The Paris almost certainly is the single-screen art house I’ve visited most often in NYC, partly because it was such a classy high-grossing theater and therefore had access to the choicest bookings.
I had just returned from Vietnam to be discharged from the Army at Fort Dix and headed straight for nine days in NYC in August 1967 for a movie and Broadway binge (I was a whole year behind on movies and had seen only a couple of Broadway shows previously, so I was a kid in a candy store) before embarking on the rest of my life.
The first movie I saw after dropping off my duffle bag in a cheap hotel was “A Man and a Woman,” which I was aware was in its 52nd week at the Paris. Since then I’ve seen several dozen fine movies there including “Howards End,” “Remains of the Day,” “The Browning Version” and “Ladies in Lavender.”
One couldn’t help but notice over the years that the patrons were invariably older and more likely to dress up a little to go to the movies.
The only mildly negative experience I ever had at the Paris was when I attended “Vincent and Theo” and noticed that the balcony was open. (Is it always open?) Anyway, I decided to make that moviegoing experience a bit different by watching Altman’s film from the balcony. To my dismay, I could hardly make out the dialogue at all.
No one else here has indicated having a hearing problem in the Paris' balcony, so the acoustical problem that afternoon may have been a fluke, occurring only in a specific area of the balcony. That can happen, for example, if few orchestra seats are occupied and the sound lines somehow are caught off kilter.
The longtime manager of a bygone Pittsburgh legitimate theater/playhouse called the Nixon once explained there were a couple of acoustical dead spots in the front mezz of his theater. Later I found that was true in other theaters, especially in their balconies.
All that woodwork gave the Plaza a warm, especially distinctive feeling even among Manhattan’s nicest art houses. I remember walking past the Plaza in 1996, when “Grumpier Old Men” was still on the marquee, and noting the theater has closed, and thinking, “Omigod, not the Plaza, too!” And, folks, we keep losing the most cherished moviehouses one by one. And why was such a tony theater playing wide-release commercial films in its final year or so? Is it possible no art-film distributor would book its pictures into such a classy house on an exclusive basis?
Having had several rewarding visits to the Ziegfeld in its early years, including “Sleuth,” I was often dismayed when I vitied NYC in later years to find that it was temporarily closed (“for repairs” or otherwise). Until I read here the long lists of Ziegfeld bookings, decade by decade, and noted the many times the theater was closed for weeks at a stretch – and invariably during my twice-annual visits in early spring and late fall, I had no idea why my timing always seemed to be unlucky. It wasn’t just unlucky timing. I was always facing the probability that the theater would be closed when I happened to be in town. I did luck into a screening of one of the later “Star Wars” films once.
So, it’s like most multiplexes in that respect, Mike. I understand now. When multiplexes were new to Pittsburgh in the 1970s, movies would be advertised as to the specific auditorium they were in (Showcase East #3, etc.). Almost from opening day, though, they started renumbering the auditoriums from day to day so that if you were to see “Silent Movie,” advertised as being in #4, it would be in an auditorium labeled #4 when you arrived, but #4 moved up and down the corridor from largest to smallest. Not too long after, they stopped specifying the numbers altogether. FF may not re-label its auditoriums from day to day – or ever, but management may move the movies around from day to day. I can honestly say that in maybe 20 visits to the current FF, the movies were always where I expected them to be (I knew the three auditoiums well), but that may have been a matter of chance. I always regretted I could not make time to see the revivals. I was in NYC to review theater and all the new film releases I could squeeze in. Just didn’t have the time to catch the classics there.
Thanks for the clarification, YankeeMike. I’m an out-of-towner who subscribes ($25, I think, every so often) to the slick schedules for FF 1 and FF 2 and read every word on the FF 2 schedules, which I are more interesting to me because the movies are usually old favorites. I’m almost positive I’ve noticed that the more popular FF 1 movies sometimes move over to FF 3 for extended engagements, but I’ll concede it happens regularly for FF 2 revivals to move over (“Last Year at Marienbad,” “Contempt,” etc.). Did the recent UA festival really play in full – concurrently – on FF 3 as well as FF 2, or are you referring to the fact that four or five of the more successful UAtitles moved over to FF 3 as single features afterward (“Annie Hall,” “Last Tango in Paris,” “Thieves Like Us,” etc.)?
As far as I know, the main means of finding out what’s at FF 3 is to check the log calendar on FF’s web site. I can’t remember ever seeing, or receiving in the postal mail, a printed version of the FF 3 schedule.
Having just completed a first reading of the entire Film Forum blog, I think we’ve reached a concensus or two:
1. We’re all in agreement that the programming surpasses the modest, artless, somewhat uncomfortable auditoriums with their smallish screens.
