Looking at the Syosset page, there are a few posts from some very knowledgeable guys who tell us the theatre did in fact play 3 strip Cinerama. I stand corrected.
By the way, I may have been wrong regarding the Syosset running 3 strip Cinerama, a friend tells me he recalls the theatre having that capability in the 50s. I stated working as a projectionist in 1957 and never worked the Syosset until the mid 60s (Sound Of Music) however because I don’t recall any evidence of three strip dosen’t mean it did not at one time have that capability. I will look into this a bit more.
Hello Bob, I’ll try and answer some of your questions. First of all
the markings on the screen, sadly no one realized that the screen would get dusy or fade unevenly when it was left in the flat position for very long. Years ago when I worked for Century theatres we would always leave the masking in the full opoen position every night to prevent this. Alas, this was not done at the D-150 so yes, you would se a difference in the discoloring of the screen, and no, masking did not rub on the screen. There were 2 sets of masking , one side masking and one top masking, which went up and down. The control box was not all used, a few of the available settings were not needed. The box did however control just about everything in the theatre. First of all there were at least 10 masking settings. (control buttons). The side and top maskings each had five settings , two flat, 1:85 and 1:33, one scope 2.35, one 70mm,
and one for D-150 (never used. In addition there were four sound
controls (buttons),non sync (intermission music, 35mm optical sound, 35mm four track magnetic sound, and 70mm magnetic 6 track. Then there was the lighing, house and stage light dimmers, along with projector controls and changeover switches, one button would make both the sound and picture changeover. The curtain controls were also capable of stopping the curtain in several different posiitions, so that if we ran 35mm flat, the curtain would not fully open exposing all that masking. However, That funtion was not always used. As far as I know D-150 was never used. “The Bible” played in 70mm but not D-150. I was not there at the time but I believe it played down the street at Syosset. I don’t recall “Patton” playing in either 70mm or D-150 on Long Island. I did however open the masking top and bottom to the D-150 settings on several occasions just for the hell of it. The masking could be opened and closed with the curtains opened, however it was always my policy to “delux” between flat and scope, which meant I would close the curtains and raise the stage lights between, lets say, the trailers and the main feature and change the masking settings behind the closed curtains. As a matter of fact, I would do that even if the feature was the same format as the trailers. As to the pictures you mentioned, I can tell you the Syosset, which was later triplex, had the words SYOSSET in huge letters on the side of the building and a simple 2 or 3 line attraction board (no marquee)on the front. The D-150 had a large pylon sign on the main road away from the theatre which advertised the movie playing. My last movie in 1987 was “Dirty Dancing” and my last 70mm was “White Nights” a short time earlier. By the way, when we cut the Syosset into three theatres the original booth was left intact for house #3 upstairs. Both 35/70mm Norelco projectors were left along with a newly installed platter system. The idea was that when 70mm was presented we would have two projectionists on duty running 70mm reel to reel rather than on a platter. and only the 35mm shows would use the platter. I hope I answered some of your questions, feel free to ask any others
Having been a projectionist at both theatres I can tell you neither one was a Cinerama house. The Syosset was a 70mm roadshow theatre, and the Cinema 150, or D-150, as it was called, was built for D-150 and was also a 70mm roadshow theatre. The only Cinerama theatre on Long Island was the Hicksville Twin South, which showed 70mm Cinerama (Grand Prix for one), it was not equipt for three strip Cinerama. As for Bill and Michael, bravo for an outstanding job. I learned a great deal, it is a wonderful trip down memory lane.
I am greatful for time they spent putting that very informative site together and I am sure I shall reference that article often.
Bob, Thanks for the info, sounds like a booth I would have enjoyed working in, (hate platters) The core lights are magnificent, the drifting, of course, can be traced back to the motor needing new brushes or if the positive carbon is drifting perhaps the tension on the jaws is a bit tight. I must stop by and visit sometime, sounds like a great booth.
