Radio City Music Hall

The two Paramounts, MSG and Columbus ,overlapped in 1991-1992 until Loews changed theirs to Columbus Circle.

Warren thr name WaMu is so ridiculas. I recall when the theatre first opened it was called the Paramount, but complaints from the owners of the Paramount theatre on the east side wanted it changed. It then became the Theatre at Madison Square Garden and then this sily new name. Since we no longer have a Paramount in NY perhaps they should just go back to the original name.
Just my 2 cents.

Mann Theatres put in a pair of Simplex 35/70’s when they did that famous move-over from the Chinese Theatre of “Star Wars” to the Mann’s Hollywood Theatre for that long month engagement. Those Simplex projectors ate alot of 70MM film too.

Bill,
“Airport” was the first film shown in 70mm at the Hall, and was the most traumatic. I heard stories about that series of events even before I worked there. The only reason 70mm was installed was that Ross Hunter insisted that “Airport” be shown in 70mm, and Universal had fourl-walled the theatre, so what they wanted they got. There were no Simplex 35/70mm machines available on short notice, so the Hall got three of them from the Gulf & Western (Paramount) building. Both the Paramount theatre in the basement, and the two screening rooms were equipped with 35/70, and they weren’t ready to open so the Hall made the deal. They had to be Simplex machines, since all of the apertures for the film effects in the stage show were cut for Simplex XL projectors, and they needed the flexibility.

The former head of the MGM camera department had converted the original XL’s to 70mm (actually 65mm) use for “Ben Hur” and “Raintree County” Camera 65, and offered to do the same for the Hall, but was frozen out of his company in a divorce settlement. Word had it that the machines the Hall got were assembled by his accountant, and they weren’t put together well. (We later took them out to the Simplex shop in New Jersey and had them rebuilt.)

Bill Nafash, who had the knowledge to rebuild them was at a World’s Fair at the time of the installation and wasn’t available to help. There were a host of other problems so severe, that after the first screening of “Airport” on opening day, they had to go back to 35mm for the next screening.

Ben Olevsky, who was chief, didn’t want 70mm to begin with and hated them and the sound system that was installed. The machines damaged so much 70mm film that when I told the crew we were going to run 70mm in 1974, one of them put his hands around my neck as if to choke me and said, “We don’t want to run 70mm!” It took the rebuilding of the machines and installation of some replacement units like the feed and take-up assemblies before they were “tamed”. If you saw “Airport” there in 70mm, you were at a classic moment in Music Hall history!

Actually, that is a “real” photo. Radio City did a stage show which paid tribute to its motion-picture past, and opened with the contour going up to reveal the screen, and had the Rockettes positioned in front of it. The show probably dated back to 1953 when the Hall first started showing CinemaScope and wanted to “wow” the audiences with the screen size. The announcer had copy which read something like, “Now that’s a screen!”

If you saw the screen in in the ‘70’s and thought it looked different, it was probably because the aspect ratio was changed between CinemaScope and Panavision 70. It is the same screen, fitted into the original truss work from the house opening which also carried the Magnascope masking. Both the sides and top masking move, thus enablng any aspect ratio to be shown. The screen as shown in the photo is showing a 2.55:1 original Scope ratio, which was later reduced in the days of Magoptical and optical Scope soundtracks to 2.35:1. While I did inherit 2.55 plates, we never used them in the '70’s since there were no 2:55 prints available. (The discussion came up during our screening of the restoration of “A Star Is Born”, since it was originally 2.55. The only decent print in terms of picture was a 2.35 optical print. The 4-track magnetic stereo print had a decent enough track, but the picture was scratched. It was suggested that we crop the top and bottom of the picture to regain the 2.55 ratio, but I thought that Cukor would probably want as much of his original picture seen as possible, and the sides were already being cropped. We ended up running the 4 track mag from interlocked mag dubbers rather than composite on film).

For Panavision 70, the aspect ratio is 2.21:1, and thus the picture which is 30' high looks less wide than scope even though it is the full 70' wide as opposed to 2.35 Scope’s 64' width. (The original 2.55 magnetic 35mm prints would have filled the whole 70' screen width although stil being less high than 70mm. Also remember that at the time the photo was taken the Hall had yet to install 70mm equipment, so the screen height would be limited to the 35mm Scope size, although newsreels were run at a 1.37 aspect ratio which would have used a 30' x 40' size.)

If you measure the height of the Rockettes in the photo the screen height would appear to about 26' high. As I recall when we repeated the show the feture masking was for Scope so the contour was just pulled up to show how big the screen really was in comparison to the girls' height. The same photo was also used in promotional material for the Hall including their Pictorial and in a booklet on carbons for arc lighting for motion pictures put out by National Carbons.

One final note: none of the ratios at the Hall are 100% accurate, since with a 19 degree downward angle, the picture elongates somewhat. We always used SMPTE target test film to ensure that we were projecting the image as intended, but because of the downward angle the screen height was always taller than it would have been if the booth were located on the 1st Mezzanine (that was one of the reasons theatres like the Rivoli repositioned their booths to a lower angle when projecting on a curved screen. In that case the distoriton from an old high booth would have been too noticeable.)

Now this is a Cinemascope screen.
View link

Where were you in the 70’s and 7 years ago.
You would have seen both there.
Though I didn’t go. The Music Hall is not right for these films imho.
Of course a standard road show house with about 1,500 seats and a large 70mm screen would be perfect…

I think the quote from the Times was that the 3 balconys were closed and that the orchestra “appeared one third full”.

Here’s an article/review from yesterday’s New York Times:

View link

RE: “And why The Trolley Song…”

Perhaps he thinks it’s a good tune?

The big organ concert event is tomorrow night!

Here’s an article in the NY Post from the other day about it:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/6zh3om

Hello RCMH knowledge dispencers; In the latest article about the upcoming Wurly concert with Jack Moelmann there is a wide shot of the Hall used showing an area under the third choral staircases which offers a view of stairways and a corridor. Is this an exit passageway or the entrance for the choristers to assend the draped tiers leading to the stage? I’ve never seen this area open before.

Re Vito’s 2/13/04 posting-

White Christmas was not the Music Hall’s 1954 Christmas attraction; it opened there on October 13. Deep in My Heart was the film playing there while There’s No Business Like Show Business was down the street at the Roxy.