i worked here and at the loews tower east as an assistant manager (not at the same time) from 1991 till 1996. from a working-there point of view, it seemed like you had to go up and down a lot of staircases to get from the box office to the mngrs office or to get from the managers office to anywhere. it was hard to get customers to go into the correct glass lobby out of the 2 lobbies, separated by a wall, since the customers wouldn’t see the little 2-foot marquees near the ceiling that showed which lobby for which film and the doorman would spend a lot of time pounding on the glass wall separating them for the patrons to come back up several steps of stairs, exit the building, and come back through the lobby that actually led to the right film. on the night they closed in 2002, i happened to be watching gosford park there (wasn’t working for loews anymore) and i was told that the manager had only been notified that very day that the thtr would close that day.
one interesting thing about working at a theater in manhattan, even though it wasn’t a partcularly luxurious theater, since it was/is pretty well located and was a first run house, you would definitely see celebrities not too infrequently on an opening weekend as you would be working there for a lot of that weekend. i think a hyped new movie is a somewhat-rare common denominator that draws both regular people and celebrities. i saw and took the liberty of saying hello to douglas fairbanks jr, anthony quinn, marcello mastroianni, hugh grant and elizabeth hurley, harold prince, e.l. doctorow, michael keaton, and i’m sure others.
i attended ben hur this past saturday and would echo some of MrAudio’s criticisms, unfortunately. while the chariot race looked really good and there is no substitute for seeing the race on a big screen with pounding audio, i agree that parts of the film did look washed out. the biggest problem for me was that much or most of the film was not in really sharp focus. i was glad to see it get focused at the very beginning when anno domini flashed on the screen, but within 10 minutes the focus was very soft. i think one projector may have been in better focus than the other. the dialogue sounded amazingly crisp in sound quality as projected, though the music under the dialog did sound a little buried. this all may sound ungrateful, but also the sightlines right now are such that anyone sitting in front of you is liable to block the screen a little, and i am six feet tall. however, i have liked the theater a lot since i first visited around 1996 and am amazed and in admiration that the volunteers have been able to do the truly heroic restoration of the theater, as well as managing to keep it open in the face of great adversity.
Is anyone planning to drive to the lafayette from nyc on saturday morning 3/12 to see the magnificent seven, that might consider giving me a lift? thanks in advance!
per the thursday night classic movies- are the prints any good? anone know?
i worked here and at the loews tower east as an assistant manager (not at the same time) from 1991 till 1996. from a working-there point of view, it seemed like you had to go up and down a lot of staircases to get from the box office to the mngrs office or to get from the managers office to anywhere. it was hard to get customers to go into the correct glass lobby out of the 2 lobbies, separated by a wall, since the customers wouldn’t see the little 2-foot marquees near the ceiling that showed which lobby for which film and the doorman would spend a lot of time pounding on the glass wall separating them for the patrons to come back up several steps of stairs, exit the building, and come back through the lobby that actually led to the right film. on the night they closed in 2002, i happened to be watching gosford park there (wasn’t working for loews anymore) and i was told that the manager had only been notified that very day that the thtr would close that day.
one interesting thing about working at a theater in manhattan, even though it wasn’t a partcularly luxurious theater, since it was/is pretty well located and was a first run house, you would definitely see celebrities not too infrequently on an opening weekend as you would be working there for a lot of that weekend. i think a hyped new movie is a somewhat-rare common denominator that draws both regular people and celebrities. i saw and took the liberty of saying hello to douglas fairbanks jr, anthony quinn, marcello mastroianni, hugh grant and elizabeth hurley, harold prince, e.l. doctorow, michael keaton, and i’m sure others.
i attended ben hur this past saturday and would echo some of MrAudio’s criticisms, unfortunately. while the chariot race looked really good and there is no substitute for seeing the race on a big screen with pounding audio, i agree that parts of the film did look washed out. the biggest problem for me was that much or most of the film was not in really sharp focus. i was glad to see it get focused at the very beginning when anno domini flashed on the screen, but within 10 minutes the focus was very soft. i think one projector may have been in better focus than the other. the dialogue sounded amazingly crisp in sound quality as projected, though the music under the dialog did sound a little buried. this all may sound ungrateful, but also the sightlines right now are such that anyone sitting in front of you is liable to block the screen a little, and i am six feet tall. however, i have liked the theater a lot since i first visited around 1996 and am amazed and in admiration that the volunteers have been able to do the truly heroic restoration of the theater, as well as managing to keep it open in the face of great adversity.
Is anyone planning to drive to the lafayette from nyc on saturday morning 3/12 to see the magnificent seven, that might consider giving me a lift? thanks in advance!