The Lafayette is the best cinema for repertory classics that I’ve ever attended. Beautiful architecture, topnotch projection and sound, curtains, great prints, a balcony and great showmanship.
Organ music plays before the shows and there are cartoons and serials.
This theater makes up for the loss of the NYC rep houses like The Elgin, Regency, Bleecker street, Carnegie Hall cinema and The Art.
The absolute best place to see any film in New York state, new or
old.
This theater is exactly what I described in my book, “The Moviegoing
Experience 1968-2001” as the standard for quality exhibition that is very rare today.
This was an excellent repertory house in the seventies and eighties and tied with Bleecker Street Cinema. Their schedules and notes on the programs were contained in “Thousand Eyes Magazine” printed on newspaper stock.
Carnegie Hall had many entertaining programs. Among them was a Marlon Brando festival. Every film the actor appeared in through the
late seventies was shown including obscure titles like “Night of the Following Day”. The copies were all mint with a number of ‘studio vault prints’ of pictures like “One Eyed Jacks” and “Mutiny on the Bounty” in blazing Technicolor. They also had a Hitchcock festival
and played double bills like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”. Technicolor prints of the Bond features were common too.
The screen was fairly large and the theater comfortable. A great rep house. I was sad when it folded.
Aside from the spectacular 3-D festival which featured the east coast premiere of “Dial M for Murder in 3-D”, they also had a “Silent Clowns Festival” which was a tie in with the Walker Kerr
book. Live organ was played with each film.
If memory serves, I believe they played original nitrate prints from
Rohauer and other collectors. I recall the opening of “Seven Chances” even had the two color Technicolor prologue. “The Rink” was tinted and toned. The Keaton movies had better contrast and sharpness than any dupe copy shown afterwards which is why I think
they showed originals. I specifically recall “The High Sign” and
“Sherlock Jr.” sparkling on the screen. When they later played them at the Lincoln Plaza cinema a few years later, they were grainy washed out dupes. If they did indeed play original nitrate they were probably circumventing fire laws but the festival sure looked
great.
If anyone else can recall who played the organ and what specific year it was run (somewhere from 1975-1979) I would appreciate a follow up post.
8th Street Playhouse also played some unusual double bills while I was at NYU. I recall one of the strangest was a pairing of “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Dr. Strangelove”. Spent most of the day there with that show.
It was one of the great repertory cinemas of the era. The silver screen was large and went from wall to wall without curtains. They had black strips than came down from the ceiling to mask off 1.85 films. About the only bad show was a screening of “Gone with the Wind” which they played in 1.85 instead of 1.33. Otherwise, presentation was quite good. In the 3-D festival they played an original Technicolor stereo pair of “Kiss Me Kate”. The film jammed and burned during the screening the audience laughed but I cringed, realizing it was probably the only surviving Technicolor prints of this film.
Here is some supplimental information about the Elgin Cinema which
I attended from 1975-1977 while I was at NYU.
In the fifties, it was a Spanish language theater. In the sixties
it became one of the first repertory theaters in Manhattan. It's
major success and fame was from 1970-1977 when it was operated by
Steve Gould and Chuck Zlatkin. They implemented a number of innovative venues at this house including “Midnight Shows” (“Pink Flamingos”, “El Topo”) and “All Night Shows” (Marx Brothers festival).
The cinema had 520 seats and by the time I attended, a large 40 foot
slightly curved CinemaScope screen placed in front of the stage. The screen was unmasked and looked a bit like a large trampoline but was effective for epics like “Lawrence of Arabia” and “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”.
Gould and Zlatkin had topnotch projection and mono sound. They even had variable speed motors on the machines so they could play silent films at the right speed. They were able to secure excellent prints
from the distributors including many Technicolor classics. Aside from the older titles, they also booked quirky off beat titles like
“King of Hearts” and “Harold and Maude” which bombed in first run cinemas but found an audience there. Admission was .75 with a senior discount of .25.
Aside from the large wide screen and art deco architecture, the theater was a bit run down. It was not uncommon to hear homeless people snoring in the side aisles. Never the less, it was a great venue to see good prints of old features. Woody Allen attended the cinema and was one of it’s supporters.
In 1977, Gould and Zlatkin were forced to close the cinema due to the increased rental prices of prints by greedy distributors and the emerging home entertainment competition. In the eighties, most of the other NYC repertory cinemas folded too. The Elgin briefly became a porn theater but neighborhood residents complained and it was shut down again.
In 1982 it was re-modeled into the Joyce Theater for dance.
Of all the revival theaters of the seventies, I miss this one the most.
