Roxy Theatre
153 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
153 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
83 people
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Showing 851 - 875 of 1,225 comments
Bob Furmanek: scroll above to Warren’s comments dated February 13, 2004 as he and others touch upon the subject of the damage done to the theater (seems both physical and economical) by the “Windjammer” film.
Bob, like most nighmares most of us would rather not remember anything about it. Just be happy you did not see it.
Kindly elaborate. What was done?
Do I ever.
Does anyone remember how badly the theater was altered for this engagement?
Here is an ad for the Cinemiracle engagement of “Windjammer”. This is actually the second ad they used. The first one was disgusting very dark and grey.
View link
Ahhh — except for “The Cockeyed World” (August ‘29) and “Alexander’s RTB” (August '38), the others played between September '41 and August '44, largely the War Years and, consequently, until the mid-'50s the Roxy’s glory years.
And is it true that Alice Faye : Roxy :: Greer Garson :: RCMH + Tyrone Power : Roxy :: Cary Grant : RCMH, so that “Alexander’s RTB” and “Yank in the RAF” emerge as the Roxy’s archetypal films?
Thanks, Warren, for your wonderful listings of the Roxy’s shows. If I’ve got them straight, you’ve offered the following:
1941, posted on 18 April ‘05
1942, posted on 16 May '05, with comparative cross-reference to RCMH on 9 May '05
1943, posted on 29 May '05
1947 in part, posted on 24 April and 6 May '05
What were the six pre-‘44 films that hit six-week runs? I take it that the standard three-week run might have had somethng to do with signing up big-name performers for a contracted period of time. After '52, “Call Me Madam,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “The Robe,” “Carousel,” “The Kink and I,” “Bus Stop,” “Giant,” and “Anastasia” reached or surpassed that limit, no?
May 20,1938 the Music Hall was playing the all time classic “Robin Hood”, but the Roxy was playing the Ritz Brothers in “Kentucky Moonshine” which co-starred Tony Martin. On stage were the voice stars of Snow White, Adriana Casalotti who voiced Snow White and Harry Stockwell who voiced Prince Charming.
There are also shots of the Roxy’s interior at the Smithsonian in DC, The Museum of the City of New York, The New-York Historical Society and that movie theater archive in Chicago.
If my memory serves me, there are lots of interior shots of the Roxy at the Library at Lincoln Center in the Billy Rose Collection as well as in the Library of Congress. Also, I some some nice ones in my archives…but I don’t have a website so I have no way of posting them, alas.
SimonL:
I’ve also been looking for a few years….there seems to be a real shortage of good interior shots of the Roxy. The Theatre Historical Society has a painting of it on its website. They also put out a booklet on the Roxy several years ago which may have more. If not, they may have stuff in their archives.
I hope someone comes up with something. Thanks for asking the question.
Thanks for the opportunity to see the lobby of the Roxy as photographed and saved in the Getty Images Editorial. However I can’t find Warren’s web link for the Mayfair…can someone help? One more thing: The Roxy photo states it was taken at 12:00 am….I don’t recall the Roxy having midnight shows as did the Paramount, Capitol and Strand. The last stage show usually began at 10 pm (last feature at 11pm)on weekdays and 11pm on Saturday (last feature at midnight). there is also something unique in that there is scaffolding on the right side of rotunda. The crowd also seems to be in an awfully big hurry. On the far right you can also see the bottom step leading to the grand stairway. I remember the steps to the loge were beyond the grand stairway. Does anyone know of any other interior shots…other than in The Best Remaining Seats?
Bob Meyers for many years managed the Gemini for UA. He was truely the old school of theatre managers.
About ten years ago, i saw an ad, I think it was in Variety, wherever it was, a guy named Bob Meyer was offering his mimeographed recollections of his time at the Roxy. And here they are for your viewing pleasure:
An Usher’s Private Thoughts
“Going in now for the last complete stage and screen presentation starring Martha Stewart and the Blackburn Twins and Bette Davis in All About Eve. (One more hour to go. Boy, am I hungry.).