Bill, I am happy to hear Joe is still around, I had not heard much about him in many years. Tell him Hi from Vito and Artie and ask if he remembers inviting us to the hush hush and very private technical rehearsal of “Hello Dolly” at the Rivoli.(he allowed us to hid in the balcony and watch the movie), or when I told him after he tuned the sound system for “Yental”, I was going to write to Barbra Streisand and suggest she stop by the D-150 to hear the sound exactally as she would have wanted it to be presented. I still rermember the smile on Joe’s face when I told him that. Also you are right about Joe, we had a couple of great showman around in those days, I also remember Andy Marglin who, with Joe, founded Kellmar Systems, based on Long Island, which today remains one of the most trusted theatre equipment supply houses in the world.
I also rem
UA had a bad reputation for running the theatres into the ground.
This was not the case however when it came to projection. In the late 1960s, a fella by the name of Joe Kelly joined UA in charge of projection and sound. Joe was (is) an artist, who fine tuned the projection and sound at all the UA thetares during his time with them. As a projectionist on Long Island, I had the pleasure of knowing and working with Joe, and he once told me he had two favorites, the Rivoli in Manhatten (he was devestated when it was triplexed) and the Cimema D-150 in Syosset. He often would drop by the D-150 to make improvements or to just tweek the sound. When we played a 70mm print, Joe would be there running loops and fine tuning the sound to perfection. He would often stop by during the run to be sure it looked and sounded exactally right. I enjoyed leaving the booth door open during intermission so that patrons could have a look. Sadly, we will never see a theatre quite like it again. It was the talk of Long Island movie goers for years, many people told me they would travel many miles to experience a movie at Cinema D-150.
I am currently working on bringing classic films back to the grand 2400 seat St George theatre on Staten Island /theaters/1865/
I have been wanting to see the Jersey theatre, perhaps when I get back from vacation. I will be away for two weeks, going back to Hawaii where I lived and worked for several years. I will update the movie going experience there as well.
Thank God!
Doreen, the red valance above the stage curtain can also be lowered for cleaning. I cleaned it as best I could. I’m off to Hawaii, where I lived for 10 years, see you in about two weeks.
Just a thought that occured to me regarding overtures and entrance music on movies. I don' know how everyone handled this, but in New York we would cement a strip of film, one sprocket in width, across the area where it was time to change the lighting levels. This would cause a click going thru the gate, similar to the sound of a splice, which would be our cue to change the lighting. With a movie like “South Pacific” there would be a couple of lighting cues. The first “click” would signal us to bring the house lights down about 25%, then the second one brought the lights down about 60%. The final cue was to kill the lights completly, and begin lowering the stage lights and open the curtain. The curtain could never expose a white screen, it had to be timed in such a way as to have the fade in of the movie as the curtains began to part. The same thing would apply to closing the curtains, they were timed so that the two panels would “kiss” as the movie faded out.Another point was, we NEVER played any other music (records in those days) before the start of the movie, or during intermission. RCMH always timed both the traveler and waterfall (contuer)curtains perfectly. The curtains were so heavy that the sound would drop 50% for the last few bars of music as the curtains closed over the speakers. Of course then the organ would begin with missing a beat. RCMH, in it’s day, was a first class act few could copy or do as well. one might try and find a flaw in the program but…. I never did.
I am comcerned about the speaker system. The one removed was an
Altec model A4 Voice of the Theatre with two 15" woofers and a hi Frequency horn loaded in an 800 lb cabinet. If anyone knows were we might get a speaker of that type please let us know. I just hope my Altec Lansing poer amplifiers are still in the booth. Doreen, you did not mention the red stage curtain, is it still there?
Even though “South Pacific” did not have the Fox fanfare, as a young projectionist to get a print of that movie in four track with the intermission and all the entrance and exit music was a thrill.
mjc, do you remember your first mag print?
Bill mentioned the fanfare seamed a bit low, my complaint is the treatment given to the new Fox logo, introduced a few years ago, which includes rhe fanfare with the extension not quite sounding the way Newman wrote it. Almost sounds like some kids in the garage banging it out instead of a full orchestra. I also disaprove about the way the last few bars have been slowed down. These people are messing with a national treasure here and need to learn a little respect for the way the fanfare was written. One last gripe, the Fox logo shown without the fanfare, but some other music, as in “Farewell to Arms”.(There I feel better now)
Porter mentioned great fox music, let’s not forget the wonderful overture to “How to Marry a Millionare”, played by the Fox orchestra
As I understand it, Millionaire was actually the first CinemaScope production fox made, but Zanack, in his wisdom, decided to hold off realease until after “The Robe” as to present CinemaSacope on a grandeur scale. I always thought the overture ahead of “How to Marry a Millionaire” was intended to show off and impress audiences with stereophonic sound. As to the question about who ran the lights and curtains at RCMH, it was all stagehands, projectionist had no control over any of that. In New York City, if you had a stage were you now or once presented live shows, you had stagehands even if you are showing movies.
