Rivoli Theatre
1620 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
1620 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
50 people
favorited this theater
Showing 926 - 950 of 1,004 comments
I’m too young to remember the classic roadshows like “My Fair Lady” and such but my Mother remembered them fondly. She said they were BIG deals where people would dress up and such. It was like going to see a Broadway show. My Mother and Father saw “My Fair Lady”, “The Sound of Music” and “Cleopatra” roadshows in Manhattan and they talked about the experience.
And yes, I believe during intermission, they said that you’d mill around, talk, smoke, etc. and then go back in for the second showing.
For “Cleopatra”, there were two(!) Intermissions. The whole thing took almost five hours to get through.
Imagine nowadays dressing up to see a movie!
Speaking of which for those of you going to Times Square movie houses during the roadshow era was it possible to “mingle” with the audience at intermission and “second half” a film?
Well, the intermission was where I realized how the theaters were setup. We saw “Proof” as the Walter Kerr and at intermission, everyone simply got up and walked out of the exit doors. It was a beautiful summer night. You could stand in the street and look right onto the stage. Weird and funny at the same time. Kind of surreal.
It’s also very exciting to have the auditorium and the stage right next to the sidewalk. The synergy! Not to mention the intermissions!
(but we won’t talk about that.)
For me, as a kid during the 70’s, waiting on line to see a movie was common. I actually used to love it because it created this great sense of anticipation. I remember waiting on line to see “Mary Poppins” and how the line got bigger, and bigger and bigger to the point that I realized I was about to see something extraordinary.
And it created buzz to see people waiting on line also.
RE: the size of Times Square Theaters…YES I totally agree with you about the size of some of the lobbies. The Broadway theaters are especially remarkable in how they use the space. I’m always amazed at how efficient they are with the exit doors right off the auditorium and no fancy lobby. They are elaborately decorated but with very little lobby space. Like the Walter Kerr is like that. I saw “Barnum” years ago at the St. James and I marvelled at how when it was over, the doors out were directly behind the last row of the orchestra. They opened and within a matter of five minutes, the theater was empty.
Well I remember back in the early ‘70s when Times Square theaters would create lines even if a theater wasn’t sold out just to create interest. I remember going to the Music Hall to see the revival Of Mary Poppins in '73 and people being told that general admission was sold out and they had to buy reserved seats.
Well no wonder, when I went in I found that the third mezzanine was closed!
Since when did it happen in New York that people waiting in line on a sidewalk to see a movie became a problem?
Thanks to Koch, Giuliani and Bloomberg New York becomes less New York with every passing minute.
In the 1980s, the New York City Council passed a law requiring all newly-constructed theatres to incorporate a certain amount of lobby holding space for every seat in the house in order to prevent ticket holders lines out front on the sidewalk. I seem to remember a figure of 1.5 sq. ft. per seat, but i’m not positive. The first theatre in Manhattan to be built to the new standards was Loews 84th Street.
I’m not sure if I ever got to see anything at the Rivoli, but for some reason or another this theater held a special spot in my movie going imagination ever since I first became aware of it as a grade schooler in the the late 1950s.
1) Maybe it was because of its strangely attractive (to me) clash between the fanciful and exuberant “Greek” facade and the sleek 50’s modern / “googie” (?) lobby and marquee? (I think the underside of its marquee had something similar to the “cheeseholes” that were a Morris Lapidus (Miami Fontainbleau) trademark.) And maybe it was because of this tastefully tasteless clash in design that the theater LOOKED (at least to me) the way a very glamorous 1950s “hard ticket” theater in Times Sq. SHOULD look?
(Generally speaking, I don’t think this kind of clash is good, but it did seem to work here. Perhaps it’s because the Rivoli was a theater, and theaters are “born” to be flashy and “incorrect”?)
2) Maybe another reason it held such a prominant spot in my imagination is because for some reason I had trouble keeping it’s name straight. I thought it had the “funny,” but at the same time distinctive and “high toned,” name: the “Ravioli” Theater. (To my child’s ear the “Loew’s State” [“Ben Hur,” “King of King’s,”(?) “Lawrence of Arabia”(?)] and — most of all — the “Criterion” [“Sleeping Beauty] were also very impressive sounding names.)
