Great post Luis, nice to hear your thoughts.
RCDTJ, A curtain is in use I wondered about. One scene where you see it used is at the start of the Wooden Soldiers, it looks very much like the old travelor that was removed a few years back for a Disney show. The curtain went up as the Rockeete’s filed in, Althogh it went up instead of opening like a traveler, I wondered if they put the original traveler curtain back in for the show.
It looks like the tour bus was difficult from a technical point of view. It must have been awful went it fouled up.
I am keping my fingers crossed for sosme of the projection in the show to be put back in and sure hope the 70mm 3-D remains as well.
Please keep us posted. After Bob left the Hall I was afraid we were not going to be kept up to date on the goings on there. Thankfully you came along to fill Bob’s shoes. His posts were/are some of the most informative and educational we have here at CT.
The best part of working the Baldwin was the fact that it was a Century theatre, I worked most of the Century theatres during the hey days. The theatres were run very professionally, and always well maintained. Customer service was key, as was perfection in the film presentation.
We had a lot of rules, and if you worked a century theatre you were expected to give your best.
Does anyone remember Century’s policy of playing the star spangled banner at the start of the first show of every holiday?
The Home Office was located in Floral Park, so executives would
often stop by, and would come up to the booth and ask “do you need anything�
When Century sold out it was the end of an era of showmanship which, except for National Amusements, is something you don’t see anymore.
Rory,during the roadshow reel-to-reel days, We did clean the audio heads every day. In platter runs, running continuous shows, we cleaned them after evety performancea.
In addition, for roadshow engagements,they were often replaced at the start of a new movie’s run.
If Rendres reads this I would be interested in knowing what the policy was regarding mag heads at Radio City.
Rory, “Why Bother”?
No media can beat the excitement of seeeing a movie on the big screen in a movie palace.
I’ll take watching a slightly worn print with an occasional scratch in a movie palace over a DVD or plasma screen everytime.
Shame on you! :)
I would agree “Journey to the Center of the Earth” in four track mag sound at Loews' would be magnificent.
I headed the sight and sound team that turned the Kuhio into a twin. At the time, the original plan was to quad the Waikiki Twins, but the Kuhio was twinned instead. A lot od discusion went on about removing the Noreclco 35/70mm projectors, but in the end we replaced them with straight Century 35mm projectors and Orcon platters.
A little trick they may have tried, is removing the anamorphic attachment from the prime scope lens. The image would of course be smaller but the ratio might just be closer to the 1.33 required to show these fims properly.
Thanks RCDTJ, I must wonder who the “genius” was who made that decision. The great organ in that “Hark the Angels” piece is a big loss to the number. I can still hear it in my head from the good ole days.
hank, no, thst musta have ben some other gumba :)
By the way, does anyone know if either of the organs are beeing used in ther Christmas show?. I have not seen the show live as yet, however on the TV showing they seemed not to be used at all.
I realised it when during the Nativity scene at the end, I remember the organ being a major part of “Hark the Angels Sing”. The great organ sound would reseneate through the hall during that piece, always giving me goose bumps.
hank, the live orchestra was there, you can see the conductor waving his batton in a few shots, plus the lights the orchestra members use to see the sheet music can be seen as ewell.
Looking forward to the pics. I haven’t been back to Hawaii in quite somwe time. The old Cinerama site is not far from the Varsity, did you perhaps get any photos of that theatre?
You might go into Waikiki and see what has taken the place of the Waikiki theatres 1-2-3 as well.
Gee Al, maybe you are a little hard on the girls. They are in about 75% of the show, kicking and dancing their little hearts out.
The singing is really secondary to the dancing, I forgive them the lip sync. I can not even imagine, with all the different numbers they have in the show, how they even remember it all.
I would certainly agree if i went to a concert
and the lead singer(s)lip synced, that would be shamefull.
The show was pretty good. and one of the highlights for me was watching that curtain go up and own so often. Rather magnificent to see.
You are in for a treat Luis, the theatre has been magnificently restored. Have fun at the Behar show, and please report back how the show went and what your feelings are about the theatre.
I remember going to the Rex, I think it closed about 1950. I do not recall if it was ever called the Park, although it probably was because I only recall three theatres in Stapelton, the Paramount, Liberty and Rex. As a teen, going to the movies often meant heading over to Stapelton.
