RKO Madison Theatre
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
21 people
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Showing 1,201 - 1,225 of 1,251 comments
lostmemory, I don’t recall an organ being played at the RKO Madison, but it’s good that you do. Thanks for mentioning it.
Yes, lostmemory, I saw “Premature Burial” at the RKO Madison in the summer of 1962. Bway, I am sure I would recognize that “RKO Madison smell” instantly. Early April 1979 I remember peering through a peephole at night into the charred interior of the Madison, and a man next to me about my father’s age saying how he remembered what a
beautiful show house the Madison had been.
Oh well, I guess I misread your other post. I think the Exorcist may be the last film to ever play at the Madison, if not THE last to play there (anyone know the final film?). Now the Exorcist is almost too much to take in in ANY theater.
I remember passing there around when they were going to close the Madison, and my father was sort of sad that it was closing, and I couldn’t understand why they wanted to close it. I also walked that way all the time when my father and I used the subway, as my father always had an aversion to taking the M train to Wyckoff to take the L, we always had to walk all the way to Myrtle-Wyckoff to the L.
Anyway, I remember this so clearly, the doors were open in front, and it had the distinctive “Madison smell” coming out onto the sidewalk. I can still see the sort of dim lobby in my head from that evening.
I wish I could go back to that night and just tell them “not to hurt it!” (sort of how I wish I could go back to 1964 to tell them not to hurt Penn Station).
Of course a couple years later I remember standing in the same spot with my father peaking through the wooden barricade into the darkness of the vast interior of the semi-gutted theater, the distincitve “Madison smell” now gone forever, replaced with the smell of charred wood and construction.
No, I didn;t see “Usher” at the RKO Madison, although that would have been a blast, as you’ve described. Please re-read carefully above, to learn what horror films I did see at the Madison.
I also saw “Dracula Has Risen From The Grave” there in January 1969, and “Tales From The Crypt” in March 1972. I did NOT see “The Exorcist” there in its summer 1976 re-release.
I was always passing, or passing near, the RKO Madison, on the way to
parochial school, high school, or college, or between my home and the Myrtle Avenue subway station, so, whatever films I did not see at the RKO Madison, I saw playing there. Examples : My Baby Is Black, Godzilla Vs. The Thing, First Men In The Moon, The Slender Thread, The Bobo, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf ?(my parents saw it at the RKO Madison)Change Of Mind, Without A Stitch, C.C. And Company with Joe Namath, Who Slew Auntie Roo ?, The Legend Of Nigger Charlie, Sweet Sweetback’s Badasss Song, etc. and many more.
Oh man Peter, you saw “The Fall of the House of Usher” at the Madison!?! Wow, that must have been great! As mentioned somewhere else here above, theaters like the RKO Madison must have been great settings to see horror movies. The whole atmosphere of old ornateness is kind of the settings Hollywood always uses for them anyway. The RKO Keiths must have been another great one for horror movies, but somehow the Madison (the way I vaguely remember it), was dark, and sort of “past it’s prime” and a little spooky. Of course, things like that are always spooky when you are a kid. (I assume when the RKO Keiths wasn’t painted beige and lit up with flourescent lighting, it also may have been spooky – it was a bit spooky in the balcony when I snuck up there).
It’s not possible, but I would love to go see “Usher” in the Madison – maybe in a timewarp….. Or let’s get the RKO Keiths restored and see it there….
You’re welcome, lostmemory. Having mentioned Roger Corman, I must say I saw his “X : The Man With The X-Ray Eyes”, starring Ray Milland, at the RKO Madison in early 1964. Very scary, especially the end : “Pluck it out !” although we don’t see gouged-out eyes, but the glistening black orbs we saw a bit earlier, colorized red !
I have read that the original script had the Milland character saying, “I can still see !” even after taking his own eyes out.
I also liked insult comedian Don Rickles as the carnival huckster, who employs Dr. Xavier, the Milland character, first as a psychic, then as a healer.
Other horror films I saw at the RKO Madison included “Black Sabbath” with Boris Karloff in summer 1964 (the first segment was so scary, my dad took me home before it was half over !) and “Die Monster Die !”, also with Karloff, the day before I started sixth grade, in September 1966. In that one, when the Karloff character said, of the meteorite that’s wrought havoc on him, his family, and his home, “I thought it was a gift from heaven !”, the entire audience burst out laughing !
I don’t know about “The Raven”, which also starred Hazel Court nearly popping out of the top of her dress, but I did see “The Premature Burial” at the RKO Madison in the summer of 1962 with my family. My cousin Fran and I looked at each other in amazement when we heard the song “Molly Malone” in the film, having just learned it in first grade. “The Premature Burial” featured Hazel Court also.
The above two films, alomg with “House Of Usher”, “Pit And Pendulum”, “Ligeia” and “Masque Of The Red Death”, are, in addition to being “Vincent Price” movies, loose adaptations of famous Edgar Allen Poe horror short stories, directed by Roger Corman, written for the screen by Richard Matheson, and visually beautiful to look at. 1969’s “The Oblong Box” may have been one of these also, although that played at the Ridgewood, not the RKO Madison.
lostmemory, thanks. I’ve seen the Times Newsweekly “Our Neighborhood” article that mentions this.
