This was a beautiful single screen theater. No loss to the community that its life as a quad is over. Would be nice if it were restored to its single screen beauty otherwise it might as well be a supermarket.
Oh yes! That was the Manhattan my parents knew going to movies and plays. I think I’ve written this before but my mother said if the line was too long at Radio City you would go to the Roxy. I guess you didn’t care all that much what movie was playing, you just went to see the show.
I was as well a small child. If my parents cared about such things as we lived close to Manhattan, I could have seen the Roxy, The Paramount, the Capitol, the old Met and Pennsylvania station. Nobody but me seems to know that the destruction of all these magnificent NY building precipitated the fall of midtown by 1970 which was to get considerably worse during the 70s and 80s. And then Koch, Giuliani and Disney came along to make it 100 times worse.
That added fake arch and the speakers in the auditorium have totally ruined the place. They are inexcusable. And didn’t they ruin the fluidity of the curtain? So much for its art-deco splendor.
The last stage show with the ballet company diminishing the Music Hall’s stage presentations greatly. Never again would it have spectacle except for The Nativity and Glory of Easter again.
On Stage was the fabulous Rhapsody in Blue production number. A classic that played through the years like Bolero and the Undersea ballet. I believe the last time it had been done was during the original run of Mary Poppins with again the pianist Anthoney Makas. It was the last time it would be done as the Music Hall got rid of its ballet company and they were always the one to present the famous production spectacles though they might be supplemented by the Rockettes. The next year The Undersea Ballet would be presented with Butterflies are Free(previously with Where Were You When the Lights Went Out) and that was it and all you got were just the Rockettes and then they were cut from 36 to 30. Very embarrassing.
I went to see it twice though I found Plaza Suite anything but wildly funny and Old Fashioned Family Entertainment. How was this a hit on Broadway? It was Maureen Stapleton and George C Scott that sold it. But to tell the truth SJ Parker and Matthew Broderick had a hit with it in NY and I believe London fairly recently.
First stage show without ballet company. So endless individual singing. Very dull and pointless on the great stage. But the Rockettes did a terrific Broadway Rhythm number.
You can see what the lower level looked like on page 14 before it was turned into those horrible theaters Mike talked about. I was never in them. I don’t remember those chairs(which seem out of place) just setees along the edges
The Criterion started its roadshow career with the world premiere of The Ten Commandments followed by the world premiere of South Pacific and ended it with the World premiere of Patton. Not too shabby. After there were Tora… and N&A but they were such bombs I don’t count them. It held the second premiere of Lawrence after its opening in London with Lean’s complete film. It was after the Criterion opening Lean decided to cut it so I don’t know how long the theater showed the original cut. It might have been only a couple of days. It got great reviews in NY so Lean’s decision to cut it is baffling. It was going to be a long film no matter what.
And do you know that space in the lower level(you would not have called it a basement) had been when it was a single screen theater a large oval shaped Edwardian style lounge off of which were the ladies and men’s rooms. It was very elegant. There was a reason the Criterion held world or US premieres of some of the biggest films of the 50s and 60s. An enormously prestigious house. Ray Stark reserved it for the Funny Girl world premiere when the film started filming in ‘67. And Jack Warner chose it for the world premiere of My Fair Lady.
Thank you Cineast. I never saw before the marquee of Half a Sixpence at the Criterion and always wanted to. I was too young to have seen it there which for me would have been great. Next door was Dr Dolittle in Todd AO in the single screen Loews State and up Broadway you could see 2001 at the Capitol. Why couldn’t I have been there?
Unfortunately when I was old enough it was playing things like Mandingo. No thanks. At least I got to see the first Superman there after it moved over from the Astor Plaza. I brought a friend who had never been in there before and she loved the place. And just a few years before we had seen together Reeve on Broadway when he was a nobody in A Matter of Gravity.
A perfect Easter film. Lucky people seeing it on the large Music Hall screen and in stereo. I imagine that this this Easter week the lines were insanely long with even evening performances sold out and people who had waited for hours later in the day being shut out of the final stage show. I always wondered how well the 7:30 in the morning shows were attended.
Nice picture of Times Square in the late 50s/early 60s. Looks like it was taken from under the Astor Hotel’s awning. But can anybody tell what’s on the Loew’s State marquee?
