Astor Theatre
1531 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
1531 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
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favorited this theater
Showing 201 - 225 of 274 comments
MGM movies showcased at the Astor:
11/27/1925 – ‘The Big Parade’ – John Gilbert & Renee Adoree
09/23/1927 – ‘The Student Prince’ – Ramon Novarro & Norma Shearer
12/30/1927 – ‘The Enemy’ – Lillian Gish & Ralph Forbes
03/23/1928 – ‘The Trail of 98’ – Dolores del Rio & Ralph Forbes
08/03/1928 – ‘White Shadows’ – Monte Blue & Raquel Torres
11/16/1928 – ‘Jimmy Valentine’ – William Haines & Leila Hyams
02/08/1929 – ‘The Broadway Melody’ – Bessie Love & Charles King
06/14/1929 – ‘The Hollywood Revue’ – All Star Revue
12/20/1929 – ‘Devil-May-Care’ – Ramon Novarro & Dorothy Jordan
01/24/1930 – ‘The Rogue Song’ – Lawrence Tibbett & Catherine Dale Owen
06/27/1930 – ‘The Big House’ – Chester Morris & Wallace Beery
10/24/1930 – ‘War Nurse’ – Robert Montgomery & June Walker
12/26/1930 – ‘New Moon’ – Lawrence Tibbett & Grace Moore
02/06/1931 – ‘Trader Horn’ – Edwina Booth & Harry Carey
06/05/1931 – ‘A Free Soul’ – Norma Shearer & Leslie Howard
09/11/1931 – ‘The Guardsman’ – Alfred Lunt & Lynn Fontanne
11/15/1931 – ‘The Champ’ – Wallace Beery & Jackie Cooper
12/25/1931 – ‘Hell Divers’ – Clark Gable & Wallace Beery
04/15/1932 – ‘Grand Hotel’ – John Barrymore & Greta Garbo
09/02/1932 – ‘Strange Interlude’ – Norma Shearer & Clark Gable
11/11/1932 – ‘Payment Deferred’ – Charles Laughton
12/23/1932 – ‘Rasputin and the Empress’ – The Barrymores
03/17/1933 – ‘The White Sister’ – Helen Hayes & Clark Gable
04/28/1933 – ‘Hell Below’ – Robert Montgomery & Walter Huston
08/25/1933 – ‘Dinner At Eight’ – John Barrymore & Jean Harlow
11/17/1933 – ‘Eskimo’ – Travelogue
12/29/1933 – ‘Queen Christina’ – Greta Garbo & John Gilbert
I recently saw the TVM “It’s Good To Be Alive”,(Roy Campanella story) on the Fox Movie Channel and during the opening credits there is a great shot of the Astor Theatre. In the background you can see the Victoria. Another quick scene shows the Harlem Theater. The film was made in the early 70’s with Paul Witfield as Campy. A young Lou Gossett is also in the film. The real Campy bookends the story as he sits at a desk writing his life story. Also, in the opening credits are nice clips of Campy and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
In the new picture book on Dean there is a full page photo of the Astor marquee and billboard at the time of Eden.
Those individual billboards from the 30’s to the 50’s are wonderful but I remember as a boy seeing the block long billboard with The Bible, Dr Dolittle, Star and Krakatoa. They were pretty spectacular to me.
I recently found a Playbill from May of 1981 in my collection that includes the following Q & A about the Astor from it’s “Dear Playbill…” section:
Dear Playbill: While walking down B'way recently, I suddenly realized that the Astor Theater on the corner of 45th Street was gone. When did it disappear? Wasn’t it once a legitimate theatre?
—– Melvin G. Lustig, West New York, N.J.
A: Although the Astor Theatre building still stands, the space was converted to a Flea Market emporium a few years ago. Yes, the Astor opened on September 21, 1906 as a legitimate theater. It housed such hits as George M. Cohan’s “Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913), the first Pulitzer Prize Play "Why Marry?” (1917) and Fay Bainter in “East Is West” (1918). After 1925, it operated as a reserved seat, two-a-day movie house for the showing of prestigious films.
I also found a 1978 Playbill that lists in its Theater Guide productions playing at the Bijou, Morosco and Helen Hayes theaters – all of which were demolished in 1982 along with the Astor and Victoria movie theaters to make way for the Marriot Marquis Hotel. Some great reading material in these Playbills along with the ads for Pan-Am, TWA and long gone NYC restaurants and nightclubs (Hawaii Kai, Luchows, Mama Leone’s). I posted some other references from these Playbills on the pages for the Lyric Theater and the 42nd Street Apollo here on the site.
I remember going with my friends to the Astor as a teenager when it was remodeled in the late 1950’s. I think I saw “ON THE BEACH” there.
In Stanley Kubrick’s 1955 film Killer’s Kiss available on a nice DVD, there are extended night scenes of the Times Square area and its theatres. One gets clear views of the Victoria with a large display for The Man Between, the Astor with Queen of Sheba, and the Embassy Newsreel Theatre. There are snippets of more. That part must have been shot around November of 1953.
Warren—
Splendid pix of the great old sign blazing with lights. The block-long newer version was a real disappointment with its harsh relected light. We can only wonder what colors the Ziegfeld and GWTW signs displayed, and what patterns of on-and-off blinking razzle-dazzle they sported.
I didn’t know Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler (“The Ballad of the Green Berets”) ever made a movie. But there he is, in the cast of “Dayton’s Devils”.
Not one of the Astor’s shining moments :)
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March of 1955 “East of Eden"
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It would be nice as well to attach pictures of the Astor billboard with its various films. One of the all time greats of Times Square.
I would have loved to have seen the one for Queen Christina at night.
THESE THEATRE ADS appeared in a program booklet “Stadium Concerts Review” for Lewisohn Stadium, College of the City of New York, for July 29 to August 4, 1936. The concerts were by the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra. The small ads tout what was playing at several New York movie theatres. One of them was the Astor, which was in its fifth month with The Great Ziegfeld.
the rainmaker-1956
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on the waterfront-1954
but look at the brodway plays
see all of them became movies
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20,000 leagues under the sea-1954
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the story of will rogers-1952
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miracle of our lady of fatima=1952
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miracle of our lady of fatima=1952
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Yes Reade operated it for a time late in the game.
I see in the ad for the Carrol Baker picture that the Astor was listed as a Walter Reade theatre. I didn’t know Reade booked this house.
By 1969 the Astor and Carroll Baker had seen better days
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That, plus the sign above the marquee that said the name of the picture.
Jerry, that is indeed a nice shot. That Saul Bass graphic on the Victoria marquee is so powerful, like all his graphics and logos. Apparently that’s all that was indeed for people to know that the movie was “The Man With the Golden Arm”.
Check out this unusual ad, under the one for “Kiss Me, Stupid” at the Astor.
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They’re acting like “Goldfarb” was a movie the world was waiting for. Or maybe Fox knew it was a stinker, and figured an ad like this might drum up some curiosity in it?
Here’s a nice shot from 1955 of the Astor & Victoria. j
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