Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts
350 Madison Avenue,
Detroit,
MI
48226
350 Madison Avenue,
Detroit,
MI
48226
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Click on link to see ads, articles, and pictures of the Detroit Music Hall theatre. Please do not copy to this site.
The October 5, 1966 issue of Motion Picture Exhibitor had this item about the remodeling project then underway at the Cinerama Music Hall:
Article about the Music Hall’s canopy being restored.
https://www.metrotimes.com/the-scene/archives/2015/06/08/detroits-music-hall-currently-restoring-canopy-to-original-art-deco-splendor#.VYW4jUNFYHw.facebook
That was just a Blu-ray of This is Cinerama projected onto a screen.
Nice work, Cinerama. Do you happen to have any photos or advertisement art for the digital presentation of This Is Cinerama over one weekend last year at the Music Hall? Thanks
Ads from 02/15/53 to 10/30/67 for the movies that played at the theatre – http://incinerama.com/ctmusichall.htm
March 23rd, 1953 grand opening ad in photo section.
I hope someone in attendance Sunday took photos, and will post them, of this installation. including screen and dci projector. Incidentally, while this was happening Sunday, demolishing teams were busily at work dismantling the auditorium of the Philadelphia Boyd, the 6th of the original US Cinerama installatiions.
On March 23, 1953, The Detroit Music Hall became the 2nd theatre in the world to show movies in the revolutionary process know as Cinerama. The first film, THIS IS CINERAMA played here for 100 weeks and grossed $1,896,855. On Sunday April 12, 2015, you can revisit the world of the 1950’s when we present select sequences from THIS IS CINERAMA and the complete roadshow versions of CINERAMA HOLIDAY and SOUTH SEAS ADVENTURE, projected digitally on a specially constructed curved screen. Tickets for this one of a kind event are available at www.musichall.org.
Additional note: The screen in the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood measures 86 feet wide along the arc and covers about 122 degrees, giving the screen’s depth of curve about 21 feet. The Dome offers much more space in width and height than does the Music Hall, but it still does not accommodate a screen with 146 degrees of arc.
The Cinerama screen at the Music Hall did not encompass an arc of 146 degrees. The 66-foot wide screen (measured along the arc (curve) would have had to measure about 18 feet deep at the center, measured from the chord of the arc (that is, a straight line from one side of the screen to the other) at the center of the screen.
The Cinerama installation in various venues had to accommodate the physical character of the theater itself. A screen at the Music Hall, in order to have the depth of 18 feet, would have required a major reduction in the number of seats on the main floor since the screen itself could not take up any space on the stage but had to be constructed entirely outside and below stage level.
There is an error in the description of the Cinerama screen. It was not 64 feet tall, it was 24 feet tall & 66 feet wide, with a 10 foot deep curve. I think the projection booth was moved to the rear of the first balcony for the reserved seat engagement of Lion In Winter (70mm Panavision) in 1968. The Cinerama screen was retained & the sound was excellent, in particular the deep bass resonance of John Barry’s thrilling score accompanying the opening credits. Dialogue was also crystal clear.
There is an extensive gallery of photos of the restored theater here and here is a link to the Music Hall’s page at Roland Lataille’s Cinerama history site which has a considerable amount of detail about the Music Hall’s days as a Cinerama house and much memorabilia.
Re: the introductory remarks here, “…The Music Hall was only the second Cinerama theater in the world, and supposedly the most successful.” It might not have been the most successful in terms of boxoffice, those honors probably going to the New York and Hollywood Warner’s. But the MH still racked up some impressive honors. “This Is Cinerama” ran 99 weeks, bested only by the DC Warner (100 wks), NY Warner (125 wks), and the Hollywood Warner (132 wks). However, the MH’s run of “Cinerama Holiday” was the longest of all at 81 weeks. An executive of Cinerama Theatre Operations stated in a 1957 interview in “Variety” that bus and train excursions accounted for about 40 percent of Cinerama’s attendance. By the time this was printed, a “I Have Seen Cinerama Four Times Club” had 176 local members. It was also estimated – and this is trivia at its best – that in the first 4 years of Cinerama exhibition, “…the theatre’s curtain has traveled back and forth equivalent to a distance of 75 miles. A staff of 11 projectionists used more than 1,200 pairs of nylon gloves for inspecting and rewinding the film.”
Saw my first Cinerama film at the Music Hall: SOUTH SEAS ADVENTURE. I remember the screen being huge. The sound system was the best I ever heard before or since. Also saw HOW THE WEST WAS WON.