Thanks Warren, I long standing question of mine has been answered.
A lot of movie peole complained about CinemaScope and refused to use it. Making things worse in those days was the refusal on the part of the studios to pay Fox royalties to use the process, which spawned many ananorphic nightmares like SuperScope. MGM stayed with CinemScope until late 50s but others came up their own version like WarnerScope etc. Thank heavens we were able to project all of these anamorphic processes with the same lens, the only odd ball was SuperScope which required a different aperature plate than the others. Panavision is of course a superior anamorphic process. Perspecta never was accepted very much although the Paramount on Staten Island did have it.
By the way it sure is a great pleasure chatting with you guys!
Well, that is not good new about the speaker. Jean is right, it would take a lot to get it out of the building. However the previous owners (renters) were very desperate for money and I guess stole it. I am very concerned now about what they took out of the booth. I had a complete sound system in the booth which I had upgraded with the help of friends in the industry. I worry now it’s also gone. I will have to take inventory when I get back. I never should have trusted Stephine and her band of thiefs, trouble is I discovered too late what she was up to. Did they take the stage curtain?
I am not sure I agree with the statement about RCMH and mag sound. I thought it was used rather extensily during the mid to late 50s.RCMH also used magnetic sound when 70mm was installed. The Simplex 35/70 projectors have 35mm as well as 70mm magnetic readers.
The last four track I saw at RCMH was in 1972 with “The Red Tent”.
“A Star Is Born” in 1976 was just about the last film to have four track, it included Dolby noise reduction which of course became Dolby optical stereo. Then “Star Wars” started the Dolby stereo revolution we enjoy today. Only Fox was completely commited to magnetic sound, all fox releases starting with “The Robe” in 1953 were available in either optical or magnetic versions. later on with the advent of mag/optical prints, all fox releases were distributed mag/optical untill 1963 when Fox abanded CinemaScope for Panavision. The last CinemaScope fox release, I believe was “Capriece” starting Doris Day. After that it was goodbye to mag sound at Fox and all Panavision prints were optical.Fox was going through some tough financial times then and the added cost of magnetic prints was one of the first to go. This brings up a question to which I never really recieved a satisfactory answer.
Why did Fox dump CinemaScope? I for one missed the extended scope Fox fanfare which disapeared with the switch to Panavision, which was never heard again untill “Star Wars” when Lucas changed “A Cinemascope production” to “A George Lucas Production”, returning Mr. Newmans great fanfare to it’s former glory.
Vincent, I never saw any magnetic prints of “North By Northwest”
I played the film a couple of times and the prints were always
optical (mono).By 1959 the mag stereo prints had begun to get scarce.
Only the 35mm versions of 70mm roadshow pictures were coming thru in mag sound. In adition since “North By Nothwest” was filmed in VistaVision and shown as a reduction print, I don’t think it had stereo sound. Most VistaVision pictures were released mono with some Prespecta prints around. I also saw “Singin in the Rain” which was re-mixed in stereo and it didn’t sound to bad, The worst offender of the re-mixed tracks had to be the re-release of “Gone with the Wind”. What a disaster,especially the 70mm vesion. the surround track would simply go and and off, and since there was no real separation, just playing different parts of the dialogue and sound thru the surround speakers, well, it was awful The four track mag prints were of course just as bad. But it looked better in 35mm,
the 70mm prints looked all out of porportion. Lastly “Scrooge”,
I believe played RCMH in 70mm, hense the great sound.
Well said vincent, I felt same way about the Roxy and Paramount, I went not only for the movie but sometimes just to melt away in the grandeur of it all, and in the 40s and 50s with very little air conditioning anywhere else, it was a great place to beat the heat.