3) But more significantly, this theater probably loomed large in my imagination because the “Ravioli Theater” frequently did seem to be the home of the “biggest” and “best” movies of the time.
a) I remember walking by one time when “West Side Story” was letting out and observing a young woman sobbing onto the shoulder of her date and half-kiddingly and half-seriously saying, “Never take me to a movie like that again.”
b) I was so-o-o impressed when “Cleopatra” played there and greatly enjoyed the fortuitous circumstance that in New York City the much talked about “Cleopatra” was playing in a theater with a facade vaguely appropriate to the period of the movie.
In it’s waning days I may have actually seen a movie at the “Ravioli.” If so, I have a vague memory of being surprised (and disappointed) at the design of the inside of the theater — it being a much stodgier design that that of the facade or the marquee. (But I’m not sure if this is a reliable memory; it may be just my reaction from seeing photos of the original interior.)
Re: the size of the plot of land
One thing I’ve noticed about theaters in Times Square (“legitimate” theaters as well as movie theaters) is how efficiently they use their very expensive land. One way in which they do this is to have very small — sometimes near non-existent — lobbies. (Which is what I believe the Rivoli had.) (Another is to build a hotel or office building over a portion of the lobby like, respectively, the Roxy and Radio City Music Hall.)
What a theater with a near non-existent lobby does, in essence, is to temporarily “seize” the sidewalk outside the theater and use it as a temporary lobby. It “externalizes” the expense of running the theater. (You need a lobby?; you put it on someone else’s property.)
In the early days of the Rivoli, I don’t think this was a problem for anyone. And as a roadshow house, with people arriving with tickets in hand, I suppose this wasn’t much of a problem later on either.
But today municipal authorities tend to frown on this “externalization” of costs. They’re likely, I believe, to require a certain amount of holding space for a movie theater, in order for it to be built.
However, as I observe the way Broadway / Times Sq. has changed over the years (especially with regard to it “legitimate” theaters), I’m beginning to think that the “internalization” of costs (having theaters build larger lobbies) is not the unqualified “good” that people seem to believe it to be.
Part of the good livliness of “old” Broadway used to be people spilling out into the street, beneath the marquee, at intermission time. Not only does such a spillover intertwine a theater more intimately with the sidewalks around it, lending life to the streets, but patrons are also more likely to go next door for a drink, etc. during intermission — thus, making the surrounding streets, at least for certain times of the day, one big theater lobby!
This is probably more true for “legitimate” theaters, but the Rivoli may be one of the few Times Sq. movie theaters for which this might also have been true.
I agree with much of what was said about how the “dinosaur” movie palaces were inevitably doomed by changing movies and movie going habits (e.g., DRIVING — instead of taking the subway — to multiplexes at malls in the suburbs). And although I don’t think every movie palace, or movie palace facade, should have been saved, I do think that alternative uses for the theaters and facades were often possible and that some of them were too hastily demolished.
I also think that the owners of the Rivoli appear to have shamefully worked the system to their advantage and to the public’s disadvantage.
Also I agree that the big black building that replaced it is really awful — one of the most repellent skyscraper ever built in New York City. The black skin of the building, plus the sloping (slight irredescent) setbacks, somehow evoke reptilian scales. And it’s the only skyscraper I can think of that seems to have a prominent smokestake as part of the design. (And ususually I like the work of the architects, who I believe were Roche and Dinkeloo — designers of the Ford Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art additions, etc.)
The Criterion was the only theater I believe to sell the seats closest to screen as the cheapest sits in the house during roadshow engagements.
Hey, Warren. Can you verify the following? In the 10/16/55 issue of “Variety” in the “grosses” section there was a mention that re Rivoli “the first three rows downstairs removed starting with last Saturday matinee since management figured these too close to screen"
Also, in the 11/2/55 issue re Rivoli "House has installed 31 extra seats in balcony to make capacity 1,545.”
CConnolly, yep it was there and it was grand. I wish I could help you more, but there were a series of photos taken of the todd-ao installation in ‘55 in “boxoffice” or “motion picture exhibitor” magazines. There are (is) photo(s) of the Rivoli interior online. You may have to go to that 70mm Scandavian site. Sorry, i dont remember the exact url, but, search for something like “in 70mm” and there is (was) a photo of the Riv’s interior with a gigantic curtain that apparently was used only during “Oklahoma.”
CConnolly
The balcony was VERY steep here.
I know this subject has been posted above by Warren but everyday I pass by 750 7th Ave where The Rivoli once stood and puzzle as to how such a big theater sat on such a tiny piece of property. The balcony alone must’ve been pretty steep. It’s hard to conceive of this space without any photos of the interior. I haven’t been able to find any on the internet or anything…
Thank you for clearing that up. I believe the writer of a previous post claims he saw SOM there on a flat screen which didn’t nake sense to me. In the early 70’s a typical idiot exec booked the revival of SOM instead of into the Rivoli into that small screened huge bunker the National. So I never got to see it there though in the 70’s they booked the 70mm GOTW a couple of times.
