Embassy 1,2,3 Theatre
707 7th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10036
707 7th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10036
39 people
favorited this theater
Showing 501 - 525 of 1,094 comments
Just a couple of comments on “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” mentioned above. I remember seeing it when it opened in Chicago with a friend from college who was visiting. We had gone in to see the roadshow presentation of “Mad, Mad, World” which I had seen before. Unfortunately, this time there was a terrific hum on one 70mm machine which affected all 6 channels making for a very uncomfortable experience. Coming out we decided to go down the street to see “Unsinkable” which was also being shown in 70mm at the Palace in non-roadshow form. We were delighted to find the projection and sound perfect.
Later that year, I visited the MGM lot in Burbank, and mentioned to the Head Projectionist how much we had enjoyed “Unsinkable”. He said they had not planned to make any 70mm prints, only 35mm and mostly mono-optical when they decided to try a 70mm version at a preview screening. He said it was as if they were watching a completely different picture from the one they had been seeing, with a terrific audience response. While they didn’t release it as a roadshow, they did pull 70mm prints for major cities.
Interestingly enough, Radio City played only a 35mm 4 track print, largely due to Head Projectionist Ben Olevsky’s objection to installing 70mm at the Hall. “Unsinkable” was one of the few pictures in 70mm short enough to fit into the Hall’s stageshow/movie policy at the time, and Ben said he had been told there wouln’t be any more 70mm prints like it released, so it wasn’t worth the trouble to install the equipment. He won the battle, but eventually lost the war when Universal four-walled the house and insisted that Ross Hunter’s “Airport” be shown in 70mm.
(Later we did do three 70mm roadshow features: “Gone With The Wind”, “Dr. Zhivago” and “2001” along with a VERY short stage show.)
techman, “Gigi” opened it’s Roadshown engagement at the Royale Theatre and later moved-over to the Sutton Theatre.
I think they used one of those magic “eight balls”. They shake it and hope for the best. “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” also opened at the Music Hall and “Gigi” at the tiny Sutton theatre, go figure. In the case of “Gigi” they had a Gigi flag that hung above the marquee. It hung there SO LONG that after a couple of years it was in taters. I wonder how long “Gigi” would have played if it had opened as a roadshow in a Broadway theatre?
I think they had to have real confidence in a picture to release it as a two a day roadshow, as opposed to saturation booking. With saturation booking, by the time the word gets out that it’s a loser, its already made all the money it’s going to make.
an interesting question recently popped into my head. during the
hayday as i call it of the roadshow film(1955-1972)how did studios
decide whether or not to release a film on a roadshow engagement?
was it the cost of the film? if it wasn’t that than what was the
deciding factor? take for instance “The Music Man” from 1962 and
“The Great Race” from 1965. both films most have cost a pretty
penny to produce yet their exclusive first run New York City
engagements were both at Radio City Music Hall. i can’t believe
that all seven theaters(Criterion,,Loew’s State,RKO Palace,Demille,
Warner, Rivoli, Loew’s Capitol)used for roadshow films were booked.
“As a kind of sad tribute to the days there that Techman remembers, the five stage channel Altecs that were hung from the ceiling for (I believe) "The Concert For Bangledesh” to cover the balcony remained there until the end. No one wanted to go to the expense of getting them down.
posted by REndres on Jan 21, 2011 at 1:34pm"
Now you’re getting me depressed. I was there when the stagehands were hanging those speakers. They punched holes in te ceiling and hoisted them up with chains. It’s not just the DeMille that’s sad, it appears to be virtually EVERY THEATRE I ever worked in or installed.
as always i thank my fellow movie buffs for replying to my
questions. i am aware that during the heyday of the studio’s use of the roadshow policy other movie or even stage theaters in Manhattan
were used its just that the most used theaters or the biggies shall we call them were-the Criterion, Loew’s State,RKO Palace, Demille,
Warner, Rivoli,Loew’s Capitol. for instance other than THE BLUE
MAX’s roadshow run at the Sutton “A Man for All Seasons” and “The
Trojan Women” had roadshow runs at the Fine Arts and “The Lion in
Winter” had its roadshow run at the Lincoln Art Theater.
Walter Reade merges with Sterling;
View link
View link
The Sutton had the roadshow engagement of the Blue Max.
By the way, the Paris, Henry Miller (Sondheim), Broadhurst, Selwyn (American Airlines), Embassy 46th St, Times Square, Globe (Lunt-Fontanne), Winter Garden, Hollywood (Mark Hellinger), Royale (Jacobs), and Ambassador all ran roadshows at some point.
Radio City and the Roxy were too big to sustain a long run roadshow movie. The others were usually remodeled with less seats before a long run.