The “Broadway Comes to Broadway” 70mmfestival in 1978 was spread into
both theaters. “Camelot”, “My Fair Lady”, “South Pacific” and “Paint Your Wagon” played in the Cinerama theater with it’s deeply curved screen. “South Pacific” was slightly faded and was
the cut version (not original 2 hour 50 minute Roadshow) but was
still entertaining. The others were newer prints and had great color
and sound. “Oklahoma!” and “West Side Story” played the second theater which had a large silver screen and stadium seating but was
not curved. It was still a nice venue. “West Side Story” was a 35
Technicolor print with four track magnetic stereo sound. “Oklahoma!"
was a original Todd-AO print shown at 30 frames per second but was
completely faded. I sat through it just to hear the sound. Fortunately in 1982, Goldwyn made a new print that looked good although the skies were not as deeply blue as in the 1955 copies.
They showed it at 30 frames per second at one of the 3rd Ave. Block
cinemas (either Baronet or Coronet).
I also saw “Road Warrior” in 70mm at the curved screen Cinerama I but it looked pretty grainy. It was probably off a dupe 65mm negative which did not generate the same quality as the camera negative blow up prints like “Camelot” which looked quite good in the above mentioned festival. In the seventies they also played a heavily cut version of “Andy Warhol’s Dracula” re-titled “Young Dracula” (gore and nudity cut) and rated R. I also saw the Richard Gere remake “Breathless” there. The trouble with Cinerama curved screens is that 1.85 movies didn’t look good on them.
In Cinerama II with the flat screen, they played “Poltergeist” in 70mm which looked nice and “House of Wax” in 70mm 3-D which had orange color and was grainy although the sound was good.
The Rivoli was my favorite NYC movie palace. It had an awesome
curved screen with head on projection in the back of the theater
so the horizons were straight and didn’t smile upwards. The sound
was also impressive. I attended showings in the seventies through
the eighties when it was re-designed to squeeze another theater in
the balcony area. The orchestra level still was impressive although
they removed the Dimension 150 screen and put in a flat one. Still,
screenings like the 70mm version of “The Thing” were impressive.
While it had the deeply curved screen, I saw “2001” three times in
70mm. Once in 1976 and twice in 1978. The 1976 print contained the
“Cinerama” title card and the 78 print the “70mm” card. The 1976 print had much more saturated color than the 78 print. However, this
film looked spectacular in this house. Even mediocre movies like “1941” were impressive since the curved screen and superior 6 channel sound made it entertaining although there was an infant crying in the audience at each explosion.
The rear channels did not blast at you in this cinema as they did
at the Cinerama theater down the street or Loews Astor Plaza. I think it had the best 70mm presentations in the city.
Ironically, my low budget exploitation film, “The Class of Nuke Em High” was among the last to play there before the theater was demolished. There was already scafolding in front of the cinema
when it was booked there. I guess I miss this Roadshow house more
than any other one I attended at the time.
The Thalia was a great repertory cinema in the seventies and
eighties. It was run by the late Richard Swartz. Although the theater
was small and contained the bizarre upwards curve (which obscurred
the screen with heads if a tall person sat in the front row), they
did show some rare movies. It had a nice art decor design. It was a fun place to attend which I went to NYU in the seventies. In the eighties they installed selzin
motors and a silver screen so they could show 3-D movies. Swartz
hunted down rare dual projector prints of “The French Line” (in Technicolor with the cut bubbble bath sequence) and even borrowed
a print of “Carnival of Souls” from Herk Harvey. At one point they
advertised an uncut print of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” but
this turned out to be a regular cut print. After Richard Swartz died of AIDS, the theater folded along with most of the great NYC
repertory cinemas,
Briefly it was an Indian cinema run by Malik Tirlok that played films from that country. I booked my own 3-D movie, “Run for Cover”, in it before it shut down again.
I saw the double bill of “Night of the Living Dead” and “Ben"
at this cinema also. We were traveling in our Winnebago motor home on vacation in the summer of 1972. I was 15 at the time.
I had read about the Romero film in "Castle of Frankenstein” magazine and persuaded my parents to drop me off to the matinee to see these pictures
while they did some more sight seeing. These were the first films
I’d ever seen on curved screens and were not ideal for this venue.
It was a bit disorienting watching 1.85 movies with a curve. They
looked best in 70mm or Panavision. In any event, the Romero film
had excellent contrast so it was probably a camera negative print
rather than one of those poor internegative copies that were later
manufactured. I do recall “Ben” was shown first and was pretty
excrutiating to sit through. Then came the Romero film. A number
of parents stormed out of the theater with their children during
the cannibalism scenes which I found amusing. “Ben” was a PG movie
but “Night of the Living Dead” was released without a rating. Since
it opened the same year that the productiion code was abandoned and
classification system implemented, it was probably never submitted
to the MPAA. As a result, it was booked with considerably tamer
product. The Romero film gave me re-occuring nightmares.