As for RCNH and stereo sound, from 1954 till about 1960 most of the product from MGM and all of the product from FOX was available in four track magnetic sound.I believe all those MGM pictures, as well as some from Columbia, played the hall were in four track. The seperation did get lost at RCMH but there was no dening the quality of the sound. However, one had to sit in one of the mezzanines to notice the surrounds, which in the days before Dolby, were located in the ceiling. I believe RCMH management resisted placing surround speaker boxes all over the hall when 70mmm was installed, but when Dolby Digital came along surround speakers with gold covered speaker fabric popped up all the place, this of course, as ugly as they are, intensified the surround experience. Oh and yes Bill, I too remember “Today to get the people to attend the picture show” the great sterophonic sound song and dance number from “Silk Stockings”
Do any of you very knowledgeable gentlemen know if the Capital projected Vertigo in VistaVision? I can recall RCMH and the Paramount having VistaVision projection, what about the Capital.
Doreen, I worked for 45 years in theatre exibition. I know several film buyers (bookers) who can give us all the info we need to procure films. I am going on vacation on Monday for two weeks but will start contacting people immediately thereafter and find out what I can. Booking the films is fairly simple, there are many markets which supply classic films in 35mm. Last time I was in the booth everything was working fine, I do wonder however if anyone has
been up there to undue some of my work. In addition, I installed a Voice Of the Theatre A4 speaker system and hope it is still there. I last saw it stage left covered in cloth. The wire connecting to the projection booth is attached to the screen, which had been bolted to the ceiling for safety sake, but the screen once the bolts are removed can be lowered and it is in very good condition. It should be the second fly to the right of the one marked “Rag” which is the
main curtain. Incidently, the curtain is capable of not only going up/down it can, since it is two panels, work as a travel curtain.
the rigging just needs to be replaced. I will talk more to you about this upon my return, meanwhile I encourage anyone else intersted in getting classic movies back to the St George contact Doreen
Looking at the Syosset page, there are a few posts from some very knowledgeable guys who tell us the theatre did in fact play 3 strip Cinerama. I stand corrected.
By the way, I may have been wrong regarding the Syosset running 3 strip Cinerama, a friend tells me he recalls the theatre having that capability in the 50s. I stated working as a projectionist in 1957 and never worked the Syosset until the mid 60s (Sound Of Music) however because I don’t recall any evidence of three strip dosen’t mean it did not at one time have that capability. I will look into this a bit more.
Hello Bob, I’ll try and answer some of your questions. First of all
the markings on the screen, sadly no one realized that the screen would get dusy or fade unevenly when it was left in the flat position for very long. Years ago when I worked for Century theatres we would always leave the masking in the full opoen position every night to prevent this. Alas, this was not done at the D-150 so yes, you would se a difference in the discoloring of the screen, and no, masking did not rub on the screen. There were 2 sets of masking , one side masking and one top masking, which went up and down. The control box was not all used, a few of the available settings were not needed. The box did however control just about everything in the theatre. First of all there were at least 10 masking settings. (control buttons). The side and top maskings each had five settings , two flat, 1:85 and 1:33, one scope 2.35, one 70mm,
and one for D-150 (never used. In addition there were four sound
controls (buttons),non sync (intermission music, 35mm optical sound, 35mm four track magnetic sound, and 70mm magnetic 6 track. Then there was the lighing, house and stage light dimmers, along with projector controls and changeover switches, one button would make both the sound and picture changeover. The curtain controls were also capable of stopping the curtain in several different posiitions, so that if we ran 35mm flat, the curtain would not fully open exposing all that masking. However, That funtion was not always used. As far as I know D-150 was never used. “The Bible” played in 70mm but not D-150. I was not there at the time but I believe it played down the street at Syosset. I don’t recall “Patton” playing in either 70mm or D-150 on Long Island. I did however open the masking top and bottom to the D-150 settings on several occasions just for the hell of it. The masking could be opened and closed with the curtains opened, however it was always my policy to “delux” between flat and scope, which meant I would close the curtains and raise the stage lights between, lets say, the trailers and the main feature and change the masking settings behind the closed curtains. As a matter of fact, I would do that even if the feature was the same format as the trailers. As to the pictures you mentioned, I can tell you the Syosset, which was later triplex, had the words SYOSSET in huge letters on the side of the building and a simple 2 or 3 line attraction board (no marquee)on the front. The D-150 had a large pylon sign on the main road away from the theatre which advertised the movie playing. My last movie in 1987 was “Dirty Dancing” and my last 70mm was “White Nights” a short time earlier. By the way, when we cut the Syosset into three theatres the original booth was left intact for house #3 upstairs. Both 35/70mm Norelco projectors were left along with a newly installed platter system. The idea was that when 70mm was presented we would have two projectionists on duty running 70mm reel to reel rather than on a platter. and only the 35mm shows would use the platter. I hope I answered some of your questions, feel free to ask any others
Having been a projectionist at both theatres I can tell you neither one was a Cinerama house. The Syosset was a 70mm roadshow theatre, and the Cinema 150, or D-150, as it was called, was built for D-150 and was also a 70mm roadshow theatre. The only Cinerama theatre on Long Island was the Hicksville Twin South, which showed 70mm Cinerama (Grand Prix for one), it was not equipt for three strip Cinerama. As for Bill and Michael, bravo for an outstanding job. I learned a great deal, it is a wonderful trip down memory lane.
