Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
118 people
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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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Well said Denpiano, at this point all we can ask, is when ever you have corporates ear, you keep the spirit of the music hall we once knew and loved alive, never letting them forget that the hall can be more than just a concert venue or basketball court.
Vincent-
You are totally correct about showcasing the theatres many “Capabilities” and one would think that the “Norm' would be to run a wonderful Summer show!! Unfortunately we are thinking with our hearts,not our corporate heads. Its like any other business, when Mom & Pop pass on the STORE to the kids, it usually signals the end of a glorious era. I can only hope that some of our finer execs will come through this coming year. I can tell you that I have come to know some nice people here and I feel there is some hope.
KEEP THE FAITH Folks!
Gee how about more shows with the organ and the Rockettes for the summer months with all those tourists. Something that would take into consideration the theater itself, the stage capabilities and keep it open all day every day employing many musicians and performers.
But what am I thinking? Treating the Music Hall like it were an arena for hockey games is Cablevision shomanship at its finest.
Why don’t they just save the lobby and turn the rest of it into a condo.
RobertR,
There is a good Times' article on the death of the roadshow from ‘69. It would be great if you could find it and post it on the Rivoli or Criterion page.
If you scan down to the bottom of the page you can see an ad for the show “Wonder World” that Leonidoff created for the 1964-65 World’s Fair.
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Here is a very good 1978 NY Times story on the Music Halls booking problems.
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Seeing the ad for a John Wayne movie got me to thinking of the very few films of his that played at the Hall. Certainly The Quiet Man would have been perfect as has been discussed before. What other Hollywood stars had few films there? Did any Crawford movies get a showing? Seems to me she was more of a Capitol/Strand star.
Vincent—
Thanks for your kind comments on my reviews of 1957. I have one more before moving on to 1956. Here’s a Program from January 1957:
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This must be a rare document, because in a post on 14 July 2004 above, SimonL pointed out that “The Barretts of Wimpole Street†garnered the smallest attendance of any film in the glory days of RCMH. The opening week earned $85,000, at a time when the theater’s standard receipts usually hit $140,000 or higher. The show stayed on for an equally dismal second week, and then folded. I can only wonder what prospective audiences might have thought. “Just who were the Barretts of Wimpole Street?†“I think they lived in England.†“O.†“And I think one of them was sick, took morphine, and wrote poetry.†“O.†“And I think she married a guy who was younger than she was and who also wrote poetry.†“O.†“And I think they eloped to Tuscany.†“O. What’s playing at the Roxy?â€
If I remember correctly, the movie stopped short of depicting the birth of the Barrett-Brownings’ son in Italy when Elizabeth was forty-three years old and still hypochondriac. They named the boy “Pennini†(I am not joking). The film’s major nod to poetry came in its first frames with an off-screen Jennifer Jones reciting “How Shall I Love Thee?â€over images of trees. But the great contour curtain rose slowly and the Grand Organ’s final strains muffled out the sound of the words till they got lost in the high arches. It’s a shame that MGM made these poets’ lives seem so shallow. Besides “Shakespeare in Love,†what good movies are there about poets? Rudolf Friml’s “Vagabond Kingâ€? Someone should film Goethe’s “Tasso†or Pierre Louys’s “Sappho†and give it a midnight screening at RCMH. For the record, “Anastasia†was playing as a Christmas hold-over at the Roxy, to be followed by Frank Tashlin’s “The Girl Can’t Help It†with Jayne Mansfield, Tom Ewell, Fats Domino, The Platters, Little Richard, and a dozen other Rock’n’Roll stars.
For all that, I remember the stage show as being quite good. The newspaper theme opened with the Choral Ensemble singing about frantic nights at the daily press and moved to the Rockettes who boogied on the thirty-six keys of a giant typewriter. The entertainment and metro pages were filled by Richiardi, a magician who in the ‘70s mounted his own show on B’way, and by Janik and Arnaut, exotic dancers (in the old sense of the words) who executed a snake charmer number. The conclusion took us to a front-page report on President Eisenhower’s Inaugural Ball that year, with the Corps de Ballet garbed in red, white, and blue for a gambol along the Potomac. There was no Jenna to contend with.
So with all the corporate sponsorship Cablevision has for their events that they charge $100 a ticket for they can’t get sponsorship for Saturday or Sunday afternoon movies with shorts and the organ.
The New York department of cultural affairs should demand they show King Kong with Denpiano at the organ.
By the way went to the lower arcade of the RCA Building yesterday for the first time since the vandalism. The cheap stucco they used to replace the gleaming black marble Art Deco walls has gotten dirty and it now resembles an underground strip mall in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
BOBill,
Your descriptions of the year ‘57 have been especially wonderful.
