OK that explains it. I’ve mentioned before that I was walking with my father in front of the Criterion-maybe it was March 17 ‘70 when we went to see the parade and Airport at Radio City- and the Criterion had a huge sign out front saying the performance was sold out. I think that’s why I was surprised it was playing in the suburbs that summer. I thought it would have a long roadshow run.
But then Kubrick predicted a two year run on Broadway for 2001.
Fiddler was an anomaly in that roadshow musicals and epics were pretty much dead at that point. In ‘69 and '70 there weren’t any successful roadshow films that opened. Patton was a successful film but it didn’t seem to run very long at the Criterion on roadshow.
By the summer of '70 it was playing in the suburbs.
And a number of films that were planned to be roadshow were cancelled or if completed changed their marketing strategy and opened continuous run. So by ‘71 Fiddler was a one off and as I said started to play reserved performances in a number of markets.
And even though it had reserved seats it was playing from the beginning for all intensive purposes continuous performances on Saturday and Sunday with extra matinees during the week as opposed to Funny Girl and Oliver’s more traditional schedule.
How many weeks did LaMancha play at the Rivoli? The reviews were so dire I didn’t even bother going. I believe tickets could be bought up until Memorial Day of ‘73 by mail and the film didn’t even make it to Easter.
Also the prime roadshow period I would say ended with Oliver and Funny Girl opening in ‘68 and running reserved seat through '69. After Dolly ended its engagement in early summer of '70 at the Rivoli NY had its first summer without a reserved seat movie since the mid 50s. Even Fiddler by the summer of '72 was playing reserved performances rather than seats in a number of markets.
The last Times Square roadshow I went to was N&A in early ‘72 at the Criterion at a Saturday mat and it was very empty. Sadly for some reason while Loew’s State and the Astor Plaza and even the National would get major first run Hollywood product the Criterion ended up with what I would consider exploitation product. Why this happened I have no idea but it was a very fast fall from the glory days of Funny Girl.
Man of LaMancha was the final nail in the coffin for Hollywood roadshow movies and theaters.
It wasn’t even an exclusive NY engagement which would formerly at least last until the early summer before spreading out to suburban roadshow theaters.
The Century in Paramus was an abysmal theater. A beautiful single screen cut right down the middle so much of the theater was looking at a small screen at an angle.
Also if the Rivoli hadn’t booked this I bet 20th Century Fox would have gotten it for the re-release of The Sound of Music during Easter of ‘73. La Mancha ended well before that and SOM ended up in the dismal National.
When I was in London this was playing King Kong(Jan ‘77 I believe). I had no interest in seeing the film so I didn’t go in. How I regret it! What a façade it had and I love the Yellow Submarine.
I remember reading about someone who saw the film at Radio City. I havn’t seen it but there is a point where Garson says something like ‘Bad girls don’t have babies!’ and the audience in the Hall cheered. It took me a while before I got it. That certainly would not fly today.
And I’m sure tickets at the box office through the Christmas holiday were mostly side seats or too close to the screen.
In William Goldman’s book The Season about the Broadway season of ‘67 to '68 he mentions a theater party lady deciding to get tickets for her groups to the film at the Criterion well before the world premiere because of the very poor theater offerings. There’s no possibility of Streisand canceling and her having a hundred angry theatergoers on her hands.
My Fair Lady anniversary blu ray is stunning. Best I’ve seen it since ‘78 at the Warner. Harris’s best work. My only caveat is with the sound. But nothing is going to replace the 6 track analog soundtrack sound of a great roadshow house. The movie has its detractors as being too stately and it could do with more reaction close ups but wow how I regret commercial filmmaking went so horribly off the rails with the American new wave of the late 60s early 70s. And then with the success of Spielberg and Lucas it became hopeless.
Films like Matilda as posted by NYer were intentionally programmed along with the staggeringly bad stage shows. The people in charge wanted to make sure business was lousy so they could close the place. Absolutely no effort was any longer being made to make the Music Hall worth going to. Even the tourists were avoiding it like the plague.