The Rex played combinations of B movies, often westerns like
the Durango Kid. It was a small theatre maybe 400 seats with no balcony and was in the Brewery section on canal Street.
The Liberty was also a second run double feature house, bigger than the Rex with about 1000 seats, including a balcony. They had vaudeville there in the early days, so did the Paramount by the way.
The Star was a nightmare, it had about 450 seats no balcony and the
SIRT railroad train ran right behind the buliding, you could often hear the rumble of the train going by. The theatre also had a bit of a rodent problem, and was coined the RATS (Star spelled backwards)
The show was fun to watch. We saw about 45 mins of the 90 min show.
I love the rockettes and have for more years than I can count. But, it was overkill, surely there were other entertaining parts to the show, it seemed like a love letter to them. The show could have been called the Rockettes Christmas show.
One thing that bugged me was the insane decision to cut away three times during the climatic toy soldier’s fall. I would have liked to have seen, once again, the fall completely uninterrupted instead of distracting shots of the kids in the audience with their mouths and eyes wide open.
I wonder if the orchestra has an overture in the new show, which would have been wonderful to see, perhaps instead of so many Rockette segments. Does anyone know if the orchestra has a solo in the show? Also, that opening shots of Santa in he sled, is that the 3-D portion?
One had to marvel at the amazing set design, a truly magnificent part of the show.
Good point Warren, unlike today where the ads are placed by the studios, prior to the 6os the ads were placed mainly by the theare owners.(Loews,RKO,etc) I guess it all changed with the introduction of circuit runs like Blue Ribbon,Red Carrpet etc.
Warren, Thanks for that ad. The Paramount is where I got my start and will always have a special place in my heart. Seeing those ads take me back to a time when the theatre was alive and vibrant. Anytime you have ads, or info on this wonderful theatre, please post.
Thanks Warren.
Of course, those of you who remenber the great RCMH years, also remember that RCMH did not run theatrical trailers. They would instead have special short trailer snipes made up that gave the announcement of the next attraction, accomplied by the great organ.
I am sure that was the case from the 40s through the 70s, I wonder when that started and if they ever ran regular trailers.
Even the newsreels were custom made, taking the best of several
News of the Day (MGM), Movitone (Fox) and Paramount news reel clips to combine into Radio City news. This was preceded by a wonderful RCMH news snipe.
I wonder if Bob Endres has any of those greet old snipes in his RCMH memorabilia.
Garth, adult movies did have a very short run. It was in 1978 after UA had given up its lease. The soft core porn films were shown in 16mm from the balcony. The projector and some of the films were still in a store room in the booth last time I saw the place. As you stated the Advance article put an end to the showings, and in 1978 Steckman leased the theatre out as a dance club. The last movies shown here by UA were in 1977. I have not been back to investigate the new doors. I hate going there and seeing the theatre in its current condition. I still have nightmares from my last visit.
Bob when you wrote about the projector maintenance I wondered how much did you do at RCMH. What was your maintenance schedule like, or did RCMH have a service contract with an outside source
We all had some part in maintaining our booths, some more than others. Other than cleaning and lubricating the projectors, many of us did simple things like pad roller adjustments and replacing gate tension bands etc. But some of us did much more, including complete projector overhaul or sprocket and gear train replacements. I also liked having spare complete heat syncs for the rectifiers, that way if a diode went bad, rather than take the time to test and determine which diode was bad I could simply change the entire module and troubleshoot the bad diode later on the bench. I also learned that when a diode shorted chances are all of them may have been effected and it was wise to replace them all. Something I would not want to do while an audience waited.
I am sure many of us would be interested if you would please share with us the RCMH maintained procedures.
Warren, thsnks so much for that link, I enjoyed it very much.
Bob,I guess I came on a bit hard about Ben, Actually I knew a lot of guys like that, good projectionist, but not at all interested in what made a projector tick. Some of them were just intimidated by it all and left the repairs to the technical people. You have to respect a guy who started as a reel boy before talkies.
I loved what you said to him. I’ll have to add that to
“BC and AD” along with “You ain’t been booed ‘til you’ve been booed by 6,000 people!”
Great post Luis, nice to hear your thoughts.
RCDTJ, A curtain is in use I wondered about. One scene where you see it used is at the start of the Wooden Soldiers, it looks very much like the old travelor that was removed a few years back for a Disney show. The curtain went up as the Rockeete’s filed in, Althogh it went up instead of opening like a traveler, I wondered if they put the original traveler curtain back in for the show.