2. Everyone is grateful that Film Forum 2 survives as a revival house 25 years after home video killed off nearly every rep house in the country.
3. It’s interesting that Film Forum devotes two of its screens (the largest and smallest, I believe, if they’re numbered in sequence of capacity), to obscure new releases from around the world, including a lot of movies that otherwise would have no arthouse/specialty house booking at the tonier theaters (Sunshine, Lincoln Plaza). And yet …
4) Despite the fact Film Forum 1 plays exclusively new arthouse releases and FF 3 tends to pick up moveovers from FF 1 (though sometimes from FF 2), at least 90 percent of the comments on this blog are about reissues/classics and festivals of such.
5) It may not satisfy the nonprofit status of Film Forum to alter its programming balance, but couldn’t there be even greater concentration on oldies than on new pictures? In other words, why not have the Sidney Lumet festival running in FF 2 while the United Artists Festival is in FF 3 and give many of the pictures an extra day or two? We’ll all probably go to our graves wishing Frank Rowley still had a rep house to program.
Thanks, John and Warren. That all adds up for me. As a nonsmoker, I would never have made my way up a full flight of stairs to the balcony to sit among smokers. But a few steps up to enjoy stadium seating back then – definitely.
I was only at the Elgin three or four times, always for revivals in the pre-video era. But I remember it being one of the NYC theaters where I was cold to the bone during at least winter visit. I have to assume it was run on the cheap in those final years.
An Elgin memory: Seeing “The Lady From Shanghai,” for the first time, in the 1970s. It was on a double bill of revivals, I think with “Gilda.”
Was there a balcony? I seem to recall being upstairs.
In any event, I was engrossed in the movie. Suddenly a cat leaped up on the seat beside me, startling the wits out of me. You can imagine what I thought it was at first. But then, that’s almost certainly why a cat was in there roaming freely.
Had an identical experience watching “Fade to Black” some time later in one of the steeply raked upstairs auditoriums at the Mayfair/DeMille, which by then was called the Embassy 2,3,4. – Ed Blank
Back when we had so many one-screen theaters, we had no way of knowing that eventually they’d be all but extinct and that we’d never get in them again. St. Marks Cinema may not have been special, but like all theaters a few years ago, it was one of a kind. Each had a feel all its own. – Ed Blank
Saw “The Goodbye Girl” here in December 1977.
I can’t think of any other theater that one enters from the top of the balcony – a true balcony, that is. – Ed Blank
One final, memorable Palace experience:
I was scheduled to attend a Wednesday matinee of “Woman of the Year” for review purposes and to interview Lauren Bacall’s co-star, the very affable Harry Guardino, immediately after the matinee. This would be time taken out of his dinner break before the evening performance.
After the matinee, I made my way to the stage door, but the press agent intercepted me with the news that Rock Hudson (Bacall’s co-star in “Written on the Wind”) and film producer Ross Hunter had attended that matinee, too, and had come backstage to pay courtesy calls on Bacall (first) and then Guardino.
I cooled my heels backstage, dressed in a suit and tie and holding my pocket-size tape recorder, waiting for the “all clear” sign.
I had hoped to see Hudson and Hunter leaving, but from the area backstage where I was sequestered, I did not.
Eventually the press agent reappeared and told me to take the backstage phone-booth-size elevator up to Guardino’s dressing room, which was on the third or fourth floor.
I hadn’t really minded the delay. The news about Hudson and Hunter being there was a little extra column fodder for me.
So I entered to the mini-elevator and pressed the appropriate button, and at the last minute a woman appeared unexpectedly, entered the elevator with me and, without a word, pressed another button.
There we were, chest to chest, and in a flash I realized it was Bacall. I spontaneously and cheerfully said, “Oh, hi.” She did not make eye contact, and she did not respond. Hey – her privilege. But how much effort does it take? Guardino, on the other hand, apologized for the delay and could not have been friendlier.
Both before and later, I heard Miss Bacall could be, well, unapproachable.
Sixteen years later, almost to the day, when she was a shoo-in to win the supporting actress Oscar for “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” and I don’t think there was an Oscar forecast anywhere that didn’t pick her, she lost the Oscar to an astonished Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”).
I’ve always wondered if, over the years, enough non-celebrity members of the Motion Picture Academy had had cool close encounters with the actress and if experiences mirroring my awkward elevator ride in the Palace had possibly – just possibly – caught up to her and canceled out a sure Oscar win.
But that Palace memory trumps the many more pleasant ones. – Ed Blank
I’ve covered many Broadway shows at the Palace since it went legit and once had a cordial dressing-room interview with George Hearn during the run of “La Cage aux Folles.”
