Radio City Music Hall

This must be an ad from the Bergen Record. Saw BITP with my family at the 303 Drive in which is featured in the ad(children under 12 free.)Wanted to see Hawaii which was playing at the Nyack I believe (we passed it as Julie was serving tea to Max somewhere in New England.)Saw it eventually at the Pascack in Westwood. This obviously was not a roadshow hit as by the summer of ‘67 it was everywhere.

Not exactly a Music Hall ad, but an indication of the power of the Music Hall name with the moviegoing public in 1967:

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There are two programs from RCMH that I regret having misplaced over the years. The first was for “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” which I remember seeing in a packed house one Friday evening in October ’61 after a day of undergrad classes. I found it immensely enjoyable even though it strayed from the novel that had drawn me into a great cult-following at the time. I always thought that I could have done a terrific job playing the part of “Paul/FredBaby,” since I shared that character’s writerly aspirations and was, through similar experiences, depraved beyond my years. I’ll never forget the gasp from 5,900 viewers when George Peppard first opened his closet, and have been trying to build a wardrobe like that since then. Mickey Rooney gave us a deplorable Mr. Yunioshi, but the ambience of Bohemian-luxe NYC life seemed just right for the era (though I’d never known a NYC 5&10 store to look like the one they stole the masks from, and the interiors of Tiffany’s and the NYPL were clearly H’wood sets). Here’s the NY Times’s opening day ad to substitute for my lost program:

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The other program would have been for “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which I remember seeing on a Friday evening in the middle of March ’63. As it happened, it was my first date with my now wife, so there was double reason to save the program. After martinis and some supper on the East Side (or was it beer and hot dogs in Yorkville?) we hopped onto the subway for the last stage show, which usually began around 9:30 pm. Upon reaching 50 Street, we joined a line that stretched around the block. The top-coated ushers were barking, “The last stage show has already begun; tickets are now on sale for the final showing of the movie only.” Who cared? When we reached the box-office forty-five minutes later, the ushers were barking, “The final showing of the movie has begun; there is some seating in the side rear sections only.” Who cared? The result is that we missed both the stage show and the film’s opening credits; and the seats were so far from the screen that the latter looked like a small TV tube. Who cared? Here’s the NY Times’s review of the film by Bosley Crowther:

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NYC newspapers had been on strike since the previous December, but the Times has archived its West Coast edition, from which I’ve drawn the above. For greater legibility, here’s a blow-up of the review itself, spliced onto an account in “Variety” of the stage show that we missed seeing (there’s no other record of it in the NYC press):

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The clip from “Variety” (20 Feb. ’63, p. 62) offers a good example of that paper’s over-the-top style (its writers seemed too crazed to go on strike with the rest): “male climbs the ladder … for okay balancing;” the “finale, a scene in Venice, … never happened to a doge.” I’m only sorry we missed the aria from “Barber of Seville” that Lorna Ceniceros so colorfully coloratured. As for Crowther’s critique, it’s grotesquely out of joint (even the headline misstates his argument): it lauds the kids’ performances (Mary Badham is the sister of John Badham, no?), ignores Robert Duvall’s astonishing début, and dismisses the racial conflict at the heart of the story as a “conventional” melodramatic distraction.

For all that, five months later we traveled to DC for Martin Luther King’s March on Washington, 28 Aug. ‘63. On the evening of this historic day, I was nearly killed by Robert Kennedy when, in front of the White House, his chauffered limo loomed out of nowhere and swept through the parting gates, brushing my belt buckle as it passed. I’ll never forget the grin on RFK’s face in response to my startled affront. Imagine the headlines if his car had mowed me down: “RFK kills student after march… Kinship denied…Student’s political passions had been galvanized by show at RCMH….”

Theater pages were originally limited to 1000 comments per theater… so that’s why you weren’t seeing new comments, Warren.

We’ve removed the limit, though, so discussion can now continue…

Enjoy!

I looked through my old Variety clippings and found mostly reviews and ads, but I did find one page of NYC grosses, including the Music Hall. Unfortunately it was for one of the Music Hall’s worst bombs ever. The date is March 9, 1977. “Star Wars” was a little more than 2 months away.

Variety could display showmanship even in these box-office reports. There are all kinds of witty asides and funny in-jokes here (e.g. “Barbra and subordinates eye $375,000”, a theater that switched to showing porn going “the way of all flesh”, etc.)

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Is this the lounge of the Music Hall?
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The 1996 film festival was great. I wish they would do it again. I’ve emailed them several times, but never got a response.

While I don’t know about John getting a piece of scenery from Leon, I do know that Leon got a piece of scenery out of Japan. Leon did a show at the World’s Fair, and got Japan to present New York with a beautiful, HUGE Doncho drop of woven silk. The story is that Leon specified the size, and after the World’s Fair was over the only place in New York with the space to hang it was the Hall. It hung there all during the time I was there and was used in several shows including the 50th Anniversary show. It’s so heavy it takes two pipes to support it, and was too large to move to the Harlem warehouse. Several of the Music Hall souvenier programs from the ‘50’s on featured a centerfold color shot of the Rockettes with the Doncho drop in the background. If John scammed a scenic piece out of Leon it could be that he had learned from the master!

I remember hearing a story that john jackson had an idea for a piece of scenery he wanted to use in a show that he was going to produce in the near future Well being as clever as he was he convinced leon leonidorff that he should build this piece of scenery for his next show, leon did build it when the show was done it was stored in the harlem warehouse. When john did his show he used the scenery that he convinced leon to build and saved a couple of thousand dollars on his budget. maybe renders knows this story and can verify it

I was there for what I remember as the last one they did in 1974. The most impressive thing for me was the start when a “sunrise” was created in house. Since Roxy was said to get his inspriation for the coves from a sunrise while he was on a cruise, the Easter “sunrise” was a natural with the house going dark, and then blue lights in the grilles, followed by the coves gradually coming up in blue as the grilles went to red, then red and blue lighting in the house with amber in the grilles, and then finally full amber house lighting accompanied with organ chimes. I saw it from the booth, and for anyone seated where they could see the full view of the house it looked great! I’m glad I got to see it at least once.

Well Bill, that’s because it is an amazing theatre. I am always happy when a new thread is posted here, I can’t get enough info about this magnificent hall. A special thanks to REendres for all his contributions.

Vito: The 3-D projection for the Christmas Show is with two 70mm projectors, interlocked and running at 30fps. Digital projection has been done from the front of the First Mezzanine with two projectors (one for backup) and the sound routed up to the booth and run through the cinema sound system. I left the Hall in 2000 to work for the company I’m working for now, but our technicians are in for premieres and special events, and I wander over every once in a while also to say, “Hi!” to my Music Hall “family”. Boston Light & Sound supplied the lamphouses, so I’ll have to check with their rep about the 35mm wattages since I frequently have dinner with him when he’s in town.
I did get a chance to see some of Leon Leonidoff’s 16mm footage of the stage shows. After he left he wrote asking me to send it to him, but at the time the case containing his film was in a jumble with the rest of our film library in the area behind the screen in our large screening room, and I didn’t know what I was looking for. When the 50th Anniversary Show came along, I found it and sent it along with other archival footage to California where it was incorporated into the multiple screen montage sequences projected during the show. Unfortunately, the producer of those sequences returned the footage in small chunks and I was never able to piece it back together. Leon did have color footage of “Rhapsody In Blue” and “Bolero” which looked pretty good considering the limitations of the stage lighting and 16mm film at the time. I’ve always felt badly that I didn’t realize that footage was what he was looking for and return it to him before his death.