It looks like the tour bus was difficult from a technical point of view. It must have been awful went it fouled up.
I am keping my fingers crossed for sosme of the projection in the show to be put back in and sure hope the 70mm 3-D remains as well.
Please keep us posted. After Bob left the Hall I was afraid we were not going to be kept up to date on the goings on there. Thankfully you came along to fill Bob’s shoes. His posts were/are some of the most informative and educational we have here at CT.
No Robert, it was just up the street on Jericho Trpk. But the DM did have an office in the Floral, heck of a nice guy, Mr.Murray I think was his name.
The best part of working the Baldwin was the fact that it was a Century theatre, I worked most of the Century theatres during the hey days. The theatres were run very professionally, and always well maintained. Customer service was key, as was perfection in the film presentation.
We had a lot of rules, and if you worked a century theatre you were expected to give your best.
Does anyone remember Century’s policy of playing the star spangled banner at the start of the first show of every holiday?
The Home Office was located in Floral Park, so executives would
often stop by, and would come up to the booth and ask “do you need anything�
When Century sold out it was the end of an era of showmanship which, except for National Amusements, is something you don’t see anymore.
For those of you who may have missed it, the Christmas Spectacular, shown on NBC last week, is being repeated on Bravo,
Monday 12/24 and Tuesday 12/25
Rory,during the roadshow reel-to-reel days, We did clean the audio heads every day. In platter runs, running continuous shows, we cleaned them after evety performancea.
In addition, for roadshow engagements,they were often replaced at the start of a new movie’s run.
If Rendres reads this I would be interested in knowing what the policy was regarding mag heads at Radio City.
Rory, “Why Bother”?
No media can beat the excitement of seeeing a movie on the big screen in a movie palace.
I’ll take watching a slightly worn print with an occasional scratch in a movie palace over a DVD or plasma screen everytime.
Shame on you! :)
I would agree “Journey to the Center of the Earth” in four track mag sound at Loews' would be magnificent.
I headed the sight and sound team that turned the Kuhio into a twin. At the time, the original plan was to quad the Waikiki Twins, but the Kuhio was twinned instead. A lot od discusion went on about removing the Noreclco 35/70mm projectors, but in the end we replaced them with straight Century 35mm projectors and Orcon platters.
A little trick they may have tried, is removing the anamorphic attachment from the prime scope lens. The image would of course be smaller but the ratio might just be closer to the 1.33 required to show these fims properly.
Thanks RCDTJ, I must wonder who the “genius” was who made that decision. The great organ in that “Hark the Angels” piece is a big loss to the number. I can still hear it in my head from the good ole days.
hank, no, thst musta have ben some other gumba :)
By the way, does anyone know if either of the organs are beeing used in ther Christmas show?. I have not seen the show live as yet, however on the TV showing they seemed not to be used at all.
I realised it when during the Nativity scene at the end, I remember the organ being a major part of “Hark the Angels Sing”. The great organ sound would reseneate through the hall during that piece, always giving me goose bumps.
hank, the live orchestra was there, you can see the conductor waving his batton in a few shots, plus the lights the orchestra members use to see the sheet music can be seen as ewell.
Looking forward to the pics. I haven’t been back to Hawaii in quite somwe time. The old Cinerama site is not far from the Varsity, did you perhaps get any photos of that theatre?
You might go into Waikiki and see what has taken the place of the Waikiki theatres 1-2-3 as well.
Oh my, as far as this subject goes, I am done here
Thanks Bob for those thoughts. From a technical stand point, it seems to me, that the pre-recording is an asset to the performance.
Gee Al, maybe you are a little hard on the girls. They are in about 75% of the show, kicking and dancing their little hearts out.
The singing is really secondary to the dancing, I forgive them the lip sync. I can not even imagine, with all the different numbers they have in the show, how they even remember it all.
I would certainly agree if i went to a concert
and the lead singer(s)lip synced, that would be shamefull.
The show was pretty good. and one of the highlights for me was watching that curtain go up and own so often. Rather magnificent to see.
You are in for a treat Luis, the theatre has been magnificently restored. Have fun at the Behar show, and please report back how the show went and what your feelings are about the theatre.
I remember going to the Rex, I think it closed about 1950. I do not recall if it was ever called the Park, although it probably was because I only recall three theatres in Stapelton, the Paramount, Liberty and Rex. As a teen, going to the movies often meant heading over to Stapelton.