Was there for a final preview of “Break a Leg,” which promptly folded opening night. I had taken an elderly friend named Tom Bate to the Saturday matinee of the comedy starring Julie Harris and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly.
After the show, Mr. Bate, who was 80-something, asked if I’d mind waiting while he made a quick trip downstairs to the men’s room. After an inordinately long wait, during which the theater had finished emptying and the staff was closing the theater until the evening performance, someone came up to the lobby and asked if I was Mr. Blank.
Mr. Bate, it turns out, has been pistol-whipped by someone who was hiding in one of the stalls after the performance. My friend bled profusely. While Mr. Bate and I waiting for an ambulance to take him to a nearby hospital, director Reilly stopped for a few minutes, and Julie Harris stayed with us until the ambulance arrived. Both were so kind to en elderly man who, though a member of the actors' union, they did not know. – Ed Blank
The first movie and possibly the only movie I saw at the Palace was “Bedtime Story,” with Marlon Brando, Shirley Jones and David Niven, in late July 1964. I still think it’s a funnier movie than it was given credit for being. – Ed Blank
From the time Angelika opened in 1989, I attended many times on twice-annual trips to New York. Like Lincoln Plaza and other art houses, it was a place to see foreign and independent movies before they reached my hometown of Pittsburgh PA.
That said, I never enjoyed my trips Downtown to the Angelika because those six subterranean dungeons were dreary and uncomfortable. Once while in the nicest one, beneath the lobby, I found the ceiling was leaking into buckets.
After an experience in the mid to late 1990s, though, I resolved never to return and never did:
I had arrived late in the morning and purchased two tickets immediately – one for the first show in one auditorium and the other for the second performance in a different auditorium.
The food in the lobby had become so pricey I resolved to make do with the popcorn downstairs. I took the long escalator ride down and became the first customer of the morning at the popcorn stand.
While I waited for a bucket from the morning’s first batch, the attendant carried a large bucket of unpopped kernels toward the popcorn machine to pour the kernels into the top.
Just at that moment something knocked him in the feet, and the bucket of unpopped kernels was launched at least a foot into the air. The attendant looked down immediately, even as the kernels were ascending, and gasped, “What a big rat!”
I was stunned, as if someone had punched me, and I involuntarily took a step or two backwards from the concession stand. All of a sudden a rat the size of a tomcat darted out from behind the concession satand and made two sharp left turns. The attendant, who now had a ton of kernels to sweep up, and I looked at each other as if to say, “Did you see what I just saw?”
I got right back on the escalator, went to the ticket taker at the top and said I wanted my money back for both movies.
He phoned the manager’s offioce and said, “Some guy out here wants his money back for two movies” and, after pausing to listen to the manager, said to me, “Why?”
“Because there’s a big rat running around the popcorn stand downstairs,” I said.
The ticket taker said into the phone, “He said we have rats.” Without another word, he hung up the phone and nodded at me to go out to the box office. The young lady in the box office immediately answered her phone (presumably a call from the manager) and issued me my refunds without delay.
So I did get my money back, but I never returned.
When I told a New York friend about the experience, she responded, “And that’s why I won’t go to the Quad, either.” – Ed Blank
I’m sure you’re right, Ken, but I hadn’t considered that. The folks waiting to board planes and the folks waiting to pick up passengers from arriving planes are now divided in half, which in turn would splinter in two any potential audience for a commercially run moviehouse.
The theater was built in an airport that opened in the early 1950s when families could still drive to the airport to watch planes land and take off and maybe take in a movie as part of the experience of being in a then-ultra-modern facility. This building even housed one of the Pittsburgh area’s (temporarily)leading nightclubs, the Horizon Room. – Ed Blank
From the time this theater opened Nov. 20, 1920, through 1929, it was called the American Theatre. From 1930 through its closing in 1958, it was the Paramount. I never attended the theater, but like John Schmude, I was intrigued in the 1970s to be able to stand behind the former theater when the giant garage door was open and to look into the auto body shop and to see how much the nearly empty shell betrayed its roots as a moviehouse. – Ed Blank
Thanks, Dodger. Your memories of the Astor are invaluable. Since rediscovering this website a couple of weeks ago I’ve been reading it compulsively, usually well into the night. I’ve been checking the blogs for every theater in every city I’ve ever visited. Best page-turner I’ve ever read.
If I can ever tear myself away from the many dozens of Manhattan theater blogs, I want to make contributions to nearly 100 Pittsburgh area theaters listed. Most of those blogs are very spare; some have no entries at all.
The downside of the Manhattan blogs is that can take hours to wade through. The one for Radio City Music Hall must be the “War and Peace” of movie blogs.
I’m grateful we have this gift – this forum in which to exchange tidbits.
