mentioned above, its movie product appears to have improved in its final years, though the name “Movieland†strikes me as tacky.
Warren— many thanks!
In the ‘40s, a stage-play-converted-to-movie theater at the SW corner of 47 Street and B'way was named “Gotham.” It showed mostly B-films. In the early '50s, its name changed to “Holiday.” With the coming of widescreen, it advertised “NY’s largest wide screen (from our seating perspective),” meaning that in that small house, the screen overwhelmed the viewer’s vision, though it was by no means the largest one in NY. In the late '50s, I remember seeing Olivier’s “Henry V” there, retooled and grotesquly cropped as it opened up to fill a CinemaScope ratio. In the '60s, its name again changed to “Forum.” I remember seeing “Yellow Submarine” there during its first run. With so many changes, I’ve lost track of its final name and can’t locate it on this site. So: Under what rubric is the former E. 47 Street “Gotham” listed here? Warren, I’ll bet you know the answer.
According to The Ithaca Journal, the State’s original Link organ console, removed from the theater in 1968, has just been returned to its former location. It had been stored in an unheated garage in Syracuse, where Historic Ithaca’s Preservation Services located it last Spring. Binghamton’s Link Organ Company (1916-1929) built it in 1925 with the services of master organist Charles Sharpe Minor (with a name like that, he was destined for such mastery). The State purchased it for $26,000, and used it regularly throughout the 1930s and 1940s, until it fell into disrepair sometime after World War II. It’s believed to be the first portable theater pipe organ and the only known Link organ still associated with its original installation. In 1968, Robert Engel, a Syracuse-based organ restorer, removed the console, blower motor, two tremolos, and four sets of pipes from the stage left chamber. They’ve remained in Syracuse since then, among a collection of historic theater and church organs. Other pipes were disassembled, but were kept in the chamber. Last June, Historic Ithaca’s volunteer staff successfully located and identified the console and its parts. Now in place, the console needs to acclimate to its heated environment, while the Historic Ithaca Society initiates a $165,000 fund-raising drive to restore the instrument to its 1928 condition.
David Robertson— The most famous sepia sequence from 1939 is, of course, the beginning and end of “The Wizard of Oz,” which some (most?) modern prints represent in black-and-white. I remember the sequences projected in sepia for the reissue of “The W of O” that I saw as a kid in 1949 at the Mayfair (aka Embassy 234), but when I took my own kids to see it at a multiplex in the ‘70s, the sequence stock was black-and-white. I recall a few B-features in sepia in the late '40s at the Loew’s chain (ergo MGM), notably “Lust for Gold” with Glenn Ford and Ida Lupino, now shown on TV in black-and-white.
“Niagara” opened at the recently remodeled Roxy on 21 January 1953, where it ran for three weeks with the theater’s innovative flourescent ice-stage show, “Ice Colorama.” Its competition at the Capitol was Red Skelton in “The Clown” (quickly to be followed by “Moulin Rouge”)and at RCMH “The Bad and the Beautiful,” with a “Dancing Waters” stage show. The Capitol had given up its stage shows two years earlier, but the Paramount still offered them: in January, the feature there was Danny Thomas’s remake of “The Jazz Singer.”
Right—that was the same year that “The Great Caruso” broke records with a nine-week run at RCMH. The latter had booked “A Streetcar Named Desire” for Fall, then withdrew it (no doubt after viewing it belatedly with lips together, teeth apart) on the grounds that “Caruso”’s hold-over had preempted it. “An American in Paris” ran seven weeks, and the “Too Young” filler opened on Thanksgiving Day. With a schedule like that, what box could they have stuffed “Pandora” into?
For the Brooklyn College crowd in the late ‘50s and early '60s, this theater showed some sophisticated imports and revivals. Before then, it featured subsequent runs; afterwards, a mix of fare. I remember seeing reissues of “The Lavender Hill Mob” and Hitchcock’s “Rope” there in the late '50s.