I am greatful for time they spent putting that very informative site together and I am sure I shall reference that article often.
Capt Ron, you will get your wish very soon. The Commack multiplex will soon be closed to make way for a new Commack Cinema de lux.
Bob, Thanks for the info, sounds like a booth I would have enjoyed working in, (hate platters) The core lights are magnificent, the drifting, of course, can be traced back to the motor needing new brushes or if the positive carbon is drifting perhaps the tension on the jaws is a bit tight. I must stop by and visit sometime, sounds like a great booth.
Bob, will you please tell us what type of projection you installed?
two projectors or platter. Sound system.
Bill, I am happy to hear Joe is still around, I had not heard much about him in many years. Tell him Hi from Vito and Artie and ask if he remembers inviting us to the hush hush and very private technical rehearsal of “Hello Dolly” at the Rivoli.(he allowed us to hid in the balcony and watch the movie), or when I told him after he tuned the sound system for “Yental”, I was going to write to Barbra Streisand and suggest she stop by the D-150 to hear the sound exactally as she would have wanted it to be presented. I still rermember the smile on Joe’s face when I told him that. Also you are right about Joe, we had a couple of great showman around in those days, I also remember Andy Marglin who, with Joe, founded Kellmar Systems, based on Long Island, which today remains one of the most trusted theatre equipment supply houses in the world.
I also rem
“Yental was presented in 35mm four track magnetic stereo sound”.
The absolute best place to see that film.
UA had a bad reputation for running the theatres into the ground.
This was not the case however when it came to projection. In the late 1960s, a fella by the name of Joe Kelly joined UA in charge of projection and sound. Joe was (is) an artist, who fine tuned the projection and sound at all the UA thetares during his time with them. As a projectionist on Long Island, I had the pleasure of knowing and working with Joe, and he once told me he had two favorites, the Rivoli in Manhatten (he was devestated when it was triplexed) and the Cimema D-150 in Syosset. He often would drop by the D-150 to make improvements or to just tweek the sound. When we played a 70mm print, Joe would be there running loops and fine tuning the sound to perfection. He would often stop by during the run to be sure it looked and sounded exactally right. I enjoyed leaving the booth door open during intermission so that patrons could have a look. Sadly, we will never see a theatre quite like it again. It was the talk of Long Island movie goers for years, many people told me they would travel many miles to experience a movie at Cinema D-150.
I am currently working on bringing classic films back to the grand 2400 seat St George theatre on Staten Island /theaters/1865/
I have been wanting to see the Jersey theatre, perhaps when I get back from vacation. I will be away for two weeks, going back to Hawaii where I lived and worked for several years. I will update the movie going experience there as well.
Thank God!
Doreen, the red valance above the stage curtain can also be lowered for cleaning. I cleaned it as best I could. I’m off to Hawaii, where I lived for 10 years, see you in about two weeks.