Aside: One of the neatest coincidences when the Astor and the Victoria were grinding profitably was when each had a new big hit starring Bill Holden. He was side by side starring in “Stalag 17” at the Astor and “The Moon Is Blue” at the Victoria. — Ed Blank
What a weird buzz I got wandering into the Astor’s former shell after it had become that flea market. The place was abuzz but junky. You can’t get that buzz, I think, unless the shell of the old structure is the same and you can remember clearly how it had been when it was a moviehouse (the ticket-taker was just about here, the screen was against that wall over there, etc.).
Our memories are valueless to just about anyone who didn’t experience these grand old movie emporiums firsthand, but Cinema Treasures is a treasure trove of shared recollections by people who can revivify and amplify one’s own fading memories. Thank you, one and all. — Ed Blank
Just checked my records. We had the 10 classics on the night of Wednesday, Oct. 9, 1974 (starting late Tuesday night). Admission $1. I erred on this point: Exactly 600 people bought a ticket at some time during the 20-hour marathon. Then, because the previous regular attraction (“A Very Natural Thing”) wasn’t strong enough to continue, and “The Odessa File” could not open until a week later, the Squirrel Hill filled in with an eight-day reissue combo of “The Parallax View” and “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.” – Ed Blank
The Pittsburgh one definitely started late on a Wednesday or a Thursday evening. And ours was midnight, too, now that I think it through because I remember adding up all the screening times in advance because I doubted that they could all be finished by 8 p.m. Fortunately the breaks between them were very brief if not nonexistent. The theater was a 793-seater back then (later to be chopped up). I was pleasantly surprised that maybe 100-140 people were there at the start and most stayed for the 20 hours. “The Odessa File” screening that followed around 9 p.m. drew several hundred.
By the way, Al, I’m enjoying finding your contributions to many of the NYC theater blogs. You and Warren and Dave-Bronx have made many invaluable contributions in terms of information and observations. – Ed Blank
One more memory: It was a revelation to me, in my 20s and 30s, visiting a land of Oz called Manhattan for two or three weeks per year, that you folks not only had upwards of a dozen great (if sometimes dilapidated) revival houses but that the audiences embraced old movies with such passion that they sometimes applauded opening credits. That was especially true at Theatre 80 St. Marks.
I certainly had my own favorite stars, but I was surprised that some stars were in especially great favor (Judy Garland, Ann Miller, Roz Russell – mainly in “His Girl Friday”) and even more surprised that other stars might be booed. The main one I can remember that happening to once was June Allyson. I knew that girls next door had gone out of favor, but to this day I like her a lot – a lifelong crush – and was dismayed by the reaction her name drew.
Can anyone think of other stars who received an especially strong response one way or the other? – Ed Blank
I have innumerable happy memories of this theater. And since I first ventured down there to see a live show, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” with its original cast, I have to admit mixed feelings that it’s a legitimate theater again. It certainly never was ideal for movies.
I’d seen dozens of double bills of classics there over the years before I arrived early enough once – and with no other patrons behind me in line – to get the gentleman in the box office (presumably Howard Otway) – to explain about the peculiar rear-screen projection process.
I was introduced to countless old movies there, always in imaginatively designed double bills.
My single fondest memory: I had seen “Sudden Fear” when it was new in 1952 and about eight years later on Pittsburgh TV. Then the picture disappeared – totally – even though it was never on those lists of films that had vanished from Planet Earth for decades back then (“Porgy & Bess,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” “The Manchurian Candidate,” the 1956 version of “1984,” etc.)
Anyway, I phoned either Howard Otway or his son once to ask if he could send the next schedule a few days early to me in Pittsburgh because I feared missing it in transit as I headed for NYC. Somehow the subject of “Sudden Fear” came up (I no doubt was cataloging movies aloud), and Mr. Otway said, “But we’ve got it! We’re about to play it for the first time. It’s on the next schedule.” Turned out it was to play the day before I arrived with 100-some theatergoers I was shepherding to Broadway. I could not change my arrival date. Damned if he didn’t say, “Look, the schedules don’t go to the printer for a day or two. If you promise you’ll come to `Sudden Fear,‘ I’ll postpone it a couple of days for you.” He kept his word, and I got to see it for the first time in 30-some years. Not too long later, the film became available on laser disc and then DVD, both of which I bought. But what a kick that he made so kind a gesture for an out-of-towner. – Ed Blank
Was only in this theater three times, I think – two of them after the twinning. Can’t remember what I saw, but I do remember going back to the lobby during one visit to tell them it was so cold in the auditorium that I could see my own breath. I was already wearing a suit coat, overcoat, scarf and gloves. As I recall, they never did correct the problem. – Ed Blank
The Paris almost certainly is the single-screen art house I’ve visited most often in NYC, partly because it was such a classy high-grossing theater and therefore had access to the choicest bookings.
