Roxy Theatre
153 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
153 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
83 people
favorited this theater
Showing 926 - 950 of 1,225 comments
To answer a question from Vincent several weeks ago, regarding the PLAZA in Sydney with its 91 ft CINERAMA screen: built in 1933 in Spanish galleon style it was very ornate inside and out and a n original single level design; held 1500 seats and showed RKO and FOX action pix. This included Republic who released thru FOX here, so pix like JOHNNY GUITAR or SLIGHTLY SCARLETT, or THE BLACK ROSE etc. In 1953 cinemascope was installed in the 2200 seat Regent opposite (built 1928) with THE ROBE opening there, and simultaneously in the Plaza with HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE. The theatres were owned by Fox so luxury fitouts and previews and premieres were held to these two showcases. The Plaza then became the home of luxury musicals playing THE KING AND I, CAROUSEL etc (but not SOUTH PACIFIC, SOUND OF MUSIC or CLEOPATRA which went to the revamped Mayfair nearby) The proscenium at the Plaza was so big that a 55 ft c'scope fitted within it. TV did not happen in Australia until September 1956 so the mindset was that if the cinemas were renovated and made sensational the TV intro would be less painful if the public were dazzled by the cinemas' overwhelming quality. Practically every cinema, city or suburban underwent luxury renovations for the intro of Cinemascope in 1954. However, by early 1957 the industry was clearly in trouble and in 1958 hundreds of cinemas with massive luxury renovations were closed and most immediately bulldozed. Most in the suburbs became petrol stations or supermarkets. The city theatres decided to again re vamp and the Plaza became a CINERAMA house in 1958 opening with THIS IS CINERAMA. The screen was wall to wall, strips of plastic, and was hat shaped, curving inwards into what was the old proscenium space and flattening out to the very edges of each wall. It was an absolute monster screen. Immediately hugely successful and with the most expensive ticket price ever: 19 shillings and 6pence: about $2 Australian or about $2.70 USD. It worked like IMAX does today and the Plaza settled in for a 15 year run of CINERAMA pix: Each usually ran about a year. I personally saw THIS IS CINEMRAMA, CINERAMA HOLIDAY, SOUTH SEAS ADVENTURE, WINDJAMMER, HOW THE WEST WAS WON, these were with the 3 projectors. MAD MAD MAD WORLD was the cimerama single strip and the screen was about 15% smaller. However, the 70mm was about the same size, so when it swapped between the various screen sizes and processes, almost all the screen was always used. If the screen wasn’t visually stupendous enough, the endless red curtain had thousands of small yellow spots! Mid 60s saw HALLELUAH TRAIL, BATTLE OF THE BULGE, GRAND PRIX, 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY, reissues of WEST SIDE STORY, SAND PEBBLES, and other mainstream 70mm pix. They used to show the advertising on a small screen then the trailers on a bigger size and to gasps from the audience the masking went out and out and up and up as the logo and opening filled your vision. It was just sensational. Ticket prices hit $3 in 1973 and it reverted to alot of ordinary films and played titles like ALL THIS AND WORLD WAR 2, OKLAHOMA CRUDE, TAXI DRIVER, and occasionally a 70mm release PAPILLON, TOWERING INFERNO and LUCKY LADY…or a 70mm reissue like THE PROFESSIONALS, but alot of 2 weekers in small widescreen 1.85/1: RED SUN, or CARRIE. Fox used it alot to show industry special events of to impress critics with a dud. By then the seating was 1117. Colour TV was introduced here in 1975 and just wrecked every cinema in the country. Business was so bad everywhere for 3 years that we lost almost every luxury cinema, city and suburbs. In 1976 the horrible HOYTS 7 cinema complex was built almost opposite and in one infamous single week in early 1977 this company closed 11 Sydney cinemas on the one night. In 1976 there was a CINERAMA and 70mm festival for several weeks which (secretly) hinted at the closure of this georgeous palace. Most of the above titles got one last airing. The Plaza had a tragic end showing MR BILLION on its smallest sized screen. It became a roller disco then McDonalds hamburgers, part of which it is today. The entire auditorium was lost and just the foyer survives, smelling of Big Macs. It is still mourned today, along with the Regent opposite, demolished in a scandal in 1988 that still gets media airplay today.
