RKO Warner Twin Theatre
1579 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
1579 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
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Showing 101 - 125 of 378 comments
Boy how we remember things differently.
I saw OK at the Penthouse as well. I had never seen it in Todd AO and thought it was great. Don’t remember it as totally pink at all.
Saw a number of the 70mm prints in the main Cinerama theater. My Fair Lady, South Pacific and Paint Your Wagon were spectacular on that 80 foot curved screen.
And that sound system!
6 track analogue surround sound and not to be believed. They will never be heard like that again.
December 1947 photo added courtesy of the Old Images of New York Facebook page.
This link about the history of the nearby Automat may be of interest of some.
It also had a rendering of the intersection.
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/coin-op-cuisine/
I finally saw a pristine print of Oklahoma! last night at the Farmingdale Multiplex and it was worth the wait. The only other time I saw that movie was here during a revival program. As I said back in 2012:
(And what happened to that photo Broadway Comes to Broadway?)
1941 photo added courtesy of Al Ponte’s Time Machine – New York Facebook page.
1956 marquee photo added. Promotional handouts for Cinerama’s “Seven Wonders Of The World”. Photo courtesy of Al Ponte’s Time Machine – New York Facebook page.
Cinerama…That’s not the correct date — close, but not exact. Where is that article from because DEFG photos have been inaccessible on CT for years.
TGSET preview ticket has running time of 4 hours including intermission – http://incinerama.com/gsetpreviewfeb6.htm
This review has 221 minutes plus intermission – http://incinerama.com/1965gsetreview.jpg
on 4/16 it was reduced by 28 minutes – http://incinerama.com/041665.htm
bigjoe59…Do you still want to know the GS runtime history here?
And, exactly how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Thanks in advance…
to William-
thanks for the info. just to be sure another question or two. i assume Stevens longest cut at 4 hrs. 20 mins. like Mankiewicz’s 5 hr. 20 min. cut of Cleopatra was never theatrically shown . now was the 238 min. cut you refer to used just
for the World Premiere night screening or was it used for the entire roadshow run the Warner. in other words how long was the 238min. cut used at the Warner and at what point did they switch to the 3hr. 19 min. cut used on the blu-ray. i am wondering if the premiere 238min cut actually shows Sal Mineo’s being killed. to have him walking in the crowd at the Temple than the next time you see him he’s dead lying on the altar steps you just know something was cut.
The film premiered at 238 minutes. Steven’s first cut version was 260 minutes but United Artists demanded it be reedited. After the premiere they demanded further cuts. Which made it 199 minutes for the Roadshow version. UA had a version that ran 141 minutes for theatrical exhibition. There was also a mutilated 35mm version that ran 127 minutes. As to a question you asked about the Warner’s screen. The Warner’s Cinerama 3-panel screen was 67' x 27' and the 70MM screen was 81' x 30'.
Hello-
i recently bought the blu-ray disc of The Greatest Story Ever Told. the running time of the disc is 3 hrs. 19 mins.. which is where my question comes in. the liner
notes on the back cover say-“restored to its theatrical brilliance with Overture and Intermission”. now i saw TGSET twice during its Cinerama reserved seat engagement but can’t remember what the running time was. now i recently found out the original running time of the roadshow run print was 3 hrs. 45 mins. but did the Warner Cinerama ever play that print or did it only play the 3 hr. 19 min. print?
a case in point. there’s the scene towards the end where Jesus is talking at night time to a large crows at the Temple. you see Roman soldiers pushing in then it switches to another scene. the next time see Jesus he’s entering the house where the Last Supper takes place. but then there’s a quick cut back to the Temple we see are a few dead bodies scattered around including the young former cripple (Sal Mineo)lying across the altar steps. what happened to the scene of the Roman soldiers aggressively dispursing the crowd resulting in the dead bodies we see?
More on the name at Wikipedia: Strand Theatre (Manhattan) and its Talk page.
I do not think it is correct that the theater opened with the name Mark Strand Theatre, which was the name of the realty company that owned it; the first evidence of that name I can find is an ad from September 1919, in The Evening World (NY) (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1919-09-02/ed-1/seq-19.pdf); that was long after Rothapfel had left. Googling turns up nothing earlier, and “Cinema Treasures” by Melnick and Fuchs (p. 27f.) doesn’t mention it. So it seems the opening name was Strand Theatre.
What happened to the concept of last name of usage rules? On another note. The Strand was at one point carved into three unique theatres, the Warner, Penthouse and Cine Orleans. At a later date the three became one (or, rather, two) as the Warner Twin. Should not the Penthouse and Cine Orleans have their own listings? Isn’t there a precedence with the Globe carved out of the, I think, Rialto. One theatre had a Broadway entrance, the other 42nd Street.
Tinseltoes: What are the chances of that? I’m English, and attached in the photo section is a photo I took on vacation in America in 1986, and just like the Tax Photo you’ve posted, the movie showing at the time was ALIENS (which incidentally I went into the cinema to watch):–) http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/2975/photos/65838
I never heard of that movie High Time, but it has a good pedigree — directed by Blake Edwards, written by Charles Brackett and based on a story by Garson Kanin. The premise that Bing goes back to college seems to have a lot of potential. And it did introduce that lovely standard The Second Time Around.
Mr. Crowther in the NY Times starts his review with his tongue-in-cheek: “It has been a long time since Bing Crosby was seen in a college comedy, sporting the customary beanie and crooning romantic melodies. But things haven’t changed much in the colleges favored by Bing in all those years, to judge by the one he is attending in his latest picture, "High Time.”
Buffalo, when you find some, please post them here! Thanks in advance.
Does anyone have photos of the INTERIOR of the theater at different times in its history?
I love carbon arc projection (as long as the projectionist is on the ball!)
I also attended the series mentioned above (Broadway comes to Broadway) I was working my way through film school as a projectionist in Boston. My union card got me into the both projection booths. They ran Oklahoma in the upstairs theater because that booth had the Todd-AO projectors and were able to run 30fps. They had to replace a couple of projector motors and some amplifiers to do it. They later found that they could run the century projectors in the downstairs booth at 30fps but that was too late for Oklahoma. The print of South Pacific was okay but the movie isn’t that good. The most impressive show was the print of My Fair Lady, it was incredible. Camelot was so grainy that some scenes looked like golf balls and it was bad if you were sitting close to the screen (like in the first 20 rows this was a huge theater). It looked okay if you sat in the back row of the theater. Of course Camelot was a blow up. The films that used 65mm negative were clear and sharp. The blow ups were grainy some more than others Camelot being the worse of the series. There is no question that the downstairs theater had a huge screen. The projection booth for downstairs had two century jj’s and 13.6 mm carbons running at over 180 amps so there was a nice bright picture.
As to the illustration currently shown above (Broadway Comes to Broadway) I saw Oklahoma during that series. It was in the upstairss theater, formerly the balcony with a nicely tapered rake and a gorgeous ceiling.
The Oklahoma print, however, was atrocious — completely faded to pink as (Eastmancolor?) tends to do. What a disappointment, as it was my first time seeing the movie. I didn’t go back for any other films in the series.
My question — what year was this series shown?
The Orleans did close first about a year before the Warner.
I am doing a research on movie theaters, please throw some light on what kind of facilities were available in the mark strand theater..thanks in advance