The Lafayette is the best cinema for repertory classics that I’ve ever attended. Beautiful architecture, topnotch projection and sound, curtains, great prints, a balcony and great showmanship.
Organ music plays before the shows and there are cartoons and serials.
This theater makes up for the loss of the NYC rep houses like The Elgin, Regency, Bleecker street, Carnegie Hall cinema and The Art.
The absolute best place to see any film in New York state, new or
old.
This theater is exactly what I described in my book, “The Moviegoing
Experience 1968-2001” as the standard for quality exhibition that is very rare today.
This was an excellent repertory house in the seventies and eighties and tied with Bleecker Street Cinema. Their schedules and notes on the programs were contained in “Thousand Eyes Magazine” printed on newspaper stock.
Carnegie Hall had many entertaining programs. Among them was a Marlon Brando festival. Every film the actor appeared in through the
late seventies was shown including obscure titles like “Night of the Following Day”. The copies were all mint with a number of ‘studio vault prints’ of pictures like “One Eyed Jacks” and “Mutiny on the Bounty” in blazing Technicolor. They also had a Hitchcock festival
and played double bills like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”. Technicolor prints of the Bond features were common too.
The screen was fairly large and the theater comfortable. A great rep house. I was sad when it folded.
There was also a film book store on the same block.
Aside from the spectacular 3-D festival which featured the east coast premiere of “Dial M for Murder in 3-D”, they also had a “Silent Clowns Festival” which was a tie in with the Walker Kerr
book. Live organ was played with each film.
If memory serves, I believe they played original nitrate prints from
Rohauer and other collectors. I recall the opening of “Seven Chances” even had the two color Technicolor prologue. “The Rink” was tinted and toned. The Keaton movies had better contrast and sharpness than any dupe copy shown afterwards which is why I think
they showed originals. I specifically recall “The High Sign” and
“Sherlock Jr.” sparkling on the screen. When they later played them at the Lincoln Plaza cinema a few years later, they were grainy washed out dupes. If they did indeed play original nitrate they were probably circumventing fire laws but the festival sure looked
great.
If anyone else can recall who played the organ and what specific year it was run (somewhere from 1975-1979) I would appreciate a follow up post.
8th Street Playhouse also played some unusual double bills while I was at NYU. I recall one of the strangest was a pairing of “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Dr. Strangelove”. Spent most of the day there with that show.
It was one of the great repertory cinemas of the era. The silver screen was large and went from wall to wall without curtains. They had black strips than came down from the ceiling to mask off 1.85 films. About the only bad show was a screening of “Gone with the Wind” which they played in 1.85 instead of 1.33. Otherwise, presentation was quite good. In the 3-D festival they played an original Technicolor stereo pair of “Kiss Me Kate”. The film jammed and burned during the screening the audience laughed but I cringed, realizing it was probably the only surviving Technicolor prints of this film.
Here is some supplimental information about the Elgin Cinema which
I attended from 1975-1977 while I was at NYU.
In the fifties, it was a Spanish language theater. In the sixties
it became one of the first repertory theaters in Manhattan. It's
major success and fame was from 1970-1977 when it was operated by
Steve Gould and Chuck Zlatkin. They implemented a number of innovative venues at this house including “Midnight Shows” (“Pink Flamingos”, “El Topo”) and “All Night Shows” (Marx Brothers festival).
The cinema had 520 seats and by the time I attended, a large 40 foot
slightly curved CinemaScope screen placed in front of the stage. The screen was unmasked and looked a bit like a large trampoline but was effective for epics like “Lawrence of Arabia” and “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”.
Gould and Zlatkin had topnotch projection and mono sound. They even had variable speed motors on the machines so they could play silent films at the right speed. They were able to secure excellent prints
from the distributors including many Technicolor classics. Aside from the older titles, they also booked quirky off beat titles like
“King of Hearts” and “Harold and Maude” which bombed in first run cinemas but found an audience there. Admission was .75 with a senior discount of .25.
Aside from the large wide screen and art deco architecture, the theater was a bit run down. It was not uncommon to hear homeless people snoring in the side aisles. Never the less, it was a great venue to see good prints of old features. Woody Allen attended the cinema and was one of it’s supporters.
In 1977, Gould and Zlatkin were forced to close the cinema due to the increased rental prices of prints by greedy distributors and the emerging home entertainment competition. In the eighties, most of the other NYC repertory cinemas folded too. The Elgin briefly became a porn theater but neighborhood residents complained and it was shut down again.
In 1982 it was re-modeled into the Joyce Theater for dance.
Of all the revival theaters of the seventies, I miss this one the most.