That’s interesting information, BoxOfficeBill, about the last draping of the ROXY, and I, for one, have never seen a photo of that era you mention as being in Dec. of ‘52. Since it has not been possible to post photos here for years now, perhaps you can scan that photo in the Theatre Catalog you mention and submit it to Cinema Tour at '’ and maybe that way we can see it there through a link later posted here.
That’s interesting information, BoxOfficeBill, about the last draping of the ROXY, and I, for one, have never seen a photo of that era you mention as being in Dec. of ‘52. Since it has not been possible to post photos here for years now, perhaps you can scan that photo in the Theatre Catalog you mention and submit it to Cinema Tour at '’ and maybe that way we can see it there through a link later posted here.
Yes, and there’s a phoyo of the Dazian treatment in Marquee 2.3 (1979): page 16. The caption reads: “This is the Roxy? Well, yes. We couldn’t bring ourselves to include this photo in the special Roxy issue [Marquee 2.1 (1979)]. However, since several inquiries were made as to just what did the Roxy look like when it got the drape treatment by 20th Century-Fox in 1937, we now share the horrors with you. And now you know. Ben Hall always referred to it as ‘Mae West’s boudoir.’ Which is about as good a description as any. This photo was made during the run of ‘Wilson’ in 1944, and that is Fred Waring and his orchestra on stage. [Photo from the Bill Savoy Collection].”
The treatment came down during the remodelling for Ice Colorama in Dec. ‘52, and up went a permanent golden contour-curtain arrangement with sixteen swags (two more than at RCMH)that completely covered the Spanish retablo. Additional floor-length aquamarine drapery covered the rest of the proscenium up to the choral staircases. The only photo I know of appears in Theatre Catalog (1954), p. 212.
Now was Manhattan during the middle of the Twentieth Century the greatest place in the history of the world or what.
Vincent— a month or so ago you mentioned restaurants near the Roxy as an important part of the neighborhood and of the ambience associated with attending the show. You specifically mentioned Ho-Ho’s Chinese Restaurant. Thanks for that note. In the late ‘50s and early '60s, my budget was leaner than my waistline, but I do recall some gustatory experiences.
Yes, Ho-Ho occupied the second floor between 6 and 7 Aves on W 50: its slogan was “After the show, dine at Ho-Ho.†But the place for me was the Automat on the same block (twenty-five cents for macaroni and beans; five cents for coffee: I could sometimes swing that). A bee-line from the Roxy or RCMH took you to either.
Gala occasions and a flush wallet brought a choice of French or Italian on the north side of W 49 between 6th and 7th. The former (help! I forgot the name! Hehâ€"wait: it was Le Champlain!), a big, bustling, two-level basement with travel posters on the walls, offered a $2.75 prix fixe of four courses from a crowded menu (hors d’oeuvre; entrée; salad; and cheese or dessert), with optional beaujolais at 25 cents per glass, served on checkered tablecloths.
For the same price, its white-linen, low-lit Italian competitor a few doors down the block, Louis (not Luigi), offered three courses with a side of spaghetti (antipasto or soup; secondo piatto; cheese and fruit or dessert; chianti at 25 cents per). And then there was the sublime Luigino on W 48, diagonally across from the Cort Theater, offering a la carte spaghetti for 95 cents and meat or fish for $1.25, on granite tables in wooden booths set against mirror-lined walls. Opera fans livened the crowd there around midnight, after performances at the old Met or City Center. Yum.
To CC- I think Two for the Road only played 3 weeks which for an Audrey Hepburn picture in the spring was a major disaster. Donen didn’t even want it there(I got to meet him once and he said it was his favorite of his non musical films.) The Hall NY audience didn’t like it and the tourists for some reason were not interested in a salute to Canada. So then Barefoot in the Park comes in and blows everything out of the water. Another cashier told me she started at the Hall during this engagement and could not believe how people just kept coming. The work was nonstop.
Vito: you’re right about today’s Fox fanfare. It doesn’t have the impact of the original orchestration we heard in, say, “The King and I” (1956), which was perfect. I can’t figure out why Fox made changes and so-called improvements in something that never needed any. Maybe some future Fox exec will change it back again someday.
