Radio City Music Hall

1260 6th Avenue,
New York, NY 10020

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BoxOfficeBill
BoxOfficeBill on September 6, 2005 at 11:14 am

I’m the crank who brought up the topic of visible seams in the screen several times in the past, notably in my post of 1 September 2004. I’ll stand by that claim to my last breath. Those seams enraged me as a kid in the early ‘50s.

The defiantly flat screen at RCMH in 1953 consisted of eight panels @ 4'x70' sewn horizontally so that when the masking dropped for CinemaScope, the viewing measured 28'x70', and when the side masking moved in for regular projection, the surface measured 32'x55' or so.

You cannot see the dark lines in Warren’s picture because the screen’s whiteness bleaches out those details. But if you sat close enough to that screen at the time, you’d go mad looking at them.

The same was true of enlarged screens everywhere in the mid-‘50s, except that to achieve curvature, the panels were sewn vertically on frames set at slight angles to one another to yield an arc of 12:1. If I remember correctly, the Roxy’s CinemaScope screen consisted of sixteen such panels (= 64’ total width), and masking closed in to allow ten panels (= 40' width) of viewing surface for conventional projection.

I further recall that around the time of “Friendly Persuasion” (Nov. ‘56), RCMH finally installed a truly seamless screen. Or perhaps I was just going blind from teenage activities and didn’t notice the familiar old horizontal lines so much. Today, I’d be thrilled to see any screen at all.

Vito
Vito on September 6, 2005 at 10:24 am

Vincent, I am sure REndres will comment here, but the strips you described were never installed in any theatre other than for Cinerama. They were guided louvers each angled to the audience and the projector. It was designed that way to reduce cross reflection to a minimum. Does anyone know of any purpose for louvered screens other than Cinerama?

Butch
Butch on September 6, 2005 at 10:10 am

Vincent—-
I saw many Cinemascope films at the Roxy and the Music Hall and never noticed any horizontal strips (even with my discerning eyes) at either theater. I would be interested in reading others views on this.

VincentParisi
VincentParisi on September 6, 2005 at 10:01 am

The great photo of the Music Hall’s cinemascope screen makes it look as though it were one sheet. However on previous posts people have said that the screen was in several horizontal strips and that they were quite noticable to the film viewer. Was this the case and does that mean that all those widescreen features shown in ‘54 and '55 had that flaw which I would assume would have been pretty distracting? Also if the Hall had it doesn’t that mean that the Roxy and other theaters had it as well?

frankdev
frankdev on September 5, 2005 at 11:13 pm

does any one know if they will put out the tv movis “legs” I have it on cassette, but really want it on dvd, thanks

dfinger
dfinger on September 5, 2005 at 7:43 pm

Warren,

I have a question to ask, but perhaps you would not want it on the board. Could you contact me at ?

Thanks,

  • Dwight F
ErikH
ErikH on September 1, 2005 at 4:32 pm

The F word is used once in the stage version of “The Producers”, in a song (“The King of Broadway”) that wasn’t included in the film. “The Producers” hasn’t been rated yet; the version tested this week was a rough cut. For the record, only one of Brooks' films was rated R (“Blazing Saddles”).

VincentParisi
VincentParisi on September 1, 2005 at 1:42 pm

Speaking of glowing in the dark I believe I saw this effect used on the Rockettes in the ‘70 Christmas show when all the lights in the Hall were shut off and one could see the high kicking legs aglow. Also there is a photo from a very old Music Hall souvenir book with the the former Missouri Rockets in Halloween skeleton costumes!
I am sure the glow in the dark effect was used for this.
Richard Foreman would have loved it.
As for the Producers as a Christmas film knowing Brooks penchant for crudeness, potty humor and homophobia which reaches some sort of apotheosis in this work(full disclosure I haven’t seen the stage show) its hardly what I would like to think of as a Music Hall Christmas film.(how many times is the F word used? does the movie get a PG 13 or an R rating?)

ErikH
ErikH on September 1, 2005 at 12:10 pm

From the Wishful Thinking Dept. Several internet sites, including Ain’t It Cool News, have reported that there was a test screening of “The Producers” in Edgewater, NJ several days ago. The posted comments have been very favorable, noting that the film comes across as a faithful adaptation of the Broadway hit as well as a throwback to old fashioned movie musicals (no “Moulin Rouge” here); the audience apparently applauded after the end of each number. Assuming these comments are accurate, what an ideal RCMH Christmas attraction this would have made.

BoxOfficeBill
BoxOfficeBill on September 1, 2005 at 6:35 am

Whoops— the beginning of my post fell off the screen— sorry— here’s the whole thing all over again—

Here’s a Program from March, 1959:

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Golly. An RCMH Easter show that sort of vaporized in its arty pretension. And another instance of an RCMH stage show mimicking the trope of the film. In the credits you’ll see that the live cast wore “Junior Fashions inspired by ‘Green Mansions.’” Whether this meant the Rockettes, the Schola Cantorum, the Corps de Ballet, or all of them is more than I remember. But I can barely imagine any of them dashing around in the spidery shift that the film’s star wore on screen. Not the Rockettes kicking, nor the Schola chanting from “Prince Igor,” nor the Ballet dancing to Offenbach. Whew.