As the Normandie, this theater opened on 6 December 1951 with MGM’s arty “Pandora and the Flying Dutchman” (Ava Gardner, James Mason; dir and writer Albert Lewin). For the next fifteen years, it had a spotty record of showing minor-Hollywood/flashy-EuroTrash. I remember it as a comfortable theater when I saw a reissue of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” in the late ‘50s. That was a terrific program on 31 March 1964. There was an Automat next door, where one could have grabbed a bite in between the reels, no?
PS— the book “Times Square Style†provides a rare color photo of a stage show at the Roxy, on page 35, upper right, with sixteen Roxyettes balancing themselves on beach balls, while a jazz band (Louis Armstrong?) plays behind them; as a kid, I had a post-card of that image in my collection, which identified it as a Roxy performance.
Warren— About movie attendance in Manhattan: I found a few leads (though nothing specific to Manhattan by browsing under the following Subject Headings in the Library of Congress, on-line catalogue: “Motion picture audiences—United States†and “Motion picture industryâ€"United Statesâ€"Finance—Statistics†(though the latter focuses mostly on studio production) and “Motion picture theatersâ€"United Statesâ€"History.†The trick is to type in “Motion picture†rather than “Movie.†Ahh, yes, the Motion Picture!
Two older books are: Leo Handel, Hollywood Looks at Its Audience: A Report of Film Audience Research, Univ of Illinois P, 1950; and Bruce Austin, The Film Audience: An International Bibliography of Research, Scarecrow Press, 1983. Both are likely outdated. But there’s been a flurry of academic publications on movie attendance in the past few years.
Here are some recent titles:
Michael Putnam, Silent Screens: The Decline and Transformation of the American Movie Theater, Johns Hopkins UP, 2000
Tom Stempel, American Audiences on Movies and Movie-going, Univ Press of Kentucky, 2001
Douglas Gomery, Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation in the US, Univ of Wisconsin P, 1992
Richard Haines, The Moviegoing Experience, McFarland Press, 2003
Barbara Wilinsky, Sure Seaters: The Emergence of the Art House Cinema, Univ of Minnesota P, 2001
Charles Acland, Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture, Duke Univ P, 2003
Personally, I wouldn’t celebrate much that issues from Duke Univ P these days. Whoever thought that the plateresque Roxy and so many gothic halls of ivy could wind up on the same web page?
“Times Square Style†also provides a rare color photo of a stage show at the Roxy, on page 35, upper right, with sixteen Roxyettes balancing themselves on beach balls, while a jazz band (Louis Armstrong?) plays behind them; as a kid, I had a post-card of that image, which identified it as a Roxy performance.
Among other memorable films mentioned above (except for “Hiroshima mon amour” and “The 400 Blows,” which opened at the Fine Arts down the block), I remember at the Plaza “Witness for the Prosecution” (day-dating at the Victoria), “The Leopard,” and Kurosawa’s “Ran,” from which I exited the first row of the raised section in a power-locked trance. Yum.
On my first visit to Rome in 1962, I saw Wm Wyler’s “Children’s Hour†at this theater (Italian title: “Quelle due†‘Those two’). I remember it as a formally pleasing but bare house, with long commercial advertisements and in-house refreshment sales in the European manner preceding the feature. Last month on a work trip to Rome, I used an Internet Caffe next door, and one morning took the opportunity to chat up a theater staff member before the house opened at noon. I asked if I could view the theaters. He said he’d have to ask his manager, left, but returned luckless, and was reluctant to let me inside. My Italian is passable, but his Roman dialect was thick, so I missed some nuance in our conversation. He did not know the connection with Rossellini vecchio, and I don’t think he recognized the name of Rossellini giovane (incredibile!), but he did know Ingrid Bergman and thought her greatest film was “Per cui la campana suona†‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.†A block away is the via Rassella, the site of a famous Nazi atrocity in WWII which furnished a prototype for the climax of “Open City.†He drew a blank on that. The theater appears to be divided into balcony twins, orchestra twins, and a fifth small screening room in the orchestra. The ticketing is wonderfully electronic, with a digitalized sign indicating the number of seats left for sale at each performance. The balcony theaters seat 150 and 149 respectively, the orchestra 478 and 297, and the subsection seats fifty. There is an automatic ticket machine that accepts credit cards for payment. Tickets cost 7.50 euros, a tad higher than the 6 euros charged at other theaters. Popcorn (they didn’t sell that there in ’62, though I do remember that they sold ice cream pops) ranges from 2 to 7 euros (mamma mia!). For the record, the current attractions were (1) “King Arthur†(2) “Bourne Supremacy†(3) “Terminal†(4) “Spiderman2†(5) “Due fratelli,†a French naturist film about twin tigers. Seating is not permitted after the film has begun (another European mannerism). (I still pine for the old days in NYC when you could walk in any time during continuous showings.)