Re: the interesting link posted by lostmemory (showing four postcards from the Roxy):
I found the third and fourth postcards to be especially interesting. I liked the third because it was an un-retouched photo — so many postcards from that era seem to be half photo and half painting. This third postcard also showed a very unusual and interesting close-up view of the theater. The fourth postcard was interesting and “sad” because it shows that already in the mid-1940s they were fooling around with the original interior design in order to “modernize” it.
Re: Change, Times Sq. and the Movie Palace
To clarify my original posts, I was talking about a “golden era” followed by a very sudden change (kind of like the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs), which is what seems to me to be the story of the movie palace (doing well one year, and then there’s a fast decline during a relatively short period — then demolition!). In terms of the other comparisons mentioned, things are going along just “chipper” then all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, “pow!” — there’s TV (cutting short the reign of radio); there are jet planes (cutting short the reign of the trans-Atlantic ocean liner); there are cassettes (cutting short the reign of vinyl); there are luxury boxes (cutting short the reign of arenas like Continental Airlines); etc.
For me, the interesting point is that when people talk about movie palaces they seem to forget that there are other, similar examples that can help put the decine of movie palaces into a larger perspective.
The sudden change (within only one or three years) of “NoHo” (catalyst: Tower Records?) and the Grand Concourse (catalyst: Co-Op City?) also seem to be examples of this pattern.
However, from the little I know of Hempstead, it seems to me whatever significant changes occurred, happened over a longer period of time (apparently, as has been pointed out, the change occurred over a twenty year period). And Harlem doesn’t seem to be a good example of sudden change either because it has always had some very nice areas (Sugar Hill and Strivers Row, etc.) and even today there are plenty and plenty of places that still have not been revitalized. So the change in Harlem 1) hasn’t really been all that dramatic (once one discounts wishful thinking and media hype) and 2) it hasn’t really happened all that suddenly either (or because of some particular catalyst).
In terms of Times Sq., while there were indeed downward changes in the late 1960s, they really weren’t all that sudden or dramatic — the area was still pretty bad before 1968, and had been going steadily downhill for nearly forty years! Before 1968, Times Sq. was generally thought of as a center of the sex trade, a place that was run down, dirty and dangerous and after 1968 it was still seen that way — it was only a change of degree, not of kind. But the difference between pre-Depression Times Sq. and post-Depression Times Sq. appears to have been a dramatic change in kind — and in a relatively brief period too (catalyst: the Great Depression). (Illustration: in terms of all kinds of stage shows being produced, I think in the year just before the Depression there were some incredible number of new shows produced that year — something like 225. After the Depression it dropped to something like 25! Sorry, don’t have the reference handy, and I think it refers to more than just Broadway plays and musicals.)
I disagree with the idea that the opening of a carnival like show and the closing of a lobster palace illustrates the decline of the Times Sq. area in 1927. Rather, it seems to me that it is an illustration of how the area was maturing and diversifying. In pre-depression years, like 1927, the area was actually booming — millions upon millions of dollars were still being invested in the area (including the millions spent on the brand new wonder of the world — the Roxy!). Yes, one lobster palace at one location might have closed, but very expensive restaurants were still springing up all over the area. So this is not, in my opinion, necessarily an illustration of decline, but rather an illustration of diversification and maturation.
Also have to disagree that the “new” Times Sq. (post re-vitalization) and the “old” Times Sq. (1920s, 1930s, etc.) are as different in the ways that many critics make them out to be. While I do believe they are differences, I don’t believe it is because there was more to do in the old Times Sq. People seem to forget that the old Times Sq. had office buildings, chain restaurants and tourist attractions too. (Even the movie palaces were part of chains!)
Warren— the way accountants juggle figures nowadays, nothing means anything. 15% seems so modest. Our current national president, unelected until last Nov., is a master at the art. But all of you in NYC know that already. The rest of us, as we prepare our tax returns, are discovering the implications. At the old Roxy, the audience spoke with its feet: we either entered the gates, or we didn’t. Some of us coughed up a few quarters for the betterment of all.
The Hall pulled “Two for the Road” with Audrey Hepburn fast? Why? Was it too radical for the time? Too adult?
It’s not a bad movie at all. VERY sixties, yes.