I had just returned from Vietnam to be discharged from the Army at Fort Dix and headed straight for nine days in NYC in August 1967 for a movie and Broadway binge (I was a whole year behind on movies and had seen only a couple of Broadway shows previously, so I was a kid in a candy store) before embarking on the rest of my life.
The first movie I saw after dropping off my duffle bag in a cheap hotel was “A Man and a Woman,” which I was aware was in its 52nd week at the Paris. Since then I’ve seen several dozen fine movies there including “Howards End,” “Remains of the Day,” “The Browning Version” and “Ladies in Lavender.”
One couldn’t help but notice over the years that the patrons were invariably older and more likely to dress up a little to go to the movies.
The only mildly negative experience I ever had at the Paris was when I attended “Vincent and Theo” and noticed that the balcony was open. (Is it always open?) Anyway, I decided to make that moviegoing experience a bit different by watching Altman’s film from the balcony. To my dismay, I could hardly make out the dialogue at all.
No one else here has indicated having a hearing problem in the Paris' balcony, so the acoustical problem that afternoon may have been a fluke, occurring only in a specific area of the balcony. That can happen, for example, if few orchestra seats are occupied and the sound lines somehow are caught off kilter.
The longtime manager of a bygone Pittsburgh legitimate theater/playhouse called the Nixon once explained there were a couple of acoustical dead spots in the front mezz of his theater. Later I found that was true in other theaters, especially in their balconies.
All that woodwork gave the Plaza a warm, especially distinctive feeling even among Manhattan’s nicest art houses. I remember walking past the Plaza in 1996, when “Grumpier Old Men” was still on the marquee, and noting the theater has closed, and thinking, “Omigod, not the Plaza, too!” And, folks, we keep losing the most cherished moviehouses one by one. And why was such a tony theater playing wide-release commercial films in its final year or so? Is it possible no art-film distributor would book its pictures into such a classy house on an exclusive basis?
Having had several rewarding visits to the Ziegfeld in its early years, including “Sleuth,” I was often dismayed when I vitied NYC in later years to find that it was temporarily closed (“for repairs” or otherwise). Until I read here the long lists of Ziegfeld bookings, decade by decade, and noted the many times the theater was closed for weeks at a stretch – and invariably during my twice-annual visits in early spring and late fall, I had no idea why my timing always seemed to be unlucky. It wasn’t just unlucky timing. I was always facing the probability that the theater would be closed when I happened to be in town. I did luck into a screening of one of the later “Star Wars” films once.
So, it’s like most multiplexes in that respect, Mike. I understand now. When multiplexes were new to Pittsburgh in the 1970s, movies would be advertised as to the specific auditorium they were in (Showcase East #3, etc.). Almost from opening day, though, they started renumbering the auditoriums from day to day so that if you were to see “Silent Movie,” advertised as being in #4, it would be in an auditorium labeled #4 when you arrived, but #4 moved up and down the corridor from largest to smallest. Not too long after, they stopped specifying the numbers altogether. FF may not re-label its auditoriums from day to day – or ever, but management may move the movies around from day to day. I can honestly say that in maybe 20 visits to the current FF, the movies were always where I expected them to be (I knew the three auditoiums well), but that may have been a matter of chance. I always regretted I could not make time to see the revivals. I was in NYC to review theater and all the new film releases I could squeeze in. Just didn’t have the time to catch the classics there.
Thanks for the clarification, YankeeMike. I’m an out-of-towner who subscribes ($25, I think, every so often) to the slick schedules for FF 1 and FF 2 and read every word on the FF 2 schedules, which I are more interesting to me because the movies are usually old favorites. I’m almost positive I’ve noticed that the more popular FF 1 movies sometimes move over to FF 3 for extended engagements, but I’ll concede it happens regularly for FF 2 revivals to move over (“Last Year at Marienbad,” “Contempt,” etc.). Did the recent UA festival really play in full – concurrently – on FF 3 as well as FF 2, or are you referring to the fact that four or five of the more successful UAtitles moved over to FF 3 as single features afterward (“Annie Hall,” “Last Tango in Paris,” “Thieves Like Us,” etc.)?
As far as I know, the main means of finding out what’s at FF 3 is to check the log calendar on FF’s web site. I can’t remember ever seeing, or receiving in the postal mail, a printed version of the FF 3 schedule.
Having just completed a first reading of the entire Film Forum blog, I think we’ve reached a concensus or two:
1. We’re all in agreement that the programming surpasses the modest, artless, somewhat uncomfortable auditoriums with their smallish screens.
2. Everyone is grateful that Film Forum 2 survives as a revival house 25 years after home video killed off nearly every rep house in the country.