"Good evening, Miss Merman, your tickets are at the executive entrance, just down the street. There is an elevator to take you to your seat. ” (I hope we all go Chinese tonight. I can just taste HO-HO’s dim sum right now.)
“The last stage presentation has just started. The best remaining seats are in the rocking chair loge!” I’ve been out here almost four hours. I hope they assign me to the backstage elevator tomorrow.
“Your tickets are at the executive entrance, Mr. Winchell. You don’t want to walk down the street? Just one moment, I’ll have someone escort you past the ticket-taker.”
(There goes a real pain in the ass.)
“Going in now for the feature presentation only. There is a ten minute wait in the rotunda until the stage presentation ends. (I have to remember to give a quarter to the guy who went to the deli for my share of the bologna and cheese sandwiches and the nickel he loaned me for the Pepsi machine.)
“The last showing of All About Eve starring Bette Davis is about to begin. All remaining seats are in the balcony. Good evening Miss Ritter. Its only been on a few minutes. I’ll walk you in myself. I am just going off duty.” (What a sweetheart. She’s the best thing in the picture. I can’t wait to get out of this damn uniform.)
ODE TO MY AMA MATER
Four horses, five dogs and a monkey encircled
Twin midgets in a cakewalk finale
One horse fell in the pit, the show had to quit
And the monkey bit a dog in the alley
Liz Taylor was trampled at the premiere of Giant
Police came along with the press
It could have been staged, it was promptly front paged
There’s No Business Like Show Business had its stars at the opening
Among them, Johnnie Ray, a nice fella
When those soxers called bobby, tore off his clothes in the lobby
Someone quickly found him an umbrella
A black cape worn over and long-johns worn under our uniform was norm
During those long Winters we waited for Spring
A cardboard collar and shirt, all this stuff really hurt
These were a few of my least favorite things
Our answer to TV was CinemaScope, the entire industry turned out to see
Spyros Skouras lauded its inventor and what he had done
The Frenchman who gave us what promised to save us
Expressed something, but no one understood either one
Jacketless gentlemen and ladies in slacks
Were politely refused admission
One didn’t foxy about out the rules at the Roxy
They were upheld in the finest tradition.
ODE TO MY ALMA MATER IV (and final)
Any gratuities were strictly verboten
All of our services were done with a smile
Sometimes this infuriated those then
With reputations of a generous style
One such was Miss Sophie Tucker
“The Last of the Red Hot Mamas"
Who chased after me with the yell
of a trucker
In a mink coast and lounging pajamas
All I did was show her to a seat
She stuck five dollars into my jacket
I accepted it in quiet defeat
Giving up both the chase and the ticket
Mrs. Sylvia Sullivan, who was Ed’s wife,
Had reported some jewelry lost
The sentiment giving her much strife
She seemed less concerned of its cost
Remembering where she sat was no conquest
I combed the area with my flashlight
Sure enough, between the cushion and armrest
Were the gems which were causing her plight
I turned them in they called her directly
She asked my name and sent a messenger most zealous
Bringing a thank you note and check with him just for me
But the latter through earned was returned by a manager most jealous.
Well, in 1960 it finally came down
Someone had Gloria Swanson pose in a gown
LIFE took a picture, Bosley Crowther wrote a book
When I pass where it was, I still steal a look
And remembering the schooling I got
Make me realize that I owe a lot
To the Roxy which sooner than later
Usher me, to a life in the theater.
Jim and Warren—
I retrieved the photo (and yesterday’s photo of the Mayfair that Warren cited) by going to the “United States” page, then to the “Editorial” listings, then to the “Search All Editorial” thumbnail, and finally entered the photo number in the Search Box — a clumsy trail, but one that got me there. Thanks, Warren, for the posting of this valuable resource.