The Rex played combinations of B movies, often westerns like
the Durango Kid. It was a small theatre maybe 400 seats with no balcony and was in the Brewery section on canal Street.
The Liberty was also a second run double feature house, bigger than the Rex with about 1000 seats, including a balcony. They had vaudeville there in the early days, so did the Paramount by the way.
The Star was a nightmare, it had about 450 seats no balcony and the
SIRT railroad train ran right behind the buliding, you could often hear the rumble of the train going by. The theatre also had a bit of a rodent problem, and was coined the RATS (Star spelled backwards)
The show was fun to watch. We saw about 45 mins of the 90 min show.
I love the rockettes and have for more years than I can count. But, it was overkill, surely there were other entertaining parts to the show, it seemed like a love letter to them. The show could have been called the Rockettes Christmas show.
One thing that bugged me was the insane decision to cut away three times during the climatic toy soldier’s fall. I would have liked to have seen, once again, the fall completely uninterrupted instead of distracting shots of the kids in the audience with their mouths and eyes wide open.
I wonder if the orchestra has an overture in the new show, which would have been wonderful to see, perhaps instead of so many Rockette segments. Does anyone know if the orchestra has a solo in the show? Also, that opening shots of Santa in he sled, is that the 3-D portion?
One had to marvel at the amazing set design, a truly magnificent part of the show.
Good point Warren, unlike today where the ads are placed by the studios, prior to the 6os the ads were placed mainly by the theare owners.(Loews,RKO,etc) I guess it all changed with the introduction of circuit runs like Blue Ribbon,Red Carrpet etc.
Warren, Thanks for that ad. The Paramount is where I got my start and will always have a special place in my heart. Seeing those ads take me back to a time when the theatre was alive and vibrant. Anytime you have ads, or info on this wonderful theatre, please post.
Thanks Warren.
Of course, those of you who remenber the great RCMH years, also remember that RCMH did not run theatrical trailers. They would instead have special short trailer snipes made up that gave the announcement of the next attraction, accomplied by the great organ.
I am sure that was the case from the 40s through the 70s, I wonder when that started and if they ever ran regular trailers.
Even the newsreels were custom made, taking the best of several
News of the Day (MGM), Movitone (Fox) and Paramount news reel clips to combine into Radio City news. This was preceded by a wonderful RCMH news snipe.
I wonder if Bob Endres has any of those greet old snipes in his RCMH memorabilia.
Garth, adult movies did have a very short run. It was in 1978 after UA had given up its lease. The soft core porn films were shown in 16mm from the balcony. The projector and some of the films were still in a store room in the booth last time I saw the place. As you stated the Advance article put an end to the showings, and in 1978 Steckman leased the theatre out as a dance club. The last movies shown here by UA were in 1977. I have not been back to investigate the new doors. I hate going there and seeing the theatre in its current condition. I still have nightmares from my last visit.
Jezz, and I still remember $1.25 at Radio City Music hall for a movie AND a stage show. The Paramount was $.90 cents!
God I’m old.
Bob when you wrote about the projector maintenance I wondered how much did you do at RCMH. What was your maintenance schedule like, or did RCMH have a service contract with an outside source
We all had some part in maintaining our booths, some more than others. Other than cleaning and lubricating the projectors, many of us did simple things like pad roller adjustments and replacing gate tension bands etc. But some of us did much more, including complete projector overhaul or sprocket and gear train replacements. I also liked having spare complete heat syncs for the rectifiers, that way if a diode went bad, rather than take the time to test and determine which diode was bad I could simply change the entire module and troubleshoot the bad diode later on the bench. I also learned that when a diode shorted chances are all of them may have been effected and it was wise to replace them all. Something I would not want to do while an audience waited.
I am sure many of us would be interested if you would please share with us the RCMH maintained procedures.
Warren, thsnks so much for that link, I enjoyed it very much.
Bob,I guess I came on a bit hard about Ben, Actually I knew a lot of guys like that, good projectionist, but not at all interested in what made a projector tick. Some of them were just intimidated by it all and left the repairs to the technical people. You have to respect a guy who started as a reel boy before talkies.
I loved what you said to him. I’ll have to add that to
“BC and AD” along with “You ain’t been booed ‘til you’ve been booed by 6,000 people!”