Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
116 people
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Here’s a Program from May, 1956:
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“Bhowani Junction†showed off Ava Gardner, Pakistan, Northern India, and George Cuckor’s eye for spectacle all at once. 1956 was a year of great competition for RCMH with the Roxy as the latter had booked blockbuster Fox musicals (“Carousel,†“The King and Iâ€) ordinarily associated with MGM and the Music Hall. “Junction†seemed an answer to Fox’s “Rains of Ranchipur†which had played at the Roxy the previous Christmas, just as the sophisticated sexiness of Ava seemed an alternative to the spontaneous sex-appeal of Marilyn Monroe, whose “Bus Stop†was slated to park at the Roxy.
The stage show, too, revealed competitive ambitions. The Rock-’n-Roll number in the “Block Party†sequence marked the first time in my experience that such barbarous noise (introduced to teen-aged America only a year earlier) was heard at RCMH, briefly displacing the hitherto canonical Gershwin, Porter, Kern, et al. Chopin’s melodies in any case ended the show with a divertissement by the Corps de Ballet augmented by toe-dancing Rockettes. In between that and the Rockette’s earlier high kicks performed against a Times Square setting, we thrilled to the Three Houcs, a trio of jugglers, and Pat Henning, a stand-up commedian.
My grandfather had heard that the show was sensational, and he popped me five dollars to take a friend to see it. With the money left over (the 10:30 am show cost 90 cents in those days), we went afterwards to MoMA (50 cents in those days) to see a screening of “The Lady Vanishes,†and still had enough to spend on movies the following week.
I hope to someday tour and see a show at Radio City, but many CT members/New Yorkers who have a history of going there over the years seem to express many changes that have occurred over the years. I guess with time comes change and not always for the good though there will always only be one Radio City Music Hall and it is a special theatre. Santa brought me the Dept 56 RCMH this year and I plan to leave it on display all year long as I just love it. I didn’t get the 4 kicking Rockettes that come separately, but may sometime. Dept. 56 also offers the Ed Sullivan Theatre.
Can’t help thinking about the new “video wall” installed in the Music Hall. It looked good in the opening number and looked like a video screen in every other number it was used in. I have a feeling that eventually, we will not see any scenery at the Music Hall. Pity.
Wow, so many lovers of Radio City. I live an hour away in New Jersey but still want to get back in there. My most recent memory is of a Theatre Organ Society gathering there back in the late 70’s. It was a demonstration of the theatre’s wonderfully flexible capabilities AND a concert of organ music — including a duet by two organists actually playing the master and slave consoles on both sides of the stage. So much better to hear a real concert than the way it used to be played between movie and stage show while the audience could come and go making almost as much noise as the organ was making music!
BoxOfficeBill: I can’t compete with your astounding memory, but as a Roxy usher in 1956/57, I was occasionally sent to do an attendance check at the Hall. What always astonished me was how quickly the Roxy would fill up once the last stage show at the Hall had begun and the door men began announcing that there was waiting in the lobby for the last feature only. You could see hundreds of disappointed people heading back to 7th Avenue to see the last complete show at the Roxy which began around 10 pm. The last stage show at the Hall began, except on rare occasions, shortly after 9pm. The Roxy was never noted as a matinee theater, it appealed to a more middle brow audience who liked a star turn, a big band sound, and no highfallutin dancing. It was only during the war years (1942-45) that the Roxy came close to rivaling the Hall. The Hall, however, is where many of us of a certain age who couldn’t afford the Met or Carnegie Hall learned to appreciate classical music, dance, opera, etc. in a classy setting. What a legacy!
SimonL— Yes, you’ve documented it exactly. In the mid-to-late ‘50s, Variety consistently reported weekly grosses of $120,000-to-$150,000 at RCMH, and double that by the time prices had doubled in the mid-'60s. Christmas and Easter weeks in the mid-'50s would reach $180,000. Weekends always brought packed houses, and summers would also register a rise in daily attendance.
The famous lines at Christmas and Easter grew primarily at morning and early afternoon performances, packed with families and children, but prices were lower at those times. On ordinary weekends, however, long lines regularly formed for evening performances when prices were higher. Consequently, the grosses for a couple of solid weekend evenings could approach or equal those for an entire week of mornings and matinees at holiday times.
Late-winter months always marked the slowest business. Between mid-January and mid-March in the post-WWII years through the mid-60s, RCMH usually turned over three bookings(and turned over four during those weeks in 1950).
Vincent: “Giant” opened at the Roxy in mid October and had a super fine opening week of $162,000 (Its final ninth week only grossed $37,000). (“Anastasia” pulled in a bit more during the Christmas/New Years weeks in its eight-week run). By the time “Friendly Persuasion” opened in November at the Hall, “Giant” was slipping badly and grossing under $100,000. It did not sustain itself as well as “The King and I” (the previous film) over its nine-week run. Opening round for The King and I was $158,000, with subsequent weeks pulling in $130,000, $124,000, $126,000, $105,000 etc. “Friendly Persuasion” was no world beater but its four-week run began with a moderate $140,000 and ended its four-week run with a similar gross in its final Thanksgiving week. The Roxy had a hard time pulling in $100,000 while the Hall consistantly stayed above that figure.