Just to clarify a few posts above…
The “Broadway Comes to Broadway” 70mmfestival in 1978 was spread into
both theaters. “Camelot”, “My Fair Lady”, “South Pacific” and “Paint Your Wagon” played in the Cinerama theater with it’s deeply curved screen. “South Pacific” was slightly faded and was
the cut version (not original 2 hour 50 minute Roadshow) but was
still entertaining. The others were newer prints and had great color
and sound. “Oklahoma!” and “West Side Story” played the second theater which had a large silver screen and stadium seating but was
not curved. It was still a nice venue. “West Side Story” was a 35
Technicolor print with four track magnetic stereo sound. “Oklahoma!"
was a original Todd-AO print shown at 30 frames per second but was
completely faded. I sat through it just to hear the sound. Fortunately in 1982, Goldwyn made a new print that looked good although the skies were not as deeply blue as in the 1955 copies.
They showed it at 30 frames per second at one of the 3rd Ave. Block
cinemas (either Baronet or Coronet).
I also saw “Road Warrior” in 70mm at the curved screen Cinerama I but it looked pretty grainy. It was probably off a dupe 65mm negative which did not generate the same quality as the camera negative blow up prints like “Camelot” which looked quite good in the above mentioned festival. In the seventies they also played a heavily cut version of “Andy Warhol’s Dracula” re-titled “Young Dracula” (gore and nudity cut) and rated R. I also saw the Richard Gere remake “Breathless” there. The trouble with Cinerama curved screens is that 1.85 movies didn’t look good on them.
In Cinerama II with the flat screen, they played “Poltergeist” in 70mm which looked nice and “House of Wax” in 70mm 3-D which had orange color and was grainy although the sound was good.
The Rivoli was my favorite NYC movie palace. It had an awesome
curved screen with head on projection in the back of the theater
so the horizons were straight and didn’t smile upwards. The sound
was also impressive. I attended showings in the seventies through
the eighties when it was re-designed to squeeze another theater in
the balcony area. The orchestra level still was impressive although
they removed the Dimension 150 screen and put in a flat one. Still,
screenings like the 70mm version of “The Thing” were impressive.
While it had the deeply curved screen, I saw “2001” three times in
70mm. Once in 1976 and twice in 1978. The 1976 print contained the
“Cinerama” title card and the 78 print the “70mm” card. The 1976 print had much more saturated color than the 78 print. However, this
film looked spectacular in this house. Even mediocre movies like “1941” were impressive since the curved screen and superior 6 channel sound made it entertaining although there was an infant crying in the audience at each explosion.
The rear channels did not blast at you in this cinema as they did
at the Cinerama theater down the street or Loews Astor Plaza. I think it had the best 70mm presentations in the city.
Ironically, my low budget exploitation film, “The Class of Nuke Em High” was among the last to play there before the theater was demolished. There was already scafolding in front of the cinema
when it was booked there. I guess I miss this Roadshow house more
than any other one I attended at the time.
The Thalia was a great repertory cinema in the seventies and
eighties. It was run by the late Richard Swartz. Although the theater
was small and contained the bizarre upwards curve (which obscurred
the screen with heads if a tall person sat in the front row), they
did show some rare movies. It had a nice art decor design. It was a fun place to attend which I went to NYU in the seventies. In the eighties they installed selzin
motors and a silver screen so they could show 3-D movies. Swartz
hunted down rare dual projector prints of “The French Line” (in Technicolor with the cut bubbble bath sequence) and even borrowed
a print of “Carnival of Souls” from Herk Harvey. At one point they
advertised an uncut print of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” but
this turned out to be a regular cut print. After Richard Swartz died of AIDS, the theater folded along with most of the great NYC
repertory cinemas,
Briefly it was an Indian cinema run by Malik Tirlok that played films from that country. I booked my own 3-D movie, “Run for Cover”, in it before it shut down again.
I saw the double bill of “Night of the Living Dead” and “Ben"
at this cinema also. We were traveling in our Winnebago motor home on vacation in the summer of 1972. I was 15 at the time.
I had read about the Romero film in "Castle of Frankenstein” magazine and persuaded my parents to drop me off to the matinee to see these pictures
while they did some more sight seeing. These were the first films
I’d ever seen on curved screens and were not ideal for this venue.
It was a bit disorienting watching 1.85 movies with a curve. They
looked best in 70mm or Panavision. In any event, the Romero film
had excellent contrast so it was probably a camera negative print
rather than one of those poor internegative copies that were later
manufactured. I do recall “Ben” was shown first and was pretty
excrutiating to sit through. Then came the Romero film. A number
of parents stormed out of the theater with their children during
the cannibalism scenes which I found amusing. “Ben” was a PG movie
but “Night of the Living Dead” was released without a rating. Since
it opened the same year that the productiion code was abandoned and
classification system implemented, it was probably never submitted
to the MPAA. As a result, it was booked with considerably tamer
product. The Romero film gave me re-occuring nightmares.