Thanks, Warrenâ€"that’s a terrific book. The billboards at the Astor and Victoria were magnificent in the late 40s and early 50s. For the most part, they used bulb-lit block majuscules with a few minimally painted figures behind them. At the Astor, I remember “Enchantment†(Dec. ’47) spelled out three times and blinking on and off in dizzying combinations (at the age of five, I didn’t know what the word meant); “Harvey†(Dec. ’50) spelled out to the right of a thirty-foot representation of James Stewart and the bunny; and “Limelight†(Nov. ’52) spelled out beneath the face of an old, wistful Charles Chaplin. At the Victoria, I recall “The Third Man†(Feb. ’50) spelled out to the right of Orson Welles’s hulking shadow; and a near-copy of the latter for “The Man Between†(Dec. ’53) with a neon-circling bicycle substituting for Welles. The most elaborate one was for “Quo Vadis†at the Astor (Nov. ’51), with a forty-foot high representation of Deborah Kerr tied to a circus stake left of the title, a smaller Peter Ustinov plucking his lyre right of it, and a top and bottom border of flickering neon flames as Rome burned. Nearly as elaborate was one for “Joan of Arc†at the Victoria (Nov. ’48), with the facial representation of an armour-clad Ingrid Bergman calling for infantry over her shoulder, to the left of the title. If I’m right, the much duller block-long painted-ad sign first advertised an automobile trade-show at the Colosseum in Fall, ’55. BTW, “Times Square Style†provides a rare color photo of a stage show at the Roxy, on page 35, upper right, with sixteen Roxyettes balancing themselves on beach balls, while a jazz band (Louis Armstrong?) plays behind them; as a kid, I had a post-card of that image, which identified it as a Roxy performance.
The huge CineMiracle screen sat in front of the proscenium, over the orchestra pit, on an extended thrust stage. It had a temporary look to it, not at all like the subsequently remodelled Capitol or Loew’s State, which appeared as though management had planned for the long haul. Upon exiting from “Windjammer,” I remember signs in the lobby announcing the next CineMiracle film then in production, the disasterous “The Miracle” with Carroll Baker. The latter, of course, was finally released in a shrunken Technirama in November ‘59, when it had a brief three-week run as the Thanksgiving show at RCMH.
I saw “Windjammer” at the Roxy during Easter Week just after it opened, and, yes, I’m absolutely certain about the proper use of screen curtains and masking. It was a quality presentation. I had also seen “The King and I” in CinemaScope55 at the Roxy (with a ice-stage show developed on the theme of airplane travel, ice-skates and all) in late Spring ‘56. They used the projection booth at the mezzanine level for a less distorted image. The masking apparatus at the Roxy must have been quite versatile, since the ratio changed for newsreels (projected at 1.33) and wide-screen short subjects (at 1.6; between Sept '53 and Oct '56, the Roixy showed only CinemaScope features; the exception was “Giant” in Oct '56) and no doubt for various small calibrations of CinemaScope as well.
German “oe” sounds like English “er,” and “w” sounds like “v”; so, in the old country, “Loew” would be pronounced “Lerv” (and “aue” = “oi”: as in the famous Bavarian beer, “Lerven-broi,” nicht wahr?). But whoever said, “I’m going to Lerv’s State,” even outside the NY-area? Auf deutsch, “Loew[e]” means ‘lion,’ which is why Leo roared as the curtains parted at every Loweez theater. After all these years, Oy’m not gonna roll back my greater NY version—that’s the way God made it.