At top Barrymore gets top billing but in credits Bartholomew comes first. I know Easter week(after Easter) was off for school students but the Joliet High School Band had to take off a week of school preceding Easter at least. It probably didn’t run another week. Shows back then had very short runs. A hit was two weeks, a blockbuster was three. The Music Hall had a regular audience that didn’t want to wait too long before seeing a new film.
I was joking. They just took an ad for general theaters after the film went wide. Though special prices was usually ‘Now at popular prices!’
Remember popular prices for all sorts of entertainments? It was often used. Now it is never used.
Well it’s good to know you didn’t have to reserve seats at this drive-in.
I guess as opposed to others. Not many Drive-ins showed films in Super Panavision 70.
I went to see it at a drive-in with my family in our station wagon that summer of ‘66. Children under 12 free.
I really miss the Glory of Easter pageant as done during the movie/stage show era. It was done later during a spring stage show only. But they must have lost the original lighting charts because it was not as beautifully lit. Also there were no religious statues along the choral stairs. Now the sets must be long gone along with those of Leonidoff’s Nativity. Anyway during the 70s the secular part of the seasonal show got pretty amateurish and cheap.
Marc Platt eventually became director of the ballet at the Music Hall. He was the original Dream Curly in Oklahoma on stage.
In this film he does a Jack Cole choreographed dance to a Hitler speech.
Seeing a movie here if you were halfway back in the orchestra or in the mezz or balc must have been like watching TV albeit in the most luxurious of environments like most palaces over 3,000 seats.
This is a very wide theater so I’m surprised it showed hit movies. It’s too wide even for stage productions. Unless of course you’re not on the side. It’s where I saw the original production of Ain’t
Misbehavin after it moved from off Broadway. I was to see it many more times at the Plymouth when it was revived with the original cast. I think it is no longer considered politically correct. But that’s because today people find everything incomprehensively politically incorrect.
Thank you but I meant on a page on this site. I went through them all but did not see it. I could be that I overlooked it.
I’ve never seen the Sunday full page NY Times' ad for Scrooge the ‘70 Christmas movie or even the opening day ad. Is it on a page I’ve missed?
This was a beautiful single screen theater. No loss to the community that its life as a quad is over. Would be nice if it were restored to its single screen beauty otherwise it might as well be a supermarket.
Doris Day had nothing on Dostoevsky with the Music Hall’s audiences.
Oh yes! That was the Manhattan my parents knew going to movies and plays. I think I’ve written this before but my mother said if the line was too long at Radio City you would go to the Roxy. I guess you didn’t care all that much what movie was playing, you just went to see the show.
I was as well a small child. If my parents cared about such things as we lived close to Manhattan, I could have seen the Roxy, The Paramount, the Capitol, the old Met and Pennsylvania station. Nobody but me seems to know that the destruction of all these magnificent NY building precipitated the fall of midtown by 1970 which was to get considerably worse during the 70s and 80s. And then Koch, Giuliani and Disney came along to make it 100 times worse.
That added fake arch and the speakers in the auditorium have totally ruined the place. They are inexcusable. And didn’t they ruin the fluidity of the curtain? So much for its art-deco splendor.
The last stage show with the ballet company diminishing the Music Hall’s stage presentations greatly. Never again would it have spectacle except for The Nativity and Glory of Easter again.
On Stage was the fabulous Rhapsody in Blue production number. A classic that played through the years like Bolero and the Undersea ballet. I believe the last time it had been done was during the original run of Mary Poppins with again the pianist Anthoney Makas. It was the last time it would be done as the Music Hall got rid of its ballet company and they were always the one to present the famous production spectacles though they might be supplemented by the Rockettes. The next year The Undersea Ballet would be presented with Butterflies are Free(previously with Where Were You When the Lights Went Out) and that was it and all you got were just the Rockettes and then they were cut from 36 to 30. Very embarrassing.
I went to see it twice though I found Plaza Suite anything but wildly funny and Old Fashioned Family Entertainment. How was this a hit on Broadway? It was Maureen Stapleton and George C Scott that sold it. But to tell the truth SJ Parker and Matthew Broderick had a hit with it in NY and I believe London fairly recently.
First stage show without ballet company. So endless individual singing. Very dull and pointless on the great stage. But the Rockettes did a terrific Broadway Rhythm number.
Film is available free on youtube.