I believe I read above that this theater was gutted in the last few years? so it would not be returning. The Palace isn’t the only surviving Road Show theater, since Radio City and the Broadway
/theaters/2250/
I’m not sure if there are others…
Can we assume that the DeMille benefitted from the demoliton of the Roxy? Any reason why the Roxy to my knowledge, was never a roadshow house?
as i stated in my last post when it closed as a movie theater
the Embassy ½/3 was not in the best shape. aside from the Palace
which first opened as a vaudeville house all the other great
movie houses used for roadshow films are gone.to which my question-
assuming the money was found of course is it at least possible that
the theater could be in fact renovated back to the state it was in
when the Demille was one of the premiere roadshow houses in the
Times Square area?
Actually, it never ran porn although that was the intention when it was triplexed. A friend of mine (who probably knew techman) did the triplex booth work, and I was in the house while the contractor was there. They had added dressing rooms off to the side of the stage and put a runway for strippers down the center of the orchestra from the stage. Before it opened, Mayor Koch said “no more porno houses in Time Squaare”, and they abandoned the plan, and tried to run it as a normal triplex. They even installed a 16mm projector in addition to Vic 10 in one of the balcony houses.
Again, it’s AlAlvarez' area of expertise, but I suspect that they didn’t have the booking clout to handle non-porn product, and Peter did. Thus he picked the house up. As you mentioned, the maintenance was never great during those days. He did run a couple of 70mm pictures in the downstairs house, but since the light path from the booth was blocked by the two smaller theatres on either side in the balcony, he could never run a really wide picture. (Remember, the triplexing was done for porn which was pretty much 1.33:1 aspect ratio, so they never planned to run a picture as wide as the 70mm image in the pre-triplexing days downstairs. 1.85 aspect ratio material was as wide as they could go. I remember standing on the stage when the theatre was undergoing triplexing and looking up at the center port in the booth and then walking stage left until it was blocked by the wall of the theatre on one side, and then stage right until I could no longer see the port because it was blocked by the other house wall and determining that that was as wide an image as could be projected. Too bad — shortening the length of the two upstairs theatres a bit would have allowed a full proscenium width 70mm or Scope picture to continue to be presented.
As a kind of sad tribute to the days there that Techman remembers, the five stage channel Altecs that were hung from the ceiling for (I believe) “The Concert For Bangledesh” to cover the balcony remained there until the end. No one wanted to go to the expense of getting them down.
thanks as always for the info. now i am somewhat confused by the
reply. the “Demille” showed porn or had strip shows and once it
was triplexed around 1990? i never remember it showing porn either.
so the period of time you are refering to must have been a really
ahort period of time.
Peter Elson (sp?) was the last operator as far as I know. He ran it during the time I worked there on a regular relief basis, and after I left I did get an emergency call to cover the booth near the end and Peter still had the house. Al Alvarez probably knows the full story, but as I heard it Mayor Koch vetoed any more porn houses in the area at the time. Thus the people who triplexed the theatre removed the runway for the strippers that they had installed in the downstairs house and ran the theatre as the Mark for a while until Peter took over. Peter changed the name to the Embassy 2-3-4 since he had a habit of naming all of his theatres “Embassy”. Embassy “1” was the theatre on 7th Avenue which now a New York visitor’s center. I worked relief in most of his theatres with the exception of the Guild and Embassy 72nd St.
He had a way of picking up odd venues. He “inherited” the Mark after the plans to turn the DeMille into a porno house fell through, and he inherited the World (possibly the most famous porno house in the country from its “Deep Throat” days) after Rockefeller Center management became embarrassed about owning the property. Since Peter also operated the Guild next to the Music Hall they thought he would be a good operator and the World went from porn to Disney before it closed. (Again, AlAlvarez probably has some nifty Peter stories to tell.)
i thank everyone for replying to my questions. another one about
the theater itself. who was running the Embassy1/2/3 when it
closed? when the Loews’s Capitol, Loew’s State, Rivoli,Warner
were torn down and before the Criterion was gutted for Toys R' Us
i remember them being in half way decent shape. yet the Embassy
½/3 was in very uneven condition before it closed. this was
especially true of the men’s room on the orchestra and balcony level.
I’m not aware of ANY roadshaows at the DeMille before Spartacus. Neither Loews or RKO did any roadshows when it was called the Mayfair.
Al, I disagree that the Mayfair was “bigger than most roadshow houses…”. Loews State, Rivoli, Capitol, Warner (Strand), and Criterion Theatre’s, were all bigger or as big as the DeMille. If not for the great balcony, there wouldn’t have been much of a theatre at all. The Orchestra was nothing to write home about. The glass “party room” (as Walter Reade referred to it), took up a BIG chunk of the Orchestra. The bslcony alone would have made a GREAT UMAX Theatre.
As for the best roadshow theatre, I liked the Rivoli the best. Tearing it down was a crime. It just goes to show that the NYC Landmarks Commission is worthless.