Notice Leonidoff retired just when the ballet company was disbanded. Because this meant the Music Hall would no longer be able to stage any more of its spectacles and the stage would be sparsely populated. Embarrassing everybody on stage and in the audience.
And the Paramount and the Roxy screens had to be flown when there were stage shows so I’m sure that kept the stage hands busy. Interesting that the Music Hall kept it flat. I guess the extra 6 ft was too unwieldy or they were worried about sightlines.
The Paramount Vistavision must have been really impressive.
MarkD you say on the Capitol page the Roxy CinemaScope screen was 68ft wide. Did this have any curvature as one sees in the ads? This also had to be inside the proscenium if it was to be ‘flown’ and therefore did not have the immersive effect the ads would like you to believe?
I haven’t read the intro in a while. Thank you. Was that NY’s widest screen? And I thought the Warner Cinerama was impressive at about 81 feet. The Rivoli was small in comparison. Anybody know the sizes of the 70MM screens of the DeMille, Loew’s State before twinning and Criterion? And what about the size of the screen for Windjammer at the Roxy?
Still would like to know how more modest 35MM films played at the Capitol.
From photos that screen looks humongous. I’d like to know the measurements. I also wonder how grainy Zhivago was as a blow up on that screen. Anybody see it there?
For those of you who were going to the Capitol in the ‘60s being that the Capitol was converted to 3 strip Cinerama and then was pretty much a single 70MM/Cinerama house I was wondering when they presented a film like Sergeants 3 or In the Heat of the Night was the Cinerama screen simply using black borders made smaller according to whether it was in Panavision or 1:85.1 ratio? Also did they install a new screen screen change when they went from 3 strip to single lens Cinerama? Thank you.
Maybe I need to resee Ice Station Zebra. I saw it as a boy when it came to the suburbs though remember seeing the billboard above the Strand/Warner at Christmas of ‘68. I remember it looking very fake on cheesy indoor sets that was supposed to be outdoors like some sort of 50s science fiction film. Maybe it was a better experience at the Strand. Who knows maybe Camelot was better there as well and I remember that being pretty awful. I didn’t even bother to see it at the '78 70mm festival. But My Fair Lady, South Pacific and Paint Your Wagon(yes really, though I wish it had been filmed in 70mm) were spectacular.
What tipped me off is large The Bible billboard between 45th and 46th Street. This was the early one announcing production of the film. There was a second one for when the film was completed and would open at Loew’s State in'66 using the photos that you see on the cover of the LP(I saw this one as a boy.)
Then if you look closely at the Warner marquee IAMMMMW is playing its Cinerama roadshow engagement which had opened in ‘63. And you see a large sign part of which says HAM. This could be an advertisement for the Burton Hamlet(not that it needed it) which played on Broadway in '64.
Hard though to see what was playing at the Trans Lux.
Sorry but I love the minutiae of the old Times Square.
I should have said the recently posted circa ‘69 photo. This was the beginning of the steep decline of Times Square. Although for those who were already visiting it they might say it began earlier. Unfortunately the great wraparound DeMille billboard was to feature only one more movie and that was a softcore porn film which I believe was called Ginger. I’m basing this all on memory. No more Hawaii or Spartacus spectaculars. Not even a Shoes of the Fisherman or Battle of Britain.
Circa ‘69 is in early 70s. You can see Anne Baxter is in Applause and I believe she replaced Bacall in '71. I saw Bacall do it in June of '71 and that same summer I saw Cliff Gorman in Lenny the billboard of which you can also see in that photo.
Looks like a programmer that would open at the Rialto or on 42nd Street. Not even at a major Broadway house let alone the Music Hall.
OK that explains it. I’ve mentioned before that I was walking with my father in front of the Criterion-maybe it was March 17 ‘70 when we went to see the parade and Airport at Radio City- and the Criterion had a huge sign out front saying the performance was sold out. I think that’s why I was surprised it was playing in the suburbs that summer. I thought it would have a long roadshow run.