You can see what the lower level looked like on page 14 before it was turned into those horrible theaters Mike talked about. I was never in them. I don’t remember those chairs(which seem out of place) just setees along the edges
The Criterion started its roadshow career with the world premiere of The Ten Commandments followed by the world premiere of South Pacific and ended it with the World premiere of Patton. Not too shabby. After there were Tora… and N&A but they were such bombs I don’t count them. It held the second premiere of Lawrence after its opening in London with Lean’s complete film. It was after the Criterion opening Lean decided to cut it so I don’t know how long the theater showed the original cut. It might have been only a couple of days. It got great reviews in NY so Lean’s decision to cut it is baffling. It was going to be a long film no matter what.
And do you know that space in the lower level(you would not have called it a basement) had been when it was a single screen theater a large oval shaped Edwardian style lounge off of which were the ladies and men’s rooms. It was very elegant. There was a reason the Criterion held world or US premieres of some of the biggest films of the 50s and 60s. An enormously prestigious house. Ray Stark reserved it for the Funny Girl world premiere when the film started filming in ‘67. And Jack Warner chose it for the world premiere of My Fair Lady.
Thank you Cineast. I never saw before the marquee of Half a Sixpence at the Criterion and always wanted to. I was too young to have seen it there which for me would have been great. Next door was Dr Dolittle in Todd AO in the single screen Loews State and up Broadway you could see 2001 at the Capitol. Why couldn’t I have been there?
Unfortunately when I was old enough it was playing things like Mandingo. No thanks. At least I got to see the first Superman there after it moved over from the Astor Plaza. I brought a friend who had never been in there before and she loved the place. And just a few years before we had seen together Reeve on Broadway when he was a nobody in A Matter of Gravity.
A perfect Easter film. Lucky people seeing it on the large Music Hall screen and in stereo. I imagine that this this Easter week the lines were insanely long with even evening performances sold out and people who had waited for hours later in the day being shut out of the final stage show. I always wondered how well the 7:30 in the morning shows were attended.
Nice picture of Times Square in the late 50s/early 60s. Looks like it was taken from under the Astor Hotel’s awning. But can anybody tell what’s on the Loew’s State marquee?
At top Barrymore gets top billing but in credits Bartholomew comes first. I know Easter week(after Easter) was off for school students but the Joliet High School Band had to take off a week of school preceding Easter at least. It probably didn’t run another week. Shows back then had very short runs. A hit was two weeks, a blockbuster was three. The Music Hall had a regular audience that didn’t want to wait too long before seeing a new film.
Concerning the dbellis54 picture from'22
Anybody know what year this picture was taken? Theater looks somewhat dingy and there are speakers above the box entrances. The 50s? 60s?
I was joking. They just took an ad for general theaters after the film went wide. Though special prices was usually ‘Now at popular prices!’ Remember popular prices for all sorts of entertainments? It was often used. Now it is never used.
Well it’s good to know you didn’t have to reserve seats at this drive-in. I guess as opposed to others. Not many Drive-ins showed films in Super Panavision 70.
I went to see it at a drive-in with my family in our station wagon that summer of ‘66. Children under 12 free.
I really miss the Glory of Easter pageant as done during the movie/stage show era. It was done later during a spring stage show only. But they must have lost the original lighting charts because it was not as beautifully lit. Also there were no religious statues along the choral stairs. Now the sets must be long gone along with those of Leonidoff’s Nativity. Anyway during the 70s the secular part of the seasonal show got pretty amateurish and cheap.
Beautiful.
Marc Platt eventually became director of the ballet at the Music Hall. He was the original Dream Curly in Oklahoma on stage. In this film he does a Jack Cole choreographed dance to a Hitler speech.
Seeing a movie here if you were halfway back in the orchestra or in the mezz or balc must have been like watching TV albeit in the most luxurious of environments like most palaces over 3,000 seats.
The Bobo and this are when the Music Hall started getting films from hunger.
This is a very wide theater so I’m surprised it showed hit movies. It’s too wide even for stage productions. Unless of course you’re not on the side. It’s where I saw the original production of Ain’t Misbehavin after it moved from off Broadway. I was to see it many more times at the Plymouth when it was revived with the original cast. I think it is no longer considered politically correct. But that’s because today people find everything incomprehensively politically incorrect.