Warren, could you check that photo number again? I couldn’t find the image either by it or by going to the ‘movie theatre’ category. If there were some alpha elements to that photo number that may have been omitted, they apparently are necessary to find the image.
According to an article published by the China Mail[of Hong Kong] on 1st February,1934,We[the Alhambra Theatre of Hong Kong]have the benefit of RCA Victor “High Fidelity” sound apparatus similar to that installed in the luxurious Roxy theatre in New York.
Raymond Lo/22nd May,2005
Look at this classic Roxy shot, they put a lit sign above the marquee advertising a sneak preview. People got to see 2 films and the stage show.
This may not be the place to discuss this, but I too wondered about letterboxing, can anyone expain how the different aspect ratios are re-formatted for TV/DVD, and why the image size varies?
Re:CinemaScope 55 and it’s use for “The King & I”, I wonder if this is why when I watched it a few weeks ago on Fox Movie Channel, the letterboxing seemed a tad ridiculous. As much as I love the letter boxing format, for that movie, the movie image was more like a strip in the middle of the screen. The black portions on the top and the bottom were unusually prominent. Anyone agree?
Mr. Rankin: What was posted here was only a rough draft so some of the text and captions were neither edited nor rewritten yet, which would have been done had the book come to pass. It was done this way mainly for the designer, not for publication.
A number of “Stepale2"s earlier comments and proposed captions about the ROXY were taken word for word from the late Ben M. Hall’s "The Best Remaining Seats: The Story7 of the Golden Age of the Movie Palace” and I hope that they were fully credited in the proposed book, since they are not so credited here.
Here is some more from my Roxy chapter from my book on Times Square that did not come to pass: (I’m sorry for the length and misspellings…it was never edtited…and if it is too boring…just skip ahead.
Caption for photo of the Roxy’s CinemaScope screen:
CinemaScope was demonstrated at the Roxy in April 1953 for the first time. An invited audience of reporters, exhibitors and other members of the film industry saw clips from The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire, plus some aerial footage of New York’s skyline and the winter sports at Sun Valley.
Cinerama was big hit when it opened at the Broadway Theatre in 1952. But the process was expensive and impractical, requiring three projectors in three separate projection booths, (as well as three projectionists and a controlling engineer at each performance.) In addition, seats had be removed from the ochestra floor to accomodate the big curved screen and the three projection booths.
3 D was also popular in 1952, but it required special glasses that caused eye strain and headachs and the novelty soon wore off.
Caption for color poster for The Robe:
In the early 1950s, when television was beginning to keep audiences at home, it took spectacle and technical innovation to get them back to the theaters. The Robe provided both, breaking box office records at the Roxy, and everywhere else it played.
Promoted as “the modern miracle you see without glasses,” CinemaScope was the best publicized of the new processes, but was really just a poor man’s version of Cinerama. And it was not new, having been invented in 1927 by Henri Chretien in France. Chretien had been seen Abel Gance’s Napolian which was shot in TK a primitive three camera process. and he was inspired to come up with a similar, but more practical solution. Cretian’s anamorphic lens had been optioned by England’s Rank Organization, but after their option lapsed, it was was picked up by 20th Century Fox. CinemaScope required a special lens on the camera that compressed the image during filming. Another lens on the projector unsqueeze it when the film was shown on a wide, slightly curved, screen, two and a half times wide as it was high. The complete the CinemaScope experience, a four-track stereophonic sound could be installed Fox made the process available to the other studios, and they all used it for some of their productions, with the exception of Paramount and Republic. But many directors did not care for the proportions. Fritz Lang said it was only good for"snakes and funerals,“ and George Stevens thought it was would be best for "class photographs.” William Wyler had more serious reservations, “Nothing is out of the screen, and you can’t fill it,” he went on, “You either have a lot of empy space, or two people taking and a flock of others surrounding them who hav nothin to do with the scene. Your eyes wonder just out of curiosity."