More to the point, did some theaters (and studios)lie about the groses and the tickets sold to some of the roadshow engagements? I can’t imaging crapola roadshows like “Song of Norway” doing very well.
But this type of trickery is done today. The studios point out what a “winner” of a year they had this year with record grosses. BUT…a very big point that is not clearly mentioned is the fact that the actual NUMBER of tickets is down every single year. They just keep upping the cost of the movie tickets. In NYC, it’s now $10. And for the garbage they’re putting out? Pitiful.
In defense of the Odd Couple’s run even if Paramount were papering the 1rst Mezz(3,000 tickets a day?)you don’t think the Music Hall knew what was going on? The Music Hall had it’s own tricks. And then what about the additional 5,000 seats a perf? Did it keep the third Mezz permanently closed except at holiday time? Was then the Music Hall also lying to Variety about the grosses? (Though I think that sometimes everybody did. Especially for roadshows playing to empty houses.) But the people at Variety had been to the Rodeo a few times themselves. And why would years later a manager and cashier lie to me about the crowds a film brought in? There was really no reason for it.
I’m sure what Paramount was doing had been done for years by all the studios. What probably counted most were the general admission sales concerning a films longevity. Otherwise you would have had Two For the Road with a 14 week engagement. But boy the Hall pulled that one fast.
CC I probably made that comment about Times Square Christmas ‘68 somewhere. It was dazzling. Then by autumn '70 you could take a home movie of the place and have it come out Taxi Driver.
Benjamin: go to virtually anywhere in the world and you will see the marked changes that can happen seemingly overnight.
Hempstead LI, in just 20 years (say 1955 to 1975), went from a cute-as-hell village with great shopping, theaters, nightlife etc. to an out and out slum.
Now days, take Harlem. In 1995, a brownstone could be purchased for only $85,000. Today the same one is worth over $300,000. There was an article in the NY Times about this.
Areas are always changing. Today’s slum is tomorrow’s HOT real estate. And vice versa.
As far as Times Square is concerned, I read the book “The Devil’s Playground” which is all about Times Square. The author there argues that Times Square’s slow, downward spiral began around 1927 when the first carnival like show opened (including a flea circus!) whcih displaced one of the early, upscale lobster houses. Yes, the Great Depression really kicked off it’s decline with the burlesque houses.
Today, to me, Times Square has redefined itself yet again. It’s really nothing more now that a glorified, mythic “downtown” with a lot of office buildings that empty out at 5:00 PM. The foot traffic is really just a bunch of tourists looking to see Times Square. But aside from the Broadway theaters and the chain restaurants, technically speaking, there’s really not much to DO there now.
Many friends and I have had long conversations about what has happened to the movie palaces. Certainly there are many more options for entertainment today than we had a few years back, the cost of a movie ticket has skyrocketed, real estate is to expensive to support a single screen theatre, and most plexs have ample free parking as opposed to the local palace which may depend on street parking. With all due respect to CConnolly’s remarks about collectivly watching a movie, many people hate going to the movies due to todays audience members who seem to have lost respect for others by talking out load, receiving cell phone calls etc.In addition, there are simply
to many screens. Movie palaces need exclusive engagements to fill all those seats. It’s a problem with many parts, but sadly the bottom line, of course, is movie palaces are gone forever
Somewhere on this site, someone wrote how great Times Square was in 1968, clean, bright, lots of things to do and then JUST TWO YEARS LATER…it was seedy (wish I could remember where this was written.)
I would have to disagree on Times Sq. though. While it is true that it did change signficantly at the end of the 1960s, it is a tremendous stretch to say that it was clean, bright, etc. before that. Most historians say that Times Sq. first developed a seedy, raffish reputation during the depression and just never recovered. The downward spiral just seemed to intensify in the late 1960s (with the downward spiral of the rest of NYC).
Better examples of severe sudden change might be the change in the Grand Concourse in the late 1960s (so many people describe double parked moving vans with many people moving to the enormous, just being finished Co-Op City.
Another remarkable fast change is the area around the Tower Records I just mentioned. I couldn’t believe my eyes. One summer you could go there on a Sunday and the streets would be completed deserted. It seemed like the next year, or maybe two years at most, the place was significantly different — with lots and lots of stores and shoppers!