Well, I can now say that I have finally seen the RCMH Christmas Spectacular. Though it was in Charlotte NC and not NYC, I enjoyed it as the tears flowed when I first caught a glimpse of the 18 Rockettes enter the stage. I would have liked a live orchestra and I thought the live nativity scene was a bit ‘over the top'though it was beautifully portrayed and in keeping with the overall 'over the top’ production. My favorite part of the show was the march of the wooden soldiers and their famous collapse which is depicted on the mugs sold before and during intermission. Happy New Year to All!
If Giant and Persuasion were playing against each other was the Roxy outgrossing the Hall?
Perhaps the Hall at this point knew that only Holiday and summer shows would bring in the crowds. And this would only last til ‘68.
“Friendly Persuasion” was the first and I believe the only Allied Artists production to ever play at the Hall. Getting a Hall booking was a coup. It was supposed to inaugurate a new era for this B studio. It didn’t. It did only moderate business and issued in a rather long spell of poor business. Except for the Christmas show (“Teahouse…”) the Hall had to take it on the chin with two weeks of “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” (the lowest grossing film since “The Hills of Home”), followed by a tepid three weeks of “The Wings of Eagles,” and then “The Spirit of St. Louis,” which was very disappointing at the box office despite a strong Washington’s Birthday opener. Bravo to Boxoffice Bill for bringing back the memory of the organ chiming in with film’s finale as the great contour curtain fell. Luckily audiences returned for “Funny Face and the Easter show. There were always dry spells but that one in 1956-57 gave a preivew of things to come and proved that audiences were beginning to get very selective even when going to the Hall.
Here’s a Program from November, 1956:
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“Friendly Persuasion†came to us with a lot of misleading advertising: Tony Perkins, America’s latest heartthrob; Pat Boone singing the hit theme, “Thee I Love.†Who could have the stomach for Pat Boone? Somehow, friends persuaded me to go, and I found it hugely entertaining. I’m not sure that I knew what “A Wyler Film†meant in those days, but its quality surely touched me. The same could be said for “The George Stevens’ Production†then playing down the block at the Roxy. And as with “Giant†at that theater, the extended length of “Friendly Persuasion†(two hours and twenty minutes) at RCMH made for an abbreviated stage show. I recall nothing specific from it, but the title of the Rockettes’ musical number is undeniably evocative.
The balconies at the Hall are also set very far back from the stage, so they still afford a more level viewing angle than smaller theaters where the angles are much more steep.
I agree with BoxOfficeBill about the third mezzanine being a better choice than the first or second. I sat in the first for the 50th anniversary showing of “Gone With the Wind”, and it seemed very closed-off and restricted. You got no sense of the huge scale of the Hall, which you very definitely get from the third mezzanine.
Right—but I bet the rear of the third mezzanine is at least as good as and possibly better than the rear of the second. In the first and second mezzanines, as well as in the rear orchestra, the overhanging upper structures would muffle the sound, whereas in the third mezzanine the sound rolls gently off the curved ceiling. I sat in the third balcony several times, but never in the first or second; rear orchestra seats under the first mezzanine are terrible.
Right—but I bet the rear of the third mezzanine is at least as good as and possibly better than the rear of the second. In the first and second mezzanines, as well as in the rear orchestra, the overhanging upper structures would muffle the sound, whereas in the third mezzanine the sound rolls gently off the curved ceiling. I sat in the third balcony several times, but never in the first or second; rear orchestra seats under the first mezzanine are terrible.
Happy anniversary to Radio City which opened today in 1932
For live performances, front-row seats are never the best in the house (too close to the musicians who drown out the performers; to close to the stage to get a full view of the set; often they are used for company comps). The choice seats are usually center rows E to G in a large house or D to F in a smaller one. At RCMH, the mamouth scale likely dictates a somewhat wider span for choice seats. But I’m astonished that the front center mezzanine also commands the highest price, since the balconies are set so far back. The worst seats I ever had for any performance anywhere were for “Riverdance” at RCMH in the mid-‘90s. The cost hit mid-range on the price-scale, but the seats turned up in the rear orchestra and the sound was muffled while the performers looked like peanuts. Ever seen a peanut dance an Irish reel?