Just a thought that occured to me regarding overtures and entrance music on movies. I don' know how everyone handled this, but in New York we would cement a strip of film, one sprocket in width, across the area where it was time to change the lighting levels. This would cause a click going thru the gate, similar to the sound of a splice, which would be our cue to change the lighting. With a movie like “South Pacific” there would be a couple of lighting cues. The first “click” would signal us to bring the house lights down about 25%, then the second one brought the lights down about 60%. The final cue was to kill the lights completly, and begin lowering the stage lights and open the curtain. The curtain could never expose a white screen, it had to be timed in such a way as to have the fade in of the movie as the curtains began to part. The same thing would apply to closing the curtains, they were timed so that the two panels would “kiss” as the movie faded out.Another point was, we NEVER played any other music (records in those days) before the start of the movie, or during intermission. RCMH always timed both the traveler and waterfall (contuer)curtains perfectly. The curtains were so heavy that the sound would drop 50% for the last few bars of music as the curtains closed over the speakers. Of course then the organ would begin with missing a beat. RCMH, in it’s day, was a first class act few could copy or do as well. one might try and find a flaw in the program but…. I never did.
I am comcerned about the speaker system. The one removed was an
Altec model A4 Voice of the Theatre with two 15" woofers and a hi Frequency horn loaded in an 800 lb cabinet. If anyone knows were we might get a speaker of that type please let us know. I just hope my Altec Lansing poer amplifiers are still in the booth. Doreen, you did not mention the red stage curtain, is it still there?
Even though “South Pacific” did not have the Fox fanfare, as a young projectionist to get a print of that movie in four track with the intermission and all the entrance and exit music was a thrill.
mjc, do you remember your first mag print?
Bill mentioned the fanfare seamed a bit low, my complaint is the treatment given to the new Fox logo, introduced a few years ago, which includes rhe fanfare with the extension not quite sounding the way Newman wrote it. Almost sounds like some kids in the garage banging it out instead of a full orchestra. I also disaprove about the way the last few bars have been slowed down. These people are messing with a national treasure here and need to learn a little respect for the way the fanfare was written. One last gripe, the Fox logo shown without the fanfare, but some other music, as in “Farewell to Arms”.(There I feel better now)
Porter mentioned great fox music, let’s not forget the wonderful overture to “How to Marry a Millionare”, played by the Fox orchestra
As I understand it, Millionaire was actually the first CinemaScope production fox made, but Zanack, in his wisdom, decided to hold off realease until after “The Robe” as to present CinemaSacope on a grandeur scale. I always thought the overture ahead of “How to Marry a Millionaire” was intended to show off and impress audiences with stereophonic sound. As to the question about who ran the lights and curtains at RCMH, it was all stagehands, projectionist had no control over any of that. In New York City, if you had a stage were you now or once presented live shows, you had stagehands even if you are showing movies.
Thanks Warren, I long standing question of mine has been answered.
A lot of movie peole complained about CinemaScope and refused to use it. Making things worse in those days was the refusal on the part of the studios to pay Fox royalties to use the process, which spawned many ananorphic nightmares like SuperScope. MGM stayed with CinemScope until late 50s but others came up their own version like WarnerScope etc. Thank heavens we were able to project all of these anamorphic processes with the same lens, the only odd ball was SuperScope which required a different aperature plate than the others. Panavision is of course a superior anamorphic process. Perspecta never was accepted very much although the Paramount on Staten Island did have it.
By the way it sure is a great pleasure chatting with you guys!
Doreen, is the screen still there?
Well, that is not good new about the speaker. Jean is right, it would take a lot to get it out of the building. However the previous owners (renters) were very desperate for money and I guess stole it. I am very concerned now about what they took out of the booth. I had a complete sound system in the booth which I had upgraded with the help of friends in the industry. I worry now it’s also gone. I will have to take inventory when I get back. I never should have trusted Stephine and her band of thiefs, trouble is I discovered too late what she was up to. Did they take the stage curtain?
I am not sure I agree with the statement about RCMH and mag sound. I thought it was used rather extensily during the mid to late 50s.RCMH also used magnetic sound when 70mm was installed. The Simplex 35/70 projectors have 35mm as well as 70mm magnetic readers.
The last four track I saw at RCMH was in 1972 with “The Red Tent”.