But then Kubrick predicted a two year run on Broadway for 2001.
Fiddler was an anomaly in that roadshow musicals and epics were pretty much dead at that point. In ‘69 and '70 there weren’t any successful roadshow films that opened. Patton was a successful film but it didn’t seem to run very long at the Criterion on roadshow. By the summer of '70 it was playing in the suburbs.
And a number of films that were planned to be roadshow were cancelled or if completed changed their marketing strategy and opened continuous run. So by ‘71 Fiddler was a one off and as I said started to play reserved performances in a number of markets. And even though it had reserved seats it was playing from the beginning for all intensive purposes continuous performances on Saturday and Sunday with extra matinees during the week as opposed to Funny Girl and Oliver’s more traditional schedule.
How many weeks did LaMancha play at the Rivoli? The reviews were so dire I didn’t even bother going. I believe tickets could be bought up until Memorial Day of ‘73 by mail and the film didn’t even make it to Easter.
Also the prime roadshow period I would say ended with Oliver and Funny Girl opening in ‘68 and running reserved seat through '69. After Dolly ended its engagement in early summer of '70 at the Rivoli NY had its first summer without a reserved seat movie since the mid 50s. Even Fiddler by the summer of '72 was playing reserved performances rather than seats in a number of markets.
The last Times Square roadshow I went to was N&A in early ‘72 at the Criterion at a Saturday mat and it was very empty. Sadly for some reason while Loew’s State and the Astor Plaza and even the National would get major first run Hollywood product the Criterion ended up with what I would consider exploitation product. Why this happened I have no idea but it was a very fast fall from the glory days of Funny Girl.
Man of LaMancha was the final nail in the coffin for Hollywood roadshow movies and theaters. It wasn’t even an exclusive NY engagement which would formerly at least last until the early summer before spreading out to suburban roadshow theaters.
The Century in Paramus was an abysmal theater. A beautiful single screen cut right down the middle so much of the theater was looking at a small screen at an angle.
Also if the Rivoli hadn’t booked this I bet 20th Century Fox would have gotten it for the re-release of The Sound of Music during Easter of ‘73. La Mancha ended well before that and SOM ended up in the dismal National.
Did this play for 3 weeks? Even holdovers of 2 weeks at this time were rare.
What were people doing cutting school and work to fill up those seats during weekdays? Seems impossible to believe today.
When I was in London this was playing King Kong(Jan ‘77 I believe). I had no interest in seeing the film so I didn’t go in. How I regret it! What a façade it had and I love the Yellow Submarine.
I remember reading about someone who saw the film at Radio City. I havn’t seen it but there is a point where Garson says something like ‘Bad girls don’t have babies!’ and the audience in the Hall cheered. It took me a while before I got it. That certainly would not fly today.
And I’m sure tickets at the box office through the Christmas holiday were mostly side seats or too close to the screen.
In William Goldman’s book The Season about the Broadway season of ‘67 to '68 he mentions a theater party lady deciding to get tickets for her groups to the film at the Criterion well before the world premiere because of the very poor theater offerings. There’s no possibility of Streisand canceling and her having a hundred angry theatergoers on her hands.
My Fair Lady anniversary blu ray is stunning. Best I’ve seen it since ‘78 at the Warner. Harris’s best work. My only caveat is with the sound. But nothing is going to replace the 6 track analog soundtrack sound of a great roadshow house. The movie has its detractors as being too stately and it could do with more reaction close ups but wow how I regret commercial filmmaking went so horribly off the rails with the American new wave of the late 60s early 70s. And then with the success of Spielberg and Lucas it became hopeless.
This is a movie.
Lots of mistakes in that book so don’t take it as any kind of bible.
Films like Matilda as posted by NYer were intentionally programmed along with the staggeringly bad stage shows. The people in charge wanted to make sure business was lousy so they could close the place. Absolutely no effort was any longer being made to make the Music Hall worth going to. Even the tourists were avoiding it like the plague.