3. It’s interesting that Film Forum devotes two of its screens (the largest and smallest, I believe, if they’re numbered in sequence of capacity), to obscure new releases from around the world, including a lot of movies that otherwise would have no arthouse/specialty house booking at the tonier theaters (Sunshine, Lincoln Plaza). And yet …
4) Despite the fact Film Forum 1 plays exclusively new arthouse releases and FF 3 tends to pick up moveovers from FF 1 (though sometimes from FF 2), at least 90 percent of the comments on this blog are about reissues/classics and festivals of such.
5) It may not satisfy the nonprofit status of Film Forum to alter its programming balance, but couldn’t there be even greater concentration on oldies than on new pictures? In other words, why not have the Sidney Lumet festival running in FF 2 while the United Artists Festival is in FF 3 and give many of the pictures an extra day or two? We’ll all probably go to our graves wishing Frank Rowley still had a rep house to program.
Thanks, John and Warren. That all adds up for me. As a nonsmoker, I would never have made my way up a full flight of stairs to the balcony to sit among smokers. But a few steps up to enjoy stadium seating back then – definitely.
I was only at the Elgin three or four times, always for revivals in the pre-video era. But I remember it being one of the NYC theaters where I was cold to the bone during at least winter visit. I have to assume it was run on the cheap in those final years.
An Elgin memory: Seeing “The Lady From Shanghai,” for the first time, in the 1970s. It was on a double bill of revivals, I think with “Gilda.”
Was there a balcony? I seem to recall being upstairs.
In any event, I was engrossed in the movie. Suddenly a cat leaped up on the seat beside me, startling the wits out of me. You can imagine what I thought it was at first. But then, that’s almost certainly why a cat was in there roaming freely.
Had an identical experience watching “Fade to Black” some time later in one of the steeply raked upstairs auditoriums at the Mayfair/DeMille, which by then was called the Embassy 2,3,4. – Ed Blank
Back when we had so many one-screen theaters, we had no way of knowing that eventually they’d be all but extinct and that we’d never get in them again. St. Marks Cinema may not have been special, but like all theaters a few years ago, it was one of a kind. Each had a feel all its own. – Ed Blank
Saw “The Goodbye Girl” here in December 1977.
I can’t think of any other theater that one enters from the top of the balcony – a true balcony, that is. – Ed Blank
One final, memorable Palace experience:
I was scheduled to attend a Wednesday matinee of “Woman of the Year” for review purposes and to interview Lauren Bacall’s co-star, the very affable Harry Guardino, immediately after the matinee. This would be time taken out of his dinner break before the evening performance.
After the matinee, I made my way to the stage door, but the press agent intercepted me with the news that Rock Hudson (Bacall’s co-star in “Written on the Wind”) and film producer Ross Hunter had attended that matinee, too, and had come backstage to pay courtesy calls on Bacall (first) and then Guardino.
I cooled my heels backstage, dressed in a suit and tie and holding my pocket-size tape recorder, waiting for the “all clear” sign.
I had hoped to see Hudson and Hunter leaving, but from the area backstage where I was sequestered, I did not.
Eventually the press agent reappeared and told me to take the backstage phone-booth-size elevator up to Guardino’s dressing room, which was on the third or fourth floor.
I hadn’t really minded the delay. The news about Hudson and Hunter being there was a little extra column fodder for me.
So I entered to the mini-elevator and pressed the appropriate button, and at the last minute a woman appeared unexpectedly, entered the elevator with me and, without a word, pressed another button.
There we were, chest to chest, and in a flash I realized it was Bacall. I spontaneously and cheerfully said, “Oh, hi.” She did not make eye contact, and she did not respond. Hey – her privilege. But how much effort does it take? Guardino, on the other hand, apologized for the delay and could not have been friendlier.
Both before and later, I heard Miss Bacall could be, well, unapproachable.
Sixteen years later, almost to the day, when she was a shoo-in to win the supporting actress Oscar for “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” and I don’t think there was an Oscar forecast anywhere that didn’t pick her, she lost the Oscar to an astonished Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”).
I’ve always wondered if, over the years, enough non-celebrity members of the Motion Picture Academy had had cool close encounters with the actress and if experiences mirroring my awkward elevator ride in the Palace had possibly – just possibly – caught up to her and canceled out a sure Oscar win.
But that Palace memory trumps the many more pleasant ones. – Ed Blank
I’ve covered many Broadway shows at the Palace since it went legit and once had a cordial dressing-room interview with George Hearn during the run of “La Cage aux Folles.”
Was there for a final preview of “Break a Leg,” which promptly folded opening night. I had taken an elderly friend named Tom Bate to the Saturday matinee of the comedy starring Julie Harris and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly.