The first CinemaScope feature to be released was Fox’s The Robe, which had its premiere at the Roxy on September 16, 1953. (How to Marry a Millionaire was finished first, but Fox decided that The Robe would be better as the first release.) Most of the studio’s productions were shot in the process until 1967, when In Like Flint marked the end of the process.. Fox as well as most of the other studios had long since switched to the Panavision lens, creating a similar effect, but with a sharper image with better depth of field..
Caption for ad for Carousel at the Roxy
CinemaScope doubled the width of the screen to an aspect ratio 2.55:1, but few theaters could accommodate screens with those proportions. CinemaScope 55, which had a 55.6 millimeter camera negative, exposing a negative twice as high and wide as 35mm CinemaScope, but it was used only twice, for Carousel and The King and I, both of which opened at the Roxy. Two years later, Fox abandoned CinemaScope 55 for their big pictures in favor of Todd-AO. the 70 mm process.
In a couple of years, after the novelty of CinemaScope wore off, stage shows returned to the Roxy. National Theaters, which took over Fox’s lease after the consent decree forced the studios to sell their theaters, appointed Robert C. Rothafel, the nephew of Roxy, as the manager in 1955. “We hope to stage shows every bit as lavish as those originated by my uncle,” the young Rothafel explained, “except we won’t try to put that number of people on stage or in the pit. Do you realize his shows included a chorus of 100 voices, 36 Roxyettes, a corps de ballet of 20, and in the pit there was a symphony orchestra of more than 100 men!” “Happy Holiday, Anywhere, U. S. A., ” was the title of his first show. It was well received by the critics and audiences seemed to enjoy it as well.
Former Olympic star, Sonya Kaye, appeared in a 45 minute ice show with a company of 39 singers and skaters, and a 24-piece orchestra with The Rains of Ranchipur on the screen. Fox’s TK, combined with stage shows played at the Roxy for the next three years until Windjammer, a kind of travelogue photographed in a new process called Cinemiracle was booked in 1958. There was no stage show and seating was cut in half. It was not a success and stage shows returned to the Roxy, when the 1958 film version of Damn Yankees. At that time the Roxy was sold to Rockefeller Center, but Robert Rothafel had formed a company to lease it back and was trying to run it himself, but with a new approach, described as “youthful and modern.” Too little and too late. The Gazebo was the last film and stage show combination. Then there some reissues, The Cain Mutiny with On the Waterfront.
The final night was uneventful. There were no stars, no ceromony, On March 29,1960, the last ticket was sold at 10:35 p.m., and then after a final showing of The Wind Cannot Read, the final movie to play at the theater, about 300 people filed silently into the night, most unaware that the Roxy was closing for good.
Three years later, after Pennsylvania Station was demolished, The New York Times printed an editorial which might also be applied the destruction of the Roxy,.
“…..we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build, but by those we have destroyed.”
Caption: Eliot Elisofon photographed Gloria Swanson in the ruins of what had been the Roxy’s rotunda. This 1960 photograph was the inspiration (“rubble in the daylight”) for producer/director Hal Prince’s staging concept for Follies (1971), the Stephen Sondheim/James Goldman musical.
One can still get a glimpse of the Roxy in the movie The Naked City (1948), which had several sequences shot in the rotunda.
I conducted the interview below which was to be included in my Roxy chapter…if anyone is interested….
Confessions of a Gae Foster Roxyette:
My father had reared me with the idea that all women should be financially independent. There weren’t many careers a woman could have in the 1920s, so I decided I would be a dancer. I always wanted to go to New York, but I really never had aspirations to be a star. “Don’t go to New York,” my dancing teacher warned, “You can’t even BUY a job.” The year was 1931—it was the Depression.
Scared, I went anyway. My mother went with me. It took about four months of day-long looking, exchanging information—networking, I think they call it now—going to “calls,” etc. I finally landed a job—it was a 33-week tour that played presentation houses across the country and into Canada and was produced by Leon Leonidoff, one of the producers at the Roxy Theater. We returned in September 1932 and I then worked with a vaudeville act that was playing out-of-the-way places like Canarsie in Brooklyn.