Technically, roadshows of films (limited screenings per day with reserved seats and advanced prices) go as far back as “Birth of a Nation” and “Gone With The Wind” among others which William and Tinseltoes can probably list in great detail. While “Oklahoma” and “Around The World In 80 Days” were the first 70mm Todd-AO features released that used the roadshow policy, don’t forget to include the 3 strip Cinerama presentations which preceded 70mm releases and were all presented with just one or two screenings a day. While it’s possible that the Mayfair/Demille had played 35mm films on a roadshow basis, the Vic 10’s were installed for the run of “Spartacus” making it the first 70mm roadshow there
Roadshows, as two a day advanced sales showings, date back to the silent era with “The Birth of a Nation” being an early hit sold this way. “Oklahoma!” was not the first by any definition.
The Mayfair was bigger than most roadshow houses and therefore not first choice. “Spartacus” was the first.
i thank William for his info as to what films played the
Demille on a roadshow basis during the 1955-Dec. 1972 period.
now i might be wrong but i seem to have the idea in my head
that the roadshow film policy as i understand it started with
“Oklahoma” which debuted in Todd-AO at the Rivoli Theater in 1955.
my point being as i understand the history of the policy no film
played a roadshow engagement the Mayfair/Demille before the
opening “Spartacus” in 1960?
“…Thanks also for confirming the story about being able to take an elevator up to the electrical closet. By the time I worked there the electrical panel had been removed and the port used by the stagehand who operated it had become the port for the third machine. The room behind it (where I assume the opening from the electrical closet was) had been pretty much cleaned out.
posted by REndres on Jan 19, 2011 at 8:36am”
Hi Bob, we met some years ago at an SMPTE meeting. Ben Olevsky worked with Bill Nafash at the Music Hall. When Bill passed away in 1972, I bought his shop and equipment in Brooklyn. His files had information on virtually every theatre in Manhattan. When I moved to Florida in 1989, I donated most of it to the Museum of the Moving Image.
The electrical closet wasn’t in the booth. After you came off the elevator in the office building, you needed a key to the door to get into the 5th floor electrical room. You then had to go through all the electrical equipment to the door on the other side, which came out at the top of the balcony. It couldn’t be removed since it held ALL the electrical equipment for the big rap around sign on 7th ave, as well as the marquee. It had mechanical sequencers for all the chaser lights. But you STILL had to walk up the last flight of stairs from the top of the balcony up to the booth. Without that elevator none of my partners would have made it to the booth alive.-LOL
“Why would there have been a 30fps print of Spartacus? The film was made in Technirama, which used standard 24fps.
posted by PeterApruzzese on Jan 19, 2011 at 9:32am”
I can’t answer that since I wasn’t working there when Spartacus ran. One of my partners (Jack Linn)who worked the premiere of Spartacus told it to me and it was confirmed by another partner (Louis Romeo) who worked with Linn at the opening. They say the Vic X’s looked like they were going to take off when running 30fps, which is why I like the Norelco AA2, since its whole design was based on 30fps Todd AO.
Who knows what Technicolor did back then. Technirama used a 1.5 anamorphic squeeze on the 8 perf horizontal pulldown. However, the 70mm prints that they called Super Technirama 70 were still made from a 35mm negative blowup. Maybe they used a reverse 3:2 pulldown to print 30fps.
Why would there have been a 30fps print of Spartacus? The film was made in Technirama, which used standard 24fps.
Techman: Thanks for the clarification. By the time I worked there the house had been tripled so a lot of the information about the past came from the projectionists I worked with who had worked there previously.
The entrance may have always been on 7th Avenue, but it would be interesting to know more about Ben Olevsky’s statement that the auditorium had been reversed (possibly from the Columbia days). The contractor for the triplexing had been confused by the plans of the building filed with the city until I mentioned the reversal to him. He said that made the original drawings he had obtained make sense.
The Potts platters were probably the first in Manhattan. I know Bob Potts came out for the installation and I gave him a tour of the Music Hall. The story (confirmed by Bob himself) was that when the Virginia Theatre in Champaign threw the projectionists out and put in xenon with a Norelco platter (one of the first in the country), Bob and his brother came to the theatre to buy the carbon arc motor/generator set which they wanted to use for welding. When the saw the Norelco platter they asked about it and were told it was made overseas and none were made in the U.S. They said they could make one and did (presumeably the one that eventually became the Christie). Bob after splitting with his brother then went through his “air-platter” phase (a platter driven by a vacuum cleaner), and then the the platters installed at the Embassy.
At least two of the Vic-10’s were still in use the last time I was in the booth shortly before the theatre closed. They had a pretty good run from “Spartacus” to the end.
Thanks also for confirming the story about being able to take an elevator up to the electrical closet. By the time I worked there the electrical panel had been removed and the port used by the stagehand who operated it had become the port for the third machine. The room behind it (where I assume the opening from the electrical closet was) had been pretty much cleaned out.