Criterion Theatre

There is no answer to that, bigjoe. If the boxoffice pre-sales were weak the studio would start planning the wide release immediately but run the roadshow for snob appeal prestige. “MARAT/DESADE” and “FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD” would be examples. In the case of “STAR!” they were just tried to salvage whatever income they could get with the edited version entitled “THOSE WERE THE HAPPY TIMES”.

bigjoe, nobody makes a movie to break even.

Any film containing Lee Marvin singing Wanderin Star is a success in my heart.

It seems as though age of the easily-offended snowflake has even reached the sunny shores of cinema treasures

Mike (saps) makes a good point. But cinema is a matter of personal choice. “Hello, Dolly” and “Tora!” could have been better. Channing over Streisand or no Japanese opinions could have been better. But “Vertigo”, in my opinion, still sucks, anyway.

Hello-

thanks to Al A. for your reply. as I said in my original comment in my opinion Tora Tora Tora is one of the best large scale historical I’ve ever seen and one of the best films on WW II. many people love to classify big roadshow films as bombs I bet without having actually seen them. for instance people love to classify Hello Dolly as a bomb and in my opinion its one of the best musical films ever made. we might as well refer to The Wizard of Oz and' Vertigo as “bombs” since both films were big box office disappointments in their initial release.

“The Old Man and the Sea” played for ten weeks. It was followed by another roadshow (“A Night To Remember”) that played only nine weeks. Films are often called “bombs” because they fell short of expectation at the boxoffice, had such huge budgets they failed to make a profit or as in the case of “Tora!Tora!Tora!”, they also had pretty awful reviews nationwide.

Hello-

at 87mins. The Old Man and the Sea was the shortest
roadshow film i can remember. how long did the roadshow
run last?

The front of the building is now 2 fashion stores(Old Navy, Gap). Whats the name of the restaurant?

I wonder if Funny Girl stayed much longer at the Criterion than it was financially feasible to do so. Columbia already had Oliver set to be its wide release'69 Christmas film for the family trade and they were holding off FG because they didn’t want two big musicals competing against each other. And of course Oliver would do much better at that time. I picture FG playing to empty houses in its last months at the Criterion(my favorite roadshow theater as it was the first one I was ever in and it was a very glamourous event like occasion). One could look at Variety but it was notorious for printing inflated grosses admittedly given to them by theaters.

By the time I was visiting NYC as an adult, this theater was divided up & I never saw a movie in it. I did have the pleasure of seeing Funny Girl in a new print at the Ziegfeld in 2001, very appropriate because a bust of Fanny Brice was on display upstairs in a foyer at the Ziegfeld. Last year the Univ of Penn Gazette (alumni magazine) had an article contrasting movies from 1968 or so to current. Classics then, current is not so. My own analysis is that 1980s & 1990s each had far fewer great mainstream films than each of the decades before, but there were still many such great films. But, after the Millennium, mainstream films that are really great hardly exist! There are still excellent “art” films which is what the Oscars mostly nominate & honor. And, the art films are often exhibited in historic movie theaters. Contrast to TV which since The Sopranos arrived in 1999 has had a renaissance of great series. So, no, films are no longer exhibited here or at the Ziegfeld, not at all, and nowhere for many months one film.

Sorry-Alien.

“WILLARD” moved over to the Criterion in late July 1971.