St Louis is a terrific film and with some of that amazing photography and the great set pieces it must have been very exciting on the Music Hall screen. I’m just sorry Wilder didn’t get a younger actor for Lindberg. Stewart was far too old to play a young fearless aviator at this point(He would have been perfect in '37.)
I just picked up a trio of Rockettes while shopping for Christmas ornaments the other evening… Actually, the Rockettes were ornaments, in miniature, to go along with my little Department 56 set of “Christmas in the City” decorative models. I bought them to compliment the Radio City Music Hall piece from that series.
Somewhere buried in my belongings is a souvenir booklet from the 1978 RCMH presentation of the movie “Crossed Swords” (which was to have been the Hall’s final show ever – until a stay of execution was issued). The booklet, as I recall, featured a history of the theater including an item (with illustration) about the stage elevators and other RCMH technical innovations. If I ever get a chance to dig it out, I might spring to have it digitized – perhaps in a PDF document – and see if I can upload it for view here. I also have a wonderful original hardocver souvenir booklet my Mom saved for “How the West Was Won” that features an explanation of the 3-strip Cinerama process as well as a vintage souvenir program for “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.” None of these are in particularly good condition, but I’d love to share them with everyone here if I can figure out how.
Site that lists some of the dancers, articles written about and other info about the Rockettes:
http://www.streetswing.com/histmai2/d2rockt1.htm
This may have been posted before
There is an article and full page picture in Invention & Technology Winter 1992 entitled “A Tremendous Lift”.. about Radio City, the elevators etc.
Here’s a Program from March, 1957:
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Another rousing show that year, “The Spirit of St. Louis†and its stage presentation marked a couple of departures. For one, the film bore none of Billy Wilder’s trademark cynicism or irony; or, if it did, those qualities worked so subtly against the film’s celebratory grain that they provided just enough grit to form a pearl. I found it amazing how one actor and a buzzing fly could sustain such attention for so long in a film whose outcome we knew from the start. I shall never forget the ending with the actor and the plane alone in the hanger at Le Bourget as French crowds intoned Lindbergh’s name, the actor naively intoning “There were 200,000 people there that night. And when we came back home, there were 4 million people waiting,†and finally the cut to actual footage of Lindy’s ticker-tape parade in NYC, with “Stars and Stripes Forever†on the soundtrack, now synchronized with the Grand Organ as the great contour curtain fell.
A second departure, as I’ve already remarked on this page (23 July 2004) is that the organ interludes before and after the movie and stage show were framed in a way I’d never experienced before or after at RCMH. Instead of using the golden houselights on the contour curtain and arches, the tech crew lit the entire auditorium in sky blue to match the movie’s theme. And instead of using organ #1 on the left as usual, they used organ #2 on the right. I remember thinking, jees, all these tourists here for the first and maybe last time will never see the famous “sunset” effect of the golden curtain. Some might recall that the newsreels and next-attraction announcement always took place under dimly blue-lit arches to enable arriving and departing patrons to navigate the aisles. For the interludes at this show, the intensity was ratcheted up several levels to bathe the house in Lindy blue. Odd.
A third, but expected, departure was a very brief stage show to make up for the extreme length of the film. I remember its prevailing color scheme figured as blue, too. The opening classical ballet gave way to 1920s-ish Gershwinesque tunes sung by the Foursome (who would reappear later that year in the stage show with “The Pajama Gameâ€). That in turn gave way to a stage set of enormous magazine covers, from which the Rockettes stepped out to perform their routine. Then came the finale and that was it for the show. The program provides credits for umbrellas used in one of the acts, but for the life of me, I can’t remember how they played out in the scenario.
RE TDTaylor’s: “The concert nature of the Grand Organ came through at the holidays, Christmas and Easter. It was superior to many church organs for religious music. And the pedal on Rubinstein’s "Kammennoi Ostrow” coupled with the orchestra as the altar of a large cathedral appeared in the Easter show was thrilling."
Many people forget that the Music Hall was designed as a concert organ, not a theater organ per se. It is capable of playing both styles of music. There is a very similar instrument from which the Music Hall’s evolved. It’s the organ in the Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall’s (formerly Convention Hall) Ball Room built by W.W. Kimball. It has 55 sets (ranks) of pipes and the Music Hall has the same 55 sets, plus three more. It is generally thought the Music Hall organ was designed by Kimball (as Roxy was said to favor Kimballs) but it was eventually built by Wurlitzer and the specifications remained unchanged. The pedal on the Music Hall organ is indeed thrilling … even today! Bach’s Toccata from his Toccata and Fugue in d-minor is impressive on the Wurlitzer.