Loew's Capitol Theatre
1645 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
1645 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
47 people
favorited this theater
Showing 126 - 150 of 1,086 comments
Here is Part 1 of a 3-part clipping of the Variety review from August 1939 mentioned by Comfortably Cool (Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney stage show). All 3 parts are in the Photos section.
Thanks, bigjoe. If I was a few years older than 13 in 1968, I would have gone back again and again. I still have my program also, though it’s a little frayed around the edges. I remember it cost $1. Unless you saw it about two or three days after opening day, you saw the version with 19 minutes removed from it by Kubrick. A college film student, who later went on to be a Hollywood producer, wrote an angry letter to the New York Times complaining that the studio had butchered the film, not knowing that it was done by Kubrick himself in an effort to improve it.
Hello-
I got a kick out the caption for the ad for 2001 on pg.1 of the photo page. well I can go one better. one of the good things about being 68 is having seen 2001 not once but twice during its roadshow engagement at this theater in Cinerama. the visual and audio experience was !!! WOW !!!. I still have the beautifully designed souvenir program. now whether in either of my 2 viewings I saw the original cut before Kubrick tweaked it I have no idea.
I just happen to have that issue lying around… wait, it was here a minute ago, let me check…
Each “Oz” stage show ran for about half-an-hour, including a 5-minute overture by a 21-piece orchestra. There were from five to seven stage performances daily, depending on the day of the week. Mickey Rooney finished on August 30th, replaced by Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr until the engagement closed on September 6th. A lengthy review of opening day can be found in weekly Variety’s issue of August 23rd, 1939.
So how many shows per day? Seven days? How many weeks? How many songs did Garland sing in a show? I’m sure Rooney was climbing the proscenium at every one of them.
First, but not only. Thanks for the reminder!
August 17th will mark the 80th anniversary of the legendary launching of “The Wizard of Oz” at the Capitol Theatre, which included a special stage revue starring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. It was the first and only “live” offering at the Capitol since the theatre switched to movies only in 1935. Advertisement displayed here
If you look at the diagram for the screens at the UA Cinema 150 in Long Island in its photo section you will see that the D150 screen is larger than the Todd AO/70mm screen.
This is the only reason I can figure out why that the first presentation of 2001 was so much more impressive. It might have been on the D150 screen rather than the 70mm screen. Obviously the same screen but as I stated above with different apertures.
Yes. I’ll never forget it. One of my all time great cinema experiences. Just too young to have seen it first run at the Capitol or Warner Cinerama.
I believe it was Columbus Day of ‘77. It played at the Rivoli twice. First time the print said Cinerama at the end. Second time the print said Super Panavision 70. The Cinerama print was so much more spectacular. I know this is confusing and obviously the Rivoli did not play Cinerama films but I’m sure Martin Hart would know why different 70mm prints would have different film process logos on them.
And then somebody once said the Rivoli had two different 70mm screen apertures. Ok I know this sounds crazy but you paid more money for the larger one which was the D150 screen. He said Universal refused to pay for the larger screen so Sweet Charity played on the smaller one. So I’m assuming the first 2001 print played using the larger aperture. Perhaps the difference was slight but I do remember during the second run it was less visually imposing. Or was it that the first impression was so overwhelming the second viewing couldn’t live up to it? Well it was over 40 years ago and the Rivoli is long gone so now who knows.
You saw it at the Rivoli?
Which is why I haven’t seen 2001 since I last saw it at the Rivoli decades ago. What’s the point? Love reading about it and watching youtube docs about it though. I guess you get the experience going to the Cinerama theaters on the west coast but it seems like it will never happen again in NY. I bet the Capitol Cinerama screen was larger than those anyway.
Interesting that the actor who was so brilliant as the voice of HAL Douglas Hain considered the two day recording session a joke and never bothered seeing the film. Huh? At least that’s what I found out on the internet. He died last year.
And neither are any of us, sad to say lol
51 years ago today, and it was a Saturday like today, I was in the Capitol with my dad seeing “2001”. I just finished watching it at home, on a 92" screen, but it just wasn’t the same.
Hello-
in my search for the 1st purpose movie theater in Manhattan a fellow poster mentioned a theater with the name City Photoplays which I had never heard of. i later found the theater on a list but can’t remember the website. i thought my fellow poster might have meant the Variety Photoplays at 3rd Ave. & 14 St.. but the list i found listed a seating capacity that would have been too for the Variety Photolays. so where was the City Photoplays theater to which my' fellow poster referred?
On December 25, 1959 the Loew’s Capitol Theatre – after being modernized – was re-opened with Yul Brynner in “Solomon and Sheba”. The architecture was by John J. McNamara.
I’m with you guys. Never knew Loew’s was associated with the Capitol. Signage just said Capitol. Loew’s always made their presence known on their signage, even the smaller venues. Always remember looking up Broadway at night and seeing the vertical spelling out Capitol in white letters. The State specifically said Loew’s State.
I believe Comfortably Cool is correct. I grew up in New York, left the city in 1959, and always remember the theater as “The Capitol.” I was never aware of any connection to Loew’s. If any theater was “the flagship,” it was Loew’s State. I only visited the Capitol once, after it had installed the big Cinerama screen. I think I saw Cinerama Holiday.
A good case could be made for Loew’s State as “flagship” of the circuit. Marcus Loew certainly intended that when the State first opened in 1921, adjacent to the new Loew’s HQ building at 1540 Broadway. The company inherited control of the five-year-old Capitol in 1924 as part of the merger that created MGM Pictures, but never marketed it to the general public as Loew’s Capitol until a modernization in 1959. The Capitol was the largest cinema in the world until the Roxy’s opening in 1927.
I thought the State was. Which one had the larger stage?
The Capitol was the number one flagship theatre of the entire chain.
Was the Capitol one of Loews' flagship theatres?
If there ever was a Music Hall film Magnificent Ambersons was it. But like Kane Radio City passed because of Rockefeller ties to Hearst?
Thank you for posting it. I’ll check it out. Some of those Mad magazine parodies of the films themselves were pretty funny. Especially Sound of Music and the combined parody of 3 films: On a Clear Day You Can See a Funny Girl Singing Hello Dolly Forever. Still the best most scathing send up of Streisand and I’m a fan of hers and those 3 films.
Any many of those big roadshow lps ended up in the bargain bins which is how I was able to afford them as a kid. It was the bombs not the hits. You wouldn’t find Funny Girl, Oliver or Sound of Music. The cutout of Finian’s Rainbow came wrapped with the souvenir program.
Hello-
I enjoy chatting with fellow movie buffs via this site since IMDB did away with their message boards. to which a thought- I wish people would stop equating being able to reserve seats online nowadays with traditional roadshow engagements popular from 1952-1972.