Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
118 people
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Here’s a Program from June ‘66. If you want to read the fine print, after you click on the URL you must click the image itself so that it enlarges on your screen. I’m sorry that a print-out won’t be so clear.
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The stage and screen fare listed here delivered the theater’s typically high-class full-entertainment package. The live portion concluded with the celebrated fireworks effect.
Another stylish show from the period accompanied “How to Steal a Million†the following August. I’ve lost the program for it, but I remember that the Purdue University Band performed in the theater’s aisles and that a lavish re-enactment of the battle of Iwo Jima constituted the finale. I also remember that my date and I were sitting in my favorite seats at RCMH: in the row on the left-side cross-aisle, so as to have an unobstructed view of the stage and screen. My mom had discovered the advantages of these seats when I was a kid and prone to interference from grown-up heads in front of us. As an adult, I favored these seats so that I could stretch my long legs in full comfort. When the Purdue University Band began its march across the aisle, I thought fractionally of tripping up the tuba player for devilment when he passed, but I withdrew the idea for fear of being ejected from the theater before viewing Audrey Hepburn on the screen. Still, if we had happened to see the movie before the stage show, well then…
This program is the last in my collection with the old cursive “Showplace†logo and the majuscule RCMH name.
Thanks, Robert. I especially like the picture from 1959. I can’t read the letters on the marquee, but I like to think that either “North by Northwest” or “The Nun’s Story” was playing that day.
There is a tiny pic when they desicrated the great stage by playing basketball there
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Rockettes in 2003
http://www.christithomas.com/images/MVC-013F11.jpg
There is one real pic of the hall in here from 1934
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The Music Hall paid much less than that to the film company(after all it is a prestige booking. You get to use in your advertising that it played the Hall.)
Also I don’t believe they paid very much to the staff and performers(what I did for love as they say in ACL.)
I believe at the end of Snow White’s run Variety reported that on a 5 week $550,000 gross Disney got $150,000.
Mike Igers should be happy with that today.
Besides, what movie out of the ones they’re making today would be good enough to attract that many people to the Hall? Maybe the new “King Kong” could do it? I’m hoping the premiere of the movie is held at Radio City, and that the public is able to attend. Kong will have come full-circle from 1933 to 2005.
Subtract payment to the film company (approx. 75%) and they’d be left with $436,590 – subtract payroll, utilities, taxes, etc. and I’d guess they’d lose money at the end of the week, especially since there is no way they’d sell out 4 shows a day with the current studio release patterns.
There’s no audience for a stage show and a movie now days. But…if the Hall could play a movie exclusively for a couple of weeks, then you would have people going there.
If the Music Hall were to reinstate its film stageshow policy at todays movie prices and to sell out all performances 4 times a day it would gross $1,746,360.00 a week which would be an improvement over the $200,000 it would gross a week in the 70’s. Though I believe 2001 grossed less than $100,000 for its one week run.
Warren Thank You that was great!!!
Truly awful Music Hall movies started creeping up with some regularity in the late 60’s with films like The Bobo, Sweet November, and The Impossible Years. But maybe the lowest point was See No Evil in 71. A low budget, very bloody, slasher flic which had no reason being at the Hall and should have opened on a double bill on 42nd ST.
The producer of “Matilda” is also the producer of last year’s Oscar-winning Best Picture, “Million Dollar Baby”. He also produced “The Godfather” in 1972. I guess 1978 was an off year for him.
Here is the poster
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CConnolly
Check this out
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077917/
“Matilda”? The boxing kangaroo movie? A pretty good example of where the Hall was circa 1978.
A Matter of Time was a low point for all involved, Vincente, Liza and Ingrid. Jeez, it looked like crap and the story was weak. I’m surprised they didn’t bring in the wrecking ball during its engagement. I’m sure they wouldn’t have hit any non-existent patrons.
They had a man in a kangaroo suit, need I say more LOL. Actually if you see stills from the some of the scenes it might have scared young kids because it looked so demented. The hall played a few AIP films around that time didn’t it? I remember seeing “Matter of Time” there also.
Operation Crossbow is another one of those holiday films where I wonder what the Hall was thinking. It’s a pretty brutal violent WW 2 movie(in fact it should not even have been booked for the Hall at all.)This was the Easter 65 film with Sound of Music playing down the block at the Rivoli.
I saw the coming attractions for Matilda when I went to Fantasia. It looked unwatchable. I guess it was as bad as I thought.
The post above with the playbill for the 1978 re-release of “Fantasia” lists “Matilda” as the next attraction. I’m embarassed to admit I saw that there. OMG, that film is so bad I don’t think it ever came out on video and I don’t even recall it being on TV. The great Robert Mitchums lowest moment.
The post above with the playbill for the 1978 re-release of “Fantasia” lists “Matilda” as the next attraction. I’m embaressed to admit I saw that there. OMG, that film is so bad I don’t think it ever came out on video and I don’t even recall it being on TV. The great Robert Mitchums lowest moment.
lostmemory: The ad for “Mockingbird” from the New Yorker is appropriate, since during its run at RCMH all NYC newspapers were on strike and there is no record of newspaper ads for it. My post on “Mockingbird” will follow in a couple of weeks.
RobertR: That ad for “Father Goose” (Christmas ‘64, not '66) must have been printed in late January '65. When RCMH held over its Christmas film past mid-Jan., it dropped the Nativity section from its stage show (while unseasonably retaining the rest). The bit of “Marriage Italian Style” at the bottom of your post portends RCMH’s bookings of Sophia Loren’s next three films: “Operation Crossbow,” “Judith,” and “Arabesque” (and of “Sunflower” later on).
Father Goose was the 1966 Christmas Show
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Here’s a Program from March ‘67. If you want to read the fine print, after you click on the URL you must click the image itself so that it enlarges on your screen. I’m sorry that a print-out won’t be so clear.
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At the time, I was pursuing the shelf-contents through a trail of libraries that stretched from Morningside Heights to Washington Square. One balmy Spring morning, bound on the subway toward the NYPL, I alighted at 50 Street intending to walk eastwards to Fifth and then down that sunny avenue to 42 Street. Compulsion drove me to the box-office of RCMH and then into the theater’s deep, dark recesses for the day’s first show.
I hadn’t particularly wanted to see the film or the stage review (it proved to be the last Easter show I’d see there), but once inside, I fell under their spell. In addition to the cathedral pageant, the live production offered the theater’s classic Cherry Blossom ballet and a fabulous rainstorm-water finale. That afternoon, having greeted the Twin Lions and become deeply immersed in decipherment, I couldn’t erase the energizing glow from the morning’s entertainment. I had played hooky for a few hours, but the pay-back more than made up for it. It had been a great show.
The Happiest Millionaire might not have been a success but it was the best Christmas movie I saw at the Hall. I saw most of them from this point on and from production design alone it was the best looking on that screen(also that great looking 60’s technicolor which was about to turn to the grainy washed out color of the 70’s.)
From this point on they were all turkeys(except for Scrooge but the blow up 70 mm print left al ot to be desired.)
Even before that you’d have to go back to The Sundowners to find a good proper Christmas film for the Hall.