That “Our Neighborhood The Way It Was” article in the May 13, 2004 Times Newsweekly is very near and dear to me and my family, because it describes much of our lives spent in Ridgewood in the past eighty or so years, particularly the mention and photograph of Father York, former pastor of St. Brigid’s, whose parochial school I and my mother and many members of her family attended. I printed three copies of that article and mailed it to my three aunts and two uncles. They were very glad to receive it.
lostmemory, I’m glad you posted the link to that “Our Neighborhood The Way It Was” article in the May 13, 2004 Times Newsweekly (former Ridgewood Times)that mentioned the Majestic being at Seneca and Greene Avenues. I was going to mention that article to you.
It’s easy to add a theater. Just Click Here. It should have it’s own space because it deserves to be talked about under it’s own section, not the Madison’s section. It will eventually bring more info on it, because people will not be looking for “Majestic” under the Madison Theater, so you won’t get too much information under the Madison.
I would add it, but I don’t know anything about it. You can leave most of the info blank if you don’t know it, it’ll be filled in as time goes on, but you seem to be able to do the brief description the best. Just type a sentence or two that you know. That’s all you need.
Many theaters have the same name. The Majestic on Fulton Street later became, I think, part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, nearby on Lafayette Avenue near Fulton Street.
The CinemaTour listings for the former Majestic and Grandview theaters, among many others, suffer from the common Brooklyn-Queens confusion : it lists them in Brooklyn, but they are really in Queens.
I’m sorry, the link above should have been to the cinematour site for the Grandview:
View link
I’m pretty sure it’s the majestic. While we are at it, we should also add the Grandview Theater. I confirmed it on the cinematreasure site, but ironically, the address numbers on that one are different too, they list it as 659! But of course a theater would take up many numbers, so it’s obviously right “next door at 663. And we know it became the Ridgewood Chapels (wow, I never knew that the Chapel was a theater!), so we even have something for the comments.
I just checked the CinemaTour listing and it lists a Grandview Theater, at 659 Grandview Avenue, between Linden St. and Gates Avenue, according to MapQuest, separate and distinct from the Majestic Theater which was on Seneca Avenue.
ErwinM, my father, born 1919, remembers outdoor movies in the summer near the Colonial Theater, 1746 Broadway, at Rockaway Avenue, in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. He says they were shown on an outside wall of the Colonial, with seating in an adjacent lot. He also remembers people watching from fire escapes outside their apartments in nearby tenements.
Fellas, sorry but I jumped the gun on this one. The GRANDVIEW was at 663 Grandview Avenue, which is the current location for the Ridgewood Chapels. It does seem odd that two theaters relatively close together ended up as funeral homes.
Thanks Erwin. Could the “Grandview” be the Majestic theater with a different name? It still seems odd that there would have been two theaters there. I still think cinematour may have a typo in this listing and the “2” should be a “9”.
If I am not totally mistaken, I believe that the name of the theater that “lostmemory” is looking for is the GRANDVIEW. Oddly enough I attended a wake at the funeral home a few years ago and one of the old timers there had mentioned that it was once a movie house named the GRANDVIEW, which dated back to the silent movie era. They also showed movies outdoors (on the roof?) during the summer months.
Peter, I think the “424” that we both came up with might be incorrect on the Cinematour site. It’s possible but highly unlikely that there were two theaters so close together on Seneca Ave on adjoining blocks, and even more of a coinincidence that they were only off by one number in the address. I have a feeling lostmemory’s “lost memory” is probably going to be the Majestic. It is also possible that it had a different name in it’s final years.
I just ran MapQuest on 424 and 494 Seneca Avenue. 424 is between Stanhope and Himrod Sts. 494 is at Greene Avenue so perhaps 424 in my listing is incorrect, and should be 494.
I have a listing for the Majestic Theater at 424 Seneca Avenue, at Greene Avenue. I’ve seen Seneca Chapels myself.
Lostmemory, there was the “Majestic Theater” at 424 Seneca Ave, could this be the one you mean.
I could swear my father said he saw Psycho at the Madison. It may not have been when it first came out. He described the experience to me once when I had bought the DVD.
lostmemory, like yourself, I find my short term memory weakening as my long term memory sharpens. A sign of aging.
lostmemory, thanks for the link. I just looked at it, and it’s alot like the first chapter in a book I have at home about the making of “Psycho”, titled “The Atrocities of Ed Gein”. True, Gein went way beyond Norman Bates to “Buffalo Bill” of “Silence Of The Lambs”.
Other former theaters in Ridgewood : the Parthenon, at Myrtle and Wyckoff, the Oasis, on Fresh Pond Road a few blocks south of Metropolitan Avenue, the Glenwood (now the Ridgewood post office, before that, a bowling alley) at Myrtle and Decatur, the Wyckoff, at Wyckoff and Bleeker. Where was the theater in Ridgewood you are trying to remember the name of ?
I don’t know about searching by address or street on this site.