I was literally down to my last nickel when one of the girls I was rehearsing with (there were rehearsal jobs for things that never opened) told me about a call for dancers at the Roxy—actually the call was for only one dancer—and it came down to the two of us; when they called up the line, between shows, and tried to place us, she did not fit anywhere, so I got the job.
After two or three days of rehearsal, I started working at the Roxy on Christmas week 1932. That lasted for one month—and I was out. The Roxy had changed regimes—Mary Read who was the producer—she was one of the original Tiller girls and John Tiller’s favorite dancer
—Tiller was the one who invented precision dancing—then she was out and Fanchon and Marco took over. I tried out again, and again I was chosen.
Our daily life was: on stage, dressed in rehearsal clothes and on our marks—we each had a number—at nine a.m. Thirty seconds late and you were given a penalty: one week out without pay. Since the pay at the beginning was only $27.50—Fanchon and Marco took out their 35 per cent agent fees—that made it $26.13, which was a lot more then but wasn’t very much. After the NRA took effect, our “take” was $30.
We would rehearse until eleven; the house opened at 11 a.m. There were also costume fittings, or if things hadn’t gone well on stage, we would go up to the rehearsal room on the fifth floor. Then lunch, out, at Hanson’s Drug Store at Seventh Avenue and 51st Street. We would come back, put on our makeup—the first show was generally between 1:00 and 1:30 and lasted for 35 or 40 minutes. We usually did three numbers and then we would rehearse some more. We would do another show and at about five, go to dinner and then back to do the dinner show; we rehearsed some more, for about an hour and a half, and then we did ANOTHER show. We were free between 10:30 and 11:00—makeup off, in street clothes, and home by 11:30. I usually ate a “night” lunch and was in bed between 1:30 and 2:00. We ate four meals a day.
We did not have much social life. The theater was your life. There was no time for outside friends, and there were no “stage door Johnnies” at the Roxy Theater. If anyone was there, it was someone who knew one of the girls, not someone who was hoping to meet one. We had no time for the high life. If you tried night-clubbing for a couple of hours after all those shows, you wouldn’t be there the next morning.
Sometimes on Friday nights, to relax after our long opening day, we went to where the good shows were, the MGM pictures over at the Capitol Theater. They had midnight shows and we would be transported into another world by watching Clark Cable and Joan Crawford. Later, we worked for five or six weeks and then got five days free, but you would practically lose touch with all of your friends. I think that was about the deadliest part of working at the Roxy: confinement to one life and to one group of people, week after week, month after month, year after year. It took a lot out of you.
But it was glamorous in a way, because our costumes were so very beautiful. Bonnie Cashin was our designer; she later became quite a famous fashion designer. And it was such fun to get into them. When the lights come on and the music started playing—yes, there was something about it that got you. To me, it was the same thing as a college education: It prepared you for living. It was a great discipline.
I hadn’t been in it very long, perhaps two years, when I knew that the theater was not to be my life’s work. In 1938, I went to Columbia University for night courses in journalism and to the Traphagen School of Fashion to study fashion journalism. I had been married in 1937 to a civil engineer who went off to exotic places around the world. I realized that if I wanted to be with him, I could write anywhere—even where I could not dance—so I became a writer.
In 1976, I was visiting my friend Dorothy Dunlop in New York. We had danced together at the Roxy when she was known as “Orchid”; then she was head of the workroom in the Roxy’s wardrobe department. We had gone to church one Sunday morning and afterwards, walking down Seventh Avenue, went into a pancake place for brunch. As we were chatting away, we realized we were sitting on the spot where the Roxy’s lobby had been—a fitting place for our reunion.
Betty O'Neal Gibony worked at the Roxy until 1939 when she became a writer. In 1945 she moved to New Castle, Indiana, where she still lives.