“A Star Is Born” in 1976 was just about the last film to have four track, it included Dolby noise reduction which of course became Dolby optical stereo. Then “Star Wars” started the Dolby stereo revolution we enjoy today. Only Fox was completely commited to magnetic sound, all fox releases starting with “The Robe” in 1953 were available in either optical or magnetic versions. later on with the advent of mag/optical prints, all fox releases were distributed mag/optical untill 1963 when Fox abanded CinemaScope for Panavision. The last CinemaScope fox release, I believe was “Capriece” starting Doris Day. After that it was goodbye to mag sound at Fox and all Panavision prints were optical.Fox was going through some tough financial times then and the added cost of magnetic prints was one of the first to go. This brings up a question to which I never really recieved a satisfactory answer.
Why did Fox dump CinemaScope? I for one missed the extended scope Fox fanfare which disapeared with the switch to Panavision, which was never heard again untill “Star Wars” when Lucas changed “A Cinemascope production” to “A George Lucas Production”, returning Mr. Newmans great fanfare to it’s former glory.
Vincent, I never saw any magnetic prints of “North By Northwest”
I played the film a couple of times and the prints were always
optical (mono).By 1959 the mag stereo prints had begun to get scarce.
Only the 35mm versions of 70mm roadshow pictures were coming thru in mag sound. In adition since “North By Nothwest” was filmed in VistaVision and shown as a reduction print, I don’t think it had stereo sound. Most VistaVision pictures were released mono with some Prespecta prints around. I also saw “Singin in the Rain” which was re-mixed in stereo and it didn’t sound to bad, The worst offender of the re-mixed tracks had to be the re-release of “Gone with the Wind”. What a disaster,especially the 70mm vesion. the surround track would simply go and and off, and since there was no real separation, just playing different parts of the dialogue and sound thru the surround speakers, well, it was awful The four track mag prints were of course just as bad. But it looked better in 35mm,
the 70mm prints looked all out of porportion. Lastly “Scrooge”,
I believe played RCMH in 70mm, hense the great sound.
Well said vincent, I felt same way about the Roxy and Paramount, I went not only for the movie but sometimes just to melt away in the grandeur of it all, and in the 40s and 50s with very little air conditioning anywhere else, it was a great place to beat the heat.
As for RCNH and stereo sound, from 1954 till about 1960 most of the product from MGM and all of the product from FOX was available in four track magnetic sound.I believe all those MGM pictures, as well as some from Columbia, played the hall were in four track. The seperation did get lost at RCMH but there was no dening the quality of the sound. However, one had to sit in one of the mezzanines to notice the surrounds, which in the days before Dolby, were located in the ceiling. I believe RCMH management resisted placing surround speaker boxes all over the hall when 70mmm was installed, but when Dolby Digital came along surround speakers with gold covered speaker fabric popped up all the place, this of course, as ugly as they are, intensified the surround experience. Oh and yes Bill, I too remember “Today to get the people to attend the picture show” the great sterophonic sound song and dance number from “Silk Stockings”
Do any of you very knowledgeable gentlemen know if the Capital projected Vertigo in VistaVision? I can recall RCMH and the Paramount having VistaVision projection, what about the Capital.
Doreen, I worked for 45 years in theatre exibition. I know several film buyers (bookers) who can give us all the info we need to procure films. I am going on vacation on Monday for two weeks but will start contacting people immediately thereafter and find out what I can. Booking the films is fairly simple, there are many markets which supply classic films in 35mm. Last time I was in the booth everything was working fine, I do wonder however if anyone has
been up there to undue some of my work. In addition, I installed a Voice Of the Theatre A4 speaker system and hope it is still there. I last saw it stage left covered in cloth. The wire connecting to the projection booth is attached to the screen, which had been bolted to the ceiling for safety sake, but the screen once the bolts are removed can be lowered and it is in very good condition. It should be the second fly to the right of the one marked “Rag” which is the
main curtain. Incidently, the curtain is capable of not only going up/down it can, since it is two panels, work as a travel curtain.
the rigging just needs to be replaced. I will talk more to you about this upon my return, meanwhile I encourage anyone else intersted in getting classic movies back to the St George contact Doreen
Robert
Log on to St George/theaters/1864/
There is a movement to bring movies to the St George