After the show, Mr. Bate, who was 80-something, asked if I’d mind waiting while he made a quick trip downstairs to the men’s room. After an inordinately long wait, during which the theater had finished emptying and the staff was closing the theater until the evening performance, someone came up to the lobby and asked if I was Mr. Blank.
Mr. Bate, it turns out, has been pistol-whipped by someone who was hiding in one of the stalls after the performance. My friend bled profusely. While Mr. Bate and I waiting for an ambulance to take him to a nearby hospital, director Reilly stopped for a few minutes, and Julie Harris stayed with us until the ambulance arrived. Both were so kind to en elderly man who, though a member of the actors' union, they did not know. – Ed Blank
The first movie and possibly the only movie I saw at the Palace was “Bedtime Story,” with Marlon Brando, Shirley Jones and David Niven, in late July 1964. I still think it’s a funnier movie than it was given credit for being. – Ed Blank
From the time Angelika opened in 1989, I attended many times on twice-annual trips to New York. Like Lincoln Plaza and other art houses, it was a place to see foreign and independent movies before they reached my hometown of Pittsburgh PA.
That said, I never enjoyed my trips Downtown to the Angelika because those six subterranean dungeons were dreary and uncomfortable. Once while in the nicest one, beneath the lobby, I found the ceiling was leaking into buckets.
After an experience in the mid to late 1990s, though, I resolved never to return and never did:
I had arrived late in the morning and purchased two tickets immediately – one for the first show in one auditorium and the other for the second performance in a different auditorium.
The food in the lobby had become so pricey I resolved to make do with the popcorn downstairs. I took the long escalator ride down and became the first customer of the morning at the popcorn stand.
While I waited for a bucket from the morning’s first batch, the attendant carried a large bucket of unpopped kernels toward the popcorn machine to pour the kernels into the top.
Just at that moment something knocked him in the feet, and the bucket of unpopped kernels was launched at least a foot into the air. The attendant looked down immediately, even as the kernels were ascending, and gasped, “What a big rat!”
I was stunned, as if someone had punched me, and I involuntarily took a step or two backwards from the concession stand. All of a sudden a rat the size of a tomcat darted out from behind the concession satand and made two sharp left turns. The attendant, who now had a ton of kernels to sweep up, and I looked at each other as if to say, “Did you see what I just saw?”
I got right back on the escalator, went to the ticket taker at the top and said I wanted my money back for both movies.
He phoned the manager’s offioce and said, “Some guy out here wants his money back for two movies” and, after pausing to listen to the manager, said to me, “Why?”
“Because there’s a big rat running around the popcorn stand downstairs,” I said.
The ticket taker said into the phone, “He said we have rats.” Without another word, he hung up the phone and nodded at me to go out to the box office. The young lady in the box office immediately answered her phone (presumably a call from the manager) and issued me my refunds without delay.
So I did get my money back, but I never returned.
When I told a New York friend about the experience, she responded, “And that’s why I won’t go to the Quad, either.” – Ed Blank
I’m sure you’re right, Ken, but I hadn’t considered that. The folks waiting to board planes and the folks waiting to pick up passengers from arriving planes are now divided in half, which in turn would splinter in two any potential audience for a commercially run moviehouse.
The theater was built in an airport that opened in the early 1950s when families could still drive to the airport to watch planes land and take off and maybe take in a movie as part of the experience of being in a then-ultra-modern facility. This building even housed one of the Pittsburgh area’s (temporarily)leading nightclubs, the Horizon Room. – Ed Blank
From the time this theater opened Nov. 20, 1920, through 1929, it was called the American Theatre. From 1930 through its closing in 1958, it was the Paramount. I never attended the theater, but like John Schmude, I was intrigued in the 1970s to be able to stand behind the former theater when the giant garage door was open and to look into the auto body shop and to see how much the nearly empty shell betrayed its roots as a moviehouse. – Ed Blank
Have any other airports in the United States ever had commercial moviehouses within them? Has any airport today such a theater? – Ed Blank
The theater was open from 1916-28. – Ed Blank
Thanks, Dodger. Your memories of the Astor are invaluable. Since rediscovering this website a couple of weeks ago I’ve been reading it compulsively, usually well into the night. I’ve been checking the blogs for every theater in every city I’ve ever visited. Best page-turner I’ve ever read.
If I can ever tear myself away from the many dozens of Manhattan theater blogs, I want to make contributions to nearly 100 Pittsburgh area theaters listed. Most of those blogs are very spare; some have no entries at all.
The downside of the Manhattan blogs is that can take hours to wade through. The one for Radio City Music Hall must be the “War and Peace” of movie blogs.
I’m grateful we have this gift – this forum in which to exchange tidbits.