Vito wrote: “In fact, Mr.Newman did not write the CinemaScope extension until a few months later. Does anyone remember which film was the first to present the Fox Fanfare with the CinemaScope extension? Come on now Warren, I know you know the answer to this one.”
OK Vito……..I can’t wait for Warren to reply. The suspense is killing me.
Was the first Fox fanfare with the extension “River of No Return”? And was it written by Alfred Newman or Lionel Newman?
Benjamin & Vito: I think this site had some technical problems around 3:30 PM, EST. I could not get onto the site at all for about 5 minutes.
Benjamin: I agree with you totally that the end of The Roxy and other great movie palaces was simply due to the rapid almost mind bogglingly quick change in audience preferences and such. Somewhere on this site, someone wrote how great Times Square was in 1968, clean, bright, lots of things to do and then JUST TWO YEARS LATER…it was seedy (wish I could remember where this was written.)
Audiences tastes are so fickle. They change slowly as a new medium comes along but if it’s a medium, like TV, that feels inevitable, the medium it’s replacing (and all its support like the movie palaces) are doomed.
Your example about LP’s, the cassettes (and don’t forget 8 track!) and CD’s is well taken. Just a mere 5 years ago, a car with a CD player was considered top of the line, radical! Now you know what a car has to have (audio wise) to be considered “radical”? An MP3 player! Walkmans are sooooooooooo out. They’re antiques. The IPODS (MP3 players) are the HOT thing now.
I understand that in the next five years, cell phones will be able to receive satellite TV!!!
So, you could say what does this have to do with The Roxy? Everything. The Roxy and other movie palaces were victims of the ever changing entertainment options.
What I find truly sad and is something that I miss from my childhood is the warm, fuzzy, comforting feeling I got from being in a large, single screen movie house COLLECTIVELY watching a great film with a bunch of “strangers”. Now everyone watches what they want independently with little or no shared interaction.
Warren— no shame: that’s how business was done in those days. Both my mom and my wife’s mom were “comparison shoppers,” mine for Best and Co., hers for Macy’s. Their jobs were to shop ‘till they dropped at other dept. stores, then report back to their managers about what the competition was doing. Occasionally they were supposed to gush exuberantly about inferior products in hopes that rival stores would stock up on those products and infuriate their regular customers.
Sorry about the triple posts guys, not quite I know what happened.
I find the short time span between great business at the Roxy to its demolition to be interesting also. This general phenomenon of “high point” then extinction has fascinated me for years now — and the time spans just seem to be getting shorter and shorter!
It first occurred to me with reference to ocean liners. The ocean liners getting bigger, better and faster, then “pouf” — the development of the jet airplane — and even just built, very modern ships, (e.g., the United States, the France, the Michaelangelo and the Raffaelo) were pulled out of service and mothballed.
Another great example is radio — whose “golden days” were even shorter than the movie palace. Roxy’s show done from the Capitol Theater was one of the earliest hits of radio, and radio seems to have lost out to TV as a major medium in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The gallop through 78s, 45s, 33 1/3, stereo, cassettes, CDs and now on-line music is in some ways, even more amazing. When “Tower (Records?) first open in New York (at Broadway and W. 3rd), it was so crowded it was like entering a "hot” nightclub. Don’t remember, but I think cassettes were the medium of choice then (just having overtaken vinyl). Didn’t go for a few years, and when I went back all the cassette bins were gone and replaced by CD bins. Now, it seems no matter when I go, it’s a near ghost town. (I assume people are listening to music on-line.)
Another example I find interesting (and disconcerting) is the sports/concert arena. It’s amazing to me that the Continental Arena (formerly Byrne Arena), Nassau Memorial Coliseum and Madison Sq. Garden are all seen as obsolete (rendered “obsolete,” apparently, by the “need” for luxury “skyboxes”). It just seems like “yesterday” that they were brand new â€" I have yet to even go to the Nassau Coliseum or the “new” Madison Sq. Garden! Same holds true for all those post Dodger Stadium multi-purpose stadiums (like Shea).
Interesting thought: The Continental Arena opened in 1981, which makes it 24 years old. The Roxy opened in 1927 and was 24 years old in 1951.