Columnist Liz Smith today (12/23/2005) chimes in on the Christmas show:
EVERY YEAR I go to the Radio City Christmas Show, and I hear people carping and complaining that Radio City ends its extravaganza of sleighs, dancing bears, tin soldiers, Santas by the stageful, Mrs. Claus, elves, skaters, ballerinas and the fabulous Rockettes by staging a tremendous presentation of the Nativity â€" the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Some object to this religious spectacle with the Magi, the shepherds, the star, the inn with no room, camels, donkeys and sheep all worshipping while over it they run and read aloud the words of James Allan Francis. This pastor of Riverside Baptist Church wrote back in 1926:
“He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then for three years, he was an itinerant preacher. He never had a family or owned a home. He never set foot inside a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place He was born. He never wrote a book or held an office. He did none of things that usually accompany greatness.
“While He was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends deserted Him. He was turned over to His enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While He was dying, His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had — His coat. When He was dead, He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave.
“Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today, He is the central figure for much of the human race. All the armies that ever marched and all the navies that ever sailed and all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as this ‘One Solitary Life.’ ”
You can still go to Radio City and leave before the Nativity scene if you feel it’s going to offend you. But how could you ever escape the history of that one solitary life even if you felt it has no meaning for you? Well, I always sit there and cry. And I congratulate Radio City for its determination to keep and give Christmas its ultimate meaning.
Funny, B.O.Bill, that you say Sam Goody’s was a discount record store in those days. I can’t say that I’ve been in a Sam Goody’s in quite a number of years, but the store’s prices for CD’s in the ‘80’s and '90’s could hardly be called “discount.” I remember they were selling titles for $16.99 and $18.99 while bigger stores like Tower Records were selling them for $12.99 to $14.99. Today, I don’t think Goody’s can compete with the discounts offered by the larger electronic chains like Circuit City and bargain stores like Target and Best Buy. But, there it still stands on W. 48th and stores like FYE which are also priced above the bigger chains seem to be hanging in as well.
I found my souvenir booklet from the run of the 1978 film “Crossed Swords” which was advertised as the Hall’s last feature attraction and played from March to April with the Easter stage show. There are actually two booklets that I still have… one in specific to the film itself with a red “Final Attraction” sticker affixed to the front and the other was a general booklet about the Hall itself. In my memory I fused the two into one publication. I want to scan the cover of the film souvenir and load it on my photobucket site to share here. As for the Hall booklet, I’d really like to have the entire booklet scanned in high quality, perhaps as an Adobe PDF document. Does anyone here know if I can load a file like that up to photobucket? If not, are there sites that would allow me to upload the file so that I might share it here? If not I might just scan select pages myself and post them as images.
Here’s a Program from December 1956:
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“Teahouse of the August Moon†and the Christmas stage show was another package that I saw twice at RCMH, but for the inverse reason that made me repeat the following year’s offering. This time I went first with my parents early in the run (“Marlon Brando is such a great actor: let’s see what he can do with comedy!â€). The film’s opening music knocked me over: I had never heard such exotic sounds and rhythms, such tempo, high pitch, and syncopation. The sanshin and samisen strings, taiko drums, and bamboo flutes sent shivers down my spine. The following Monday on my way home after school, I swerved uncontrollably towards Sam Goody’s on W. 48 (then Gotham’s biggest and only discount record store) to find the best approximation I could, a recording of Kabuki music (“Sir, do you sell any Japanese music?†“Yes, young man; I think you might like this one: it’s called Kabuki.â€) My friends thought I was crazy to spend money I’d saved for Christmas shopping, but after hearing it, they too went wild over the sound. The following Saturday, we headed to RCMH to see the film before the holiday lines grew too long. I never told my parents, because they would have thought it a waste of time to see a film you’d already seen.
The circus-themed stage numbers included what must have been an acrobatic or highwire act (is that what Melitta and Wicons did?), an act with chimpanzees, and the Rockettes as lions and tigers tamed by the rhythm of their tap shoes. On the program’s final page is an invitation to visit the US Rubber’s Exhibit Hall on the site of the former Center Theater. The space constitutes what had been the theater’s grand lobby, which had closed early in ’54. Its auditorium became a parking garage. What a loss.
Vincent, you have a much better memory than I do. I’m sure you’re right.
There is a new coffee table book of the photos of Gottscho called the Mythic City. Times Square at night photos to die for and stunning photos of the Hall auditorium. One before any curtains have been hung, a two pager, is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.
Ken mc
you probably went in ‘71. There was a Christmas Circus stage show with that one. Scrooge was '70.
Robert that’s a great Music Hall Christmas ad. I always liked that illustration of the Leonidoff Nativity used until '69 though its a bit fuzzyy on microfilm.
My first trip to NYC was in December 1970, when I was nine. I went with a church group to see the Christmas show. The film was Bedknobs and Broomsticks, with Angela Lansbury. We also saw the Rockettes and Santa, which was a great production. I remember getting lost trying to find the restroom and crashing a cocktail party somewhere in the building. NYC is a great place to be at Christmas time.
The 1961 Christmas show
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