Ripshin, that’s not so strange. I hardly went to the Gables as a kid either. The family films played mostly at the Coral and Miracle and later at the Twin Gables during that period. The Gables was not booked for kids and it was easier to get into an R rated film downtown.
Vito, you forget the extra men in the booth contracted for any movie labeled a “Roadshow”. These extra costs helped expedite the demise of the practice as the box office revenue could not justifying the costs and exhibitors found ways around the union contracts.
I wouldn’t consider the two week price gouging run of “DREAMGIRLS” a reserved seat run but there were several weeks of European style reserved seat runs for mainstream films at the Ziegfeld and the Beekman run as a test during the final days of Cineplex Odeon. They were disastrous as New Yorkers refused to sit in their assigned seats for non-event films.
After “MAROONED” they were all ‘reserved performance’ runs except for the occasional special events like the weekend run of the TV series “CIVILISATION” in 1970 and some of the World Premieres. Most World Premiers are open seating with reserved VIP sections.
The Sunshine is a bogus entry. It is just another overpriced nasty multiplex Manhattan outlet. The film presentation sucks and the film choices are mainstream indie releases you can see anywhere else in New York. What a bunch of pretentious shit!
Hollywood has 28 screens. Shouldn’t tax money support the existing theatres instead of subsidizing new competition? Some politician has his hand in the kitty.
Moviebuff82, it has never made much of a profit but the screenings and premieres have always kept it going. I doubt cash cow would be a fitting term with low box office most of the year and high rent all year round.
Vito, I know Cineplex replaced the whole motorized curtain mechanism during one of the remodels only to have it fail a couple of weeks later.
Vito, the Ziegfeld was a Union stagehand house for over twenty five years and they were not successful. Back then all New York movie theatres had stagehands, even those without a stage.
LuisV, I am in favor of Landmarking the Ziegfeld interior and would love to see a multiplex built around the original screen to make it more financially viable.
The only human strong enough to be a curtain operator at the Ziegfeld might be Jean Valjean from the original novel or perhaps Clearview could get one those soon to be unemployed super heroes from the Hollywood crap machine.
Call it a clunker or bad karma but I worked for Cineplex Odeon for almost ten years, much of that time out of the Ziegfeld. In spite of weekly maintenance and a full time Union stagehand, that curtain was always broken and cost more money on lost shows and repairs than it was worth. We loved classic presentations but we all hated the damn thing.
If you look at previous posts here, the curtain has never worked for more than a few weeks at a time regardless of who owned or managed the theatre. It is an albatross that has lead to many canceled performances and a fortune in repair costs over the years. It is too heavy to pull manually and takes weeks sometimes to get repair parts.
Even presentation conscience Walter Reade Theatres used to tie it up before a major screening for fear of it shutting the house down. I suppose a more profitable theatre would have replaced it years ago with the flimsy cheaper horizontal version that many legit theatres now have.
It opened as the Cinema Take one in 1978.
Ripshin, that’s not so strange. I hardly went to the Gables as a kid either. The family films played mostly at the Coral and Miracle and later at the Twin Gables during that period. The Gables was not booked for kids and it was easier to get into an R rated film downtown.
It was twinned in 1979 by Walter Reade. I suspect the 150 seat balcony became a screen.
The DeMille did not advertise Divans but they had ‘party room’ seats for “THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN”.
The last true extended reserved seat two or three a day run I have found in NYC is “LAST TANGO IN PARIS” at the Trans-Lux East (Gotham).
Vito, you forget the extra men in the booth contracted for any movie labeled a “Roadshow”. These extra costs helped expedite the demise of the practice as the box office revenue could not justifying the costs and exhibitors found ways around the union contracts.
I wouldn’t consider the two week price gouging run of “DREAMGIRLS” a reserved seat run but there were several weeks of European style reserved seat runs for mainstream films at the Ziegfeld and the Beekman run as a test during the final days of Cineplex Odeon. They were disastrous as New Yorkers refused to sit in their assigned seats for non-event films.
After “MAROONED” they were all ‘reserved performance’ runs except for the occasional special events like the weekend run of the TV series “CIVILISATION” in 1970 and some of the World Premieres. Most World Premiers are open seating with reserved VIP sections.
That is not a rare event. Trucks hit Manhattan marquees all the time, when there were enough around to hit. Let’s celebrate that too!
Thanks for that, Bill.
The Sunshine is a bogus entry. It is just another overpriced nasty multiplex Manhattan outlet. The film presentation sucks and the film choices are mainstream indie releases you can see anywhere else in New York. What a bunch of pretentious shit!
Hey Louis, I remember that clock. It had a blueish hue that was on all during the movies.
stang119, it has to be uploaded for that to happen and only jeffg718 has that right.
Hollywood has 28 screens. Shouldn’t tax money support the existing theatres instead of subsidizing new competition? Some politician has his hand in the kitty.
Philip, so when were they Loews?
Am I the only one who don’t understand what it is they bought?
Although the Little Theatre (currently the Helen Hayes) is not listed on Cinema Treasures, it did show porn films briefly in 1973.
Nope. Because it was accomplished by inflated 3D/LIEMAX gimmick pricing at big city cinemas.
Audiences are fed up and it is a recipe for disaster.
Great website on the history of Miami Cuban Exile theatre.
http://scholar.library.miami.edu/miamitheater/introduction.html
Moviebuff82, it has never made much of a profit but the screenings and premieres have always kept it going. I doubt cash cow would be a fitting term with low box office most of the year and high rent all year round.
Vito, I know Cineplex replaced the whole motorized curtain mechanism during one of the remodels only to have it fail a couple of weeks later.
I doubt that very much.
Vito, the Ziegfeld was a Union stagehand house for over twenty five years and they were not successful. Back then all New York movie theatres had stagehands, even those without a stage.
This seems to be closed again. The intro mention as the Seminole must be a typo.
LuisV, I am in favor of Landmarking the Ziegfeld interior and would love to see a multiplex built around the original screen to make it more financially viable.
The only human strong enough to be a curtain operator at the Ziegfeld might be Jean Valjean from the original novel or perhaps Clearview could get one those soon to be unemployed super heroes from the Hollywood crap machine.
Call it a clunker or bad karma but I worked for Cineplex Odeon for almost ten years, much of that time out of the Ziegfeld. In spite of weekly maintenance and a full time Union stagehand, that curtain was always broken and cost more money on lost shows and repairs than it was worth. We loved classic presentations but we all hated the damn thing.
If you look at previous posts here, the curtain has never worked for more than a few weeks at a time regardless of who owned or managed the theatre. It is an albatross that has lead to many canceled performances and a fortune in repair costs over the years. It is too heavy to pull manually and takes weeks sometimes to get repair parts.
Even presentation conscience Walter Reade Theatres used to tie it up before a major screening for fear of it shutting the house down. I suppose a more profitable theatre would have replaced it years ago with the flimsy cheaper horizontal version that many legit theatres now have.