Aside: One of the neatest coincidences when the Astor and the Victoria were grinding profitably was when each had a new big hit starring Bill Holden. He was side by side starring in “Stalag 17” at the Astor and “The Moon Is Blue” at the Victoria. — Ed Blank
What a weird buzz I got wandering into the Astor’s former shell after it had become that flea market. The place was abuzz but junky. You can’t get that buzz, I think, unless the shell of the old structure is the same and you can remember clearly how it had been when it was a moviehouse (the ticket-taker was just about here, the screen was against that wall over there, etc.).
Our memories are valueless to just about anyone who didn’t experience these grand old movie emporiums firsthand, but Cinema Treasures is a treasure trove of shared recollections by people who can revivify and amplify one’s own fading memories. Thank you, one and all. — Ed Blank
Just checked my records. We had the 10 classics on the night of Wednesday, Oct. 9, 1974 (starting late Tuesday night). Admission $1. I erred on this point: Exactly 600 people bought a ticket at some time during the 20-hour marathon. Then, because the previous regular attraction (“A Very Natural Thing”) wasn’t strong enough to continue, and “The Odessa File” could not open until a week later, the Squirrel Hill filled in with an eight-day reissue combo of “The Parallax View” and “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.” – Ed Blank
The Pittsburgh one definitely started late on a Wednesday or a Thursday evening. And ours was midnight, too, now that I think it through because I remember adding up all the screening times in advance because I doubted that they could all be finished by 8 p.m. Fortunately the breaks between them were very brief if not nonexistent. The theater was a 793-seater back then (later to be chopped up). I was pleasantly surprised that maybe 100-140 people were there at the start and most stayed for the 20 hours. “The Odessa File” screening that followed around 9 p.m. drew several hundred.
By the way, Al, I’m enjoying finding your contributions to many of the NYC theater blogs. You and Warren and Dave-Bronx have made many invaluable contributions in terms of information and observations. – Ed Blank
One more memory: It was a revelation to me, in my 20s and 30s, visiting a land of Oz called Manhattan for two or three weeks per year, that you folks not only had upwards of a dozen great (if sometimes dilapidated) revival houses but that the audiences embraced old movies with such passion that they sometimes applauded opening credits. That was especially true at Theatre 80 St. Marks.
I certainly had my own favorite stars, but I was surprised that some stars were in especially great favor (Judy Garland, Ann Miller, Roz Russell – mainly in “His Girl Friday”) and even more surprised that other stars might be booed. The main one I can remember that happening to once was June Allyson. I knew that girls next door had gone out of favor, but to this day I like her a lot – a lifelong crush – and was dismayed by the reaction her name drew.
Can anyone think of other stars who received an especially strong response one way or the other? – Ed Blank
I have innumerable happy memories of this theater. And since I first ventured down there to see a live show, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” with its original cast, I have to admit mixed feelings that it’s a legitimate theater again. It certainly never was ideal for movies.
I’d seen dozens of double bills of classics there over the years before I arrived early enough once – and with no other patrons behind me in line – to get the gentleman in the box office (presumably Howard Otway) – to explain about the peculiar rear-screen projection process.
I was introduced to countless old movies there, always in imaginatively designed double bills.
My single fondest memory: I had seen “Sudden Fear” when it was new in 1952 and about eight years later on Pittsburgh TV. Then the picture disappeared – totally – even though it was never on those lists of films that had vanished from Planet Earth for decades back then (“Porgy & Bess,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” “The Manchurian Candidate,” the 1956 version of “1984,” etc.)
Anyway, I phoned either Howard Otway or his son once to ask if he could send the next schedule a few days early to me in Pittsburgh because I feared missing it in transit as I headed for NYC. Somehow the subject of “Sudden Fear” came up (I no doubt was cataloging movies aloud), and Mr. Otway said, “But we’ve got it! We’re about to play it for the first time. It’s on the next schedule.” Turned out it was to play the day before I arrived with 100-some theatergoers I was shepherding to Broadway. I could not change my arrival date. Damned if he didn’t say, “Look, the schedules don’t go to the printer for a day or two. If you promise you’ll come to `Sudden Fear,‘ I’ll postpone it a couple of days for you.” He kept his word, and I got to see it for the first time in 30-some years. Not too long later, the film became available on laser disc and then DVD, both of which I bought. But what a kick that he made so kind a gesture for an out-of-towner. – Ed Blank
Was only in this theater three times, I think – two of them after the twinning. Can’t remember what I saw, but I do remember going back to the lobby during one visit to tell them it was so cold in the auditorium that I could see my own breath. I was already wearing a suit coat, overcoat, scarf and gloves. As I recall, they never did correct the problem. – Ed Blank