Notice Leonidoff retired just when the ballet company was disbanded. Because this meant the Music Hall would no longer be able to stage any more of its spectacles and the stage would be sparsely populated. Embarrassing everybody on stage and in the audience.
And the Paramount and the Roxy screens had to be flown when there were stage shows so I’m sure that kept the stage hands busy. Interesting that the Music Hall kept it flat. I guess the extra 6 ft was too unwieldy or they were worried about sightlines.
The Paramount Vistavision must have been really impressive.
And the Music Hall would have only 2 more B&W films for Christmas.
MarkD you say on the Capitol page the Roxy CinemaScope screen was 68ft wide. Did this have any curvature as one sees in the ads? This also had to be inside the proscenium if it was to be ‘flown’ and therefore did not have the immersive effect the ads would like you to believe?
I haven’t read the intro in a while. Thank you. Was that NY’s widest screen? And I thought the Warner Cinerama was impressive at about 81 feet. The Rivoli was small in comparison. Anybody know the sizes of the 70MM screens of the DeMille, Loew’s State before twinning and Criterion? And what about the size of the screen for Windjammer at the Roxy?
Still would like to know how more modest 35MM films played at the Capitol.
From photos that screen looks humongous. I’d like to know the measurements. I also wonder how grainy Zhivago was as a blow up on that screen. Anybody see it there?
For those of you who were going to the Capitol in the ‘60s being that the Capitol was converted to 3 strip Cinerama and then was pretty much a single 70MM/Cinerama house I was wondering when they presented a film like Sergeants 3 or In the Heat of the Night was the Cinerama screen simply using black borders made smaller according to whether it was in Panavision or 1:85.1 ratio? Also did they install a new screen screen change when they went from 3 strip to single lens Cinerama? Thank you.
Hey you got your chance. I’m the one who needs that time machine!
And by the way no 60th Anniversary showings. Sad. 2001 gets all the love.
Just looked at Bill Huebig’s article from ‘13.
Jane Fonda did Moon is Blue in Fort Lee NJ?!
Maybe I need to resee Ice Station Zebra. I saw it as a boy when it came to the suburbs though remember seeing the billboard above the Strand/Warner at Christmas of ‘68. I remember it looking very fake on cheesy indoor sets that was supposed to be outdoors like some sort of 50s science fiction film. Maybe it was a better experience at the Strand. Who knows maybe Camelot was better there as well and I remember that being pretty awful. I didn’t even bother to see it at the '78 70mm festival. But My Fair Lady, South Pacific and Paint Your Wagon(yes really, though I wish it had been filmed in 70mm) were spectacular.
New photo I would say is not ‘66 but '64.
What tipped me off is large The Bible billboard between 45th and 46th Street. This was the early one announcing production of the film. There was a second one for when the film was completed and would open at Loew’s State in'66 using the photos that you see on the cover of the LP(I saw this one as a boy.)
Then if you look closely at the Warner marquee IAMMMMW is playing its Cinerama roadshow engagement which had opened in ‘63. And you see a large sign part of which says HAM. This could be an advertisement for the Burton Hamlet(not that it needed it) which played on Broadway in '64.
Hard though to see what was playing at the Trans Lux.
Sorry but I love the minutiae of the old Times Square.
I should have said the recently posted circa ‘69 photo. This was the beginning of the steep decline of Times Square. Although for those who were already visiting it they might say it began earlier. Unfortunately the great wraparound DeMille billboard was to feature only one more movie and that was a softcore porn film which I believe was called Ginger. I’m basing this all on memory. No more Hawaii or Spartacus spectaculars. Not even a Shoes of the Fisherman or Battle of Britain.
Circa ‘69 is in early 70s. You can see Anne Baxter is in Applause and I believe she replaced Bacall in '71. I saw Bacall do it in June of '71 and that same summer I saw Cliff Gorman in Lenny the billboard of which you can also see in that photo.