As mentioned in previous posts, I think the Roxy seemed older than it was because of its a) historical style of architecture and b) because of a watershed change in taste towards art deco, art moderne and the International Style. Although the prevailing architectural style has changed since 1981, it is less dramatic â€" so in some ways the Continental Arena looks like it could have been built yesterday.
Warren I don’t quite understand. How could Paramount send people to advance sale box office if they wanted a ticket for the film that day? And if you didn’t want to sit in the first Mezz I’m sure the crowd could see the cheaper general admission prices right there(I personally would pay $100 very happily to see this film and Berlin salute today. Not that I could afford it mind you.) It seems from the Variety grosses the film was wildly successful every week it played there fully justifying the run. This is as opposed to when I worked for Robin and Marion(10-12 weeks) where I seem to remember many perfs where if we were lucky there were a hundred people in the place. I am not exagerating.
Warren I don’t quite understand. How could Paramount send people to advance sale box office if they wanted a ticket for the film that day? And if you didn’t want to sit in the first Mezz I’m sure the crowd could see the cheaper general admission prices right there(I personally would pay $100 very happily to see this film and Berlin salute today. Not that I could afford it mind you.) It seems from the Variety grosses the film was wildly successful every week it played there fully justifying the run. This is as opposed to when I worked for Robin and Marion(10-12 weeks) where I seem to remember many perfs where if we were lucky there were a hundred people in the place. I am not exagerating.
I never get tired of it Bill, sometimes I catch the first few minutes of a movie on Fox movie channel just to watch the fanfare. I always hated it when they would substitute the fanfare for other music behind the searchlights, ie: Peyton Place, A Farewell to Arms, and worst of all, “Sound of Music” with silent searchlights. I don’t like the new fanfare either, the tempo has been slowed and instrumentation has been altered. It’s sacreligious(s) I tell you.
I find the short time span between great business at the Roxy to its demolition to be interesting also. This general phenomenon of “high point” then extinction has fascinated me for years now — and the time spans just seem to be getting shorter and shorter!
It first occurred to me with reference to ocean liners. The ocean liners getting bigger, better and faster, then “pouf” — the development of the jet airplane — and even just built, very modern ships, (e.g., the United States, the France, the Michaelangelo and the Raffaelo) were pulled out of service and mothballed.
Another great example is radio — whose “golden days” were even shorter than the movie palace. Roxy’s show done from the Capitol Theater was one of the earliest hits of radio, and radio seems to have lost out to TV as a major medium in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The gallop through 78s, 45s, 33 1/3, stereo, cassettes, CDs and now on-line music is in some ways, even more amazing. When “Tower (Records?) first open in New York (at Broadway and W. 3rd), it was so crowded it was like entering a "hot” nightclub. Don’t remember, but I think cassettes were the medium of choice then (just having overtaken vinyl). Didn’t go for a few years, and when I went back all the cassette bins were gone and replaced by CD bins. Now, it seems no matter when I go, it’s a near ghost town. (I assume people are listening to music on-line.)
Another example I find interesting (and disconcerting) is the sports/concert arena. It’s amazing to me that the Continental Arena (formerly Byrne Arena), Nassau Memorial Coliseum and Madison Sq. Garden are all seen as obsolete (rendered “obsolete,” apparently, by the “need” for luxury “skyboxes”). It just seems like “yesterday” that they were brand new â€" I have yet to even go to the Nassau Coliseum or the “new” Madison Sq. Garden! Same holds true for all those post Dodger Stadium multi-purpose stadiums (like Shea).
Interesting thought: The Continental Arena opened in 1981, which makes it 24 years old. The Roxy opened in 1927 and was 24 years old in 1951.
As mentioned in previous posts, I think the Roxy seemed older than it was because of its a) historical style of architecture and b) because of a watershed change in taste towards art deco, art moderne and the International Style. Although the prevailing architectural style has changed since 1981, it is less dramatic â€" so in some ways the Continental Arena looks like it could have been built yesterday.
I never get tired of it Bill, sometimes I catch the first few minutes of a movie on Fox movie channel just to watch the fanfare. I always hated it when they would substitute the fanfare for other music behind the searchlights, ie: Peyton Place, A Farewell to Arms, and worst of all, “Sound of Music” with silent searchlights. I don’t like the new fanfare either, the tempo has been slowed and instrumentation has been altered. It’s sacreligious(s) I tell you.