Warren reports the inventor of Panavision’s crediting the film for the success of that process, which MGM introduced because Hepburn thought that CinemaScope made her look like a balloon in close-ups. The Program gets it wrong and lists the process as “Metrocolor and CinemaScope.” I can only hope that the Program also got it wrong about the stage show’s use of “Radium effects by Stroblite Co. and Black Light Eastern Corp.” If not, we all might have glowed in the dark after leaving the theater. Perhaps we did? What I most remember about the stage show, again mimicking the film, was the jungle scent of “Perfume, ‘Antilope’ by Parfums Weil, Paris,” blown in under the seats during the finale. Folks with serious allergies might have had trouble staying on for the picture that followed.

BoxOfficeBill
BoxOfficeBill on September 1, 2005 at 6:31 am

Rockettes, the Schola Cantorum, the Corps de Ballet, or all of them is more than I remember. But I can barely imagine any of them dashing around in the spidery shift that the film’s star wore on screen. Not the Rockettes kicking, nor the Schola chanting from “Prince Igor,” nor the Ballet dancing to Offenbach. Whew.

Warren reports the inventor of Panavision’s crediting the film for the success of that process, which MGM introduced because Hepburn thought that CinemaScope made her look like a balloon in close-ups. The Program gets it wrong and lists the process as “Metrocolor and CinemaScope.” I can only hope that the Program also got it wrong about the stage show’s use of “Radium effects by Stroblite Co. and Black Light Eastern Corp.” If not, we all might have glowed in the dark after leaving the theater. Perhaps we did? What I most remember about the stage show, again mimicking the film, was the jungle scent of “Perfume, ‘Antilope’ by Parfums Weil, Paris,” blown in under the seats during the finale. Folks with serious allergies might have had trouble staying on for the picture that followed.

BoxOfficeBill
BoxOfficeBill on August 25, 2005 at 8:59 am

Vincent— Yes, absolutely. “Nun’s Story” and “NxNW” redeemed everything.

VincentParisi
VincentParisi on August 25, 2005 at 7:59 am

But then following you had two hit them out of the ball park with steroids home runs. I would have been thrilled with the equivilant of just one in all of the 70’s.

BoxOfficeBill
BoxOfficeBill on August 25, 2005 at 7:47 am

Warren— right; my post on that one last week (18 Aug.) concurs with your estimate. The leads had paired earlier in “Around the World in Eighty Days” with equally gaseous results; but that pic had Todd-AO to look at.

BoxOfficeBill
BoxOfficeBill on August 25, 2005 at 7:10 am

Here’s a Program from April, 1959:

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You can’t win ‘em all. Despite its great cast (with Chevalier direct from “Gigi”) and ads that promised a “really riotous romantic comedy,” I found the film a huge dud and completely forgettable. About a year ago, I tuned into TCM while it was being shown and asked myself in disbelief, “I saw that at RCMH?” The scene I watched exposed Kerr in a shower scene full-length nude behind an opaque tub enclosure, totally gratuitously and without any relevance to the plot. Gasp.

In his admirable, lucid, cranky New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson writes of the director and the late ‘50s that they represent “the worst of cinema, when production schedules had not shrunk to the new, smaller audience or begun to aspire to its higher standards. For a few years, major studios still churned out a pale version of their blithe past” (p. 627). We all have our prejudices, and I for one find many films from that era simply wonderful; but as a description of “Count Your Blessings,” I think Thomson’s estimate is right on target.

The Helvetian stage show provided its own whiff of decadence. Advertised as a “gigantic spectacle … featuring singers, dancers, native musicians, folk entertainers, especially brought from Switzerland for this extravaganza,” it has left no trace in my memory. Not even of the “Rock ‘n Yodel” by the Smeed Trio. It seems symptomatic that the Showplace Program abandoned its usual end-page announcement of the next attraction to offer instead a promotional raffle sponsored by laundry and dish detergent. The ad revenues likely offered some subvention for the stage extravaganza.

ryancm
ryancm on August 22, 2005 at 7:59 am

Amazing, isn’t it? When these ads first appeared it didn’t mean much. Just ads. Now it’s HISTORY. It will never be the same because of the loss of the Palaces. Even years from now if someone posts ads from the 60’s thru today, it wouldn’t mean anything because of the multiples. More, more, more ads from the 40’s-50’s…

CelluloidHero2
CelluloidHero2 on August 22, 2005 at 7:10 am

Myrtleave – Great ads. I love seeing this stuff.

spencerst
spencerst on August 21, 2005 at 11:52 pm

north by northwest-1959
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spencerst
spencerst on August 21, 2005 at 11:37 pm

reluctant debutante-1958
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spencerst
spencerst on August 21, 2005 at 11:28 pm

cat on a hot tin roof-1958
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spencerst
spencerst on August 21, 2005 at 11:20 pm

prince and the showgirl-1957
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spencerst
spencerst on August 21, 2005 at 11:11 pm

teahouse of the august moon-1956
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