Replying to Vincent’s question of 11/29…yes, West Side Story, Cleopatra, and Sound of Music were shown on the 60-some foot curved screen. The D-150 installation, larger screen, same curve, came about in the mid-sixties. The smaller, less curved silvered screen was placed in front of the curtains and first used for the 3-d film “Dynasty.”
Another film to see for the way Times Square looked in the early 50’s is Kubrick’s Killer’s Kiss. There is a nice sequence that takes place in times square at night, and now with dvd you can get nice clear images when you pause and also the end sequence takes place in the late great Penn Station. What is wrong with New York, how could we have lost some much in such a short period of time. We have the worst architecture in the world and no sense of our historical past. For sure these great theatres could have been saved and used. I’m just glad that I had the chance to see all these great theatres even though I was pretty young and my memories of the interiors are vague at best.
The deluxe edition of Cleopatra has a disc of bonus material that shows the NY premiere of the film at the Rivoli. We will never again see a theatre so adorned on it’s exterior. There was even a vertical spelling out the name Cleopatra.
“Times Square Style†also provides a rare color photo of a stage show at the Roxy, on page 35, upper right, with sixteen Roxyettes balancing themselves on beach balls, while a jazz band (Louis Armstrong?) plays behind them; as a kid, I had a post-card of that image, which identified it as a Roxy performance.
Over the summer, I happened to see “Sweet Smell of Success”. Great movie…enjoyed it a lot and was glad to finally see it.
Anyway…what made the movie sensational (and dated in a great way) was the superb on location filming. I mean, this movie seemed to have been shot entirely in midtown NY locations. J.J. Hunsecker’s office/apartment is located in the Brill Building which is located right across the street from The Rivoli. When I saw this movie, the thing that struck me was WOW! Look at all the theater marquees! When I saw the movie, I did not know about this website. I think that if you watch this movie, you’ll be able to get at least a glimpse of these theaters. I can’t wait to see it again so I can pay better attention.
So were West Side Story, Cleopatra, and The Sound of Music presented on the larger curved screen and not on a flat screen which previous postings seem to imply?
A little research in the trades in 1952 and 1953 will reveal that the Rivoli was sought after at one time as a home for Cinerama by the early Cinerama Productions/Cinerama Inc. teams, and also by 20th Century Fox which wanted to show its CinemaScope at both a large house (Roxy) as well as a smaller one.
There was no flat screen installed at the Rivoli between the Todd-AO and D-150 engagements.
I posted this to the rec.arts.movies.tech group years ago, but I was at one time inside the Rivoli booth after D-150 had been launched, and asked the young projectionist why the full screen with the masking fully pulled up and back was not used. His reply; “The screen is too big.” I wanted to strangle him right there on the spot.
Touchstone is still an active Disney division, Robert; they did, however, close up Hollywood Pictures a few years ago.
I always thought the Music Hall would have been perfect for Disney. I don’t know what happened after the Lion King but they certainly went their separate ways. Imagine Disney stage shows with great special effects and new Disney films along with revivals of Pinocchio, Bambi, Lady and the Tramp(in cinemascope on that glorious block length screen and Sleeping Beauty in 70mm.)
I once had a color photo of the finale of the Disney Easter show that played with Moon Pilot in ‘62. It looked great.
But this all makes too much sense so why would anybody even consider it?
I always wondered why Disney did not try to have a film and stage outlet in New York like the El Capitan. The Demille is available would make a great house to open all the Buena Vista product in. By the way did Disney stop using the Touchstone logo?
All good points. Surely, nobody expects (though it would be a nice fantasy) that EVERY great movie palace be saved, from the 42nd Street grindhouses all the way up to the Roxy, but it is really a total shame that not ONE of the big old theaters was saved. Would there be a true commercial need for all of them, Loew’s State, Paramount, Rivoli, Strand, Roxy? Probably not, but if even only one or two of them remained, I am sure that they would find some good use or another. If LA can support so many one screen ‘premiere’ houses, is it unreasonable to think NYC could have one or two? If Disney can operate the El Capitan to premiere its product, wouldn’t Paramount consider using the NY Paramount to do the same, if it still existed? Obviously there are big differences in the market, but it seems that NYC could support one or two.