Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
116 people
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Right— “On Demand,” not “No Down”— sorry for the slip. The date is accurate. Is the story about the projection booth true?
The Bette Davis film that BoxOfficBill refers to is “Payment on Demand” (not “No Down Payment). Also the original and long publicized title of the Davis film was "Story of a Divorce.” It was changed just before the opening.
It was planned to run “Kiss Me Kate” at the Hall in 3-D, and in fact, it was announced that it would run without the intermission as the Hall had four projectors. Ben Olevsky, who was Head Projectionist at the time, told me that everythng was set up, and they did indeed run a test run in 3-D, where it was discovered that they would lose about 2,000 seats because of the light drop off from the gain screen in the corners of the auditorium. At that point the Hall was still filling its seats, and it was felt that the economic loss would be too great. Theatres in the rest of the country took the attitiude, “Well if Radio City won’t bother with 3-D why should we?” I always thought that the Radio City rejection might have been the turning point that killed 3-D. Ironically, the current Christmas show at Radio City starts with a 3-D segment, projected on two projectors with 7,000 watt lamps,and from 70mm film running at 30 frames per second. Its a short segment, but everyone I’ve talked to who has seen it says its very impressive.
Kiss Me Kate looked great when I showed it in double-system 3-D last year at the Lafayette, Vincent. There are many good depth effects and few off-screen gimmicks (other than one 30 second section). The projection angle of the Jersey might make 3-D presentations difficult down there.
It would have been pretty bizarre for the Hall to have presented Kate in 3D. The logistics of handing out the thousands of glasses and then collecting them for each performance and then dealing with all the people who have no idea it’s in 3D and then disturb the others to complain. What a nightmare.
KMK is a very good George Sidney MGM musical and on the whole makes little use of the 3D effects. While it’s enormous fun to see it with a two projector system it stands on it’s own.
That all being said how about it being included on a 3D festival at the Loew’s Jersey?
One story might concern “No Down Payment,” with Bette Davis, which opened at RCMH on 15 Feb. ‘51. The film had been made much earlier and then shelved, but upon the success of “All About Eve” was hastily released, though with a new ending that RKO finished on the eve of opening day. The new final reel was reportedly still in flight from LA when the projectionist had started the first screening on W 50 Street, and it arrived in the booth just minutes before it was due on the screen.
I think that Kiss Me Kate did not show in 3-D at the Music Hall. I’ll ask Bob Furmanek to add his expertise about 3-D to this thread.
Can any of the projectionists remember this. I seem to remember (or am I dreaming?) that showings of “Kiss Me Kate” were projected in both 3-D and regular…either alternately on the same day or every other day.
And I am so happy that you are still with us.I got a number of questions to ask of you, if you don’t mind.
Also, which years did you work the booth?
REndres, Nice to hear fom you, as a projectionist for many many years I always wondered about any projection horror storys at RCMH. Would you share any? I can still hear the guys in thr booth calling out the changeover cues.
In answer to veyoung’s question — Yes Robert Endres is still with us — or at least I was when I looked into the mirror this morning (although I still haven’t been booed by 500 drunk army guys on a Friday night)! The room OConnolly is referring to is probably one of the two broadcast booths on either side of the auditorium. Since Roxy was supposed to do a radio show from the broadcast studio over the auditorium, there were extensive broadcast options built into the Hall including tie lines to NBC’s studios across the street. One of the booths in the auditorium became the tape playback room when the Hall changed fomats in 1979.
Since we’re kind of discussing RCMH oddities, I remember back in 1977 when I took the NBC tour which included a backstage tour of RCMH we were shown this odd “room” which overlooked the orchestra level of the auditorium. It was on the right hand side of the auditorium and was about (I’m guessing here) about twelve feet above the auditorium floor and was angled to see the stage though you could clearly see most of the auditorium from it. It was about ¾ down towards the stage. There was soundproof glass in the room and it was small (only fit about four people). The tour guide said that it was impossible to be seen in this room by anyone in the auditorium. I never understood what purpose this room served unless it was for VIP’s or for security.
I wonder if it’s still there. Does anyone else recall seeing or hearing of anything like this?
Is Mr. Rober Enders (sp?) still with us. He was (is) the master RCMH projectionist, who said the famous line: “you aint been boo'ed until you been boo'ed by 6000 people.” And I was the one who, as an Army projectionist in Ft. Totten (Queens, NY), who said, “and you ain’t been boo'ed until you been boo'ed buy 500 drunk army guys on a Friday night.”
I took a quick look at the Krinsky and Loth books to see what they had to say about the underground concourse. I was kind of surprised to see that, at least from a quick glance, they really don’t have much to say about it — most of their comments are actually about the “entry plaza” to the underground concourse (the “entry plaza” is the area that was eventually transformed into a winter ice skating rink) and about the stores that were around the sides of this plaza when it first opened (where the restaurants are now).
It is with regard to these shops that they say business in the pre-subway years was bad. But I suppose it’s fair to assume that the shops further into the concourse were probably even worse off — as they were even more inconveniently accessible.
Some quotes:
Loth (pgs. 100-101) “On the whole, Rockefeller Center was successful in achieving its shop objectives [i.e., renting out to desirable, financially worthy tenants]. But the mortality of such establishments in the 1930’s was high … . Not the least of the difficulties concerned the underground maze of corridors and concourse … . the concourse was planned to link up with the station of a new Sixth Avenue subway. But the rackety old elevated train still ran.”
Loth (pg. 149) “[The Lower Plaza — the site of the skating rink — was] Orphaned by the long delay in the Sixth Avenue subway … [and] failed as a passage bringing pedestrians from the promenade into the shops that originally lined it. After a couple of years of hesitation and debate, the shops were replaced by a couple of restaurants, and the Lower Plaza [where the skating rink is] was no longer even a passage into the concourse.”
As far as I can recall, I first visited the underground concourse in the mid-1960s, and I don’t really remember the box office opposite the underground entry into Radio City Music Hall being used then (although the corridor into the Music Hall was apparently in operation). But, of course, it may have been open other hours, or maybe it was open and I just didn’t notice it, or I noticed it and don’t remember it now. But in my memories, at least, it was a “funny” presence in the underground corridors (like those abandoned stations or corridors that you sometimes see in the subways).
As mentioned in a previous post, I think when I took my tour groups into the Music Hall in the late 1970s we were told to use this entrance.
While it is possible that the Rockefeller Center management may have future plans for the box office, my interpretation of the meaning its presence post-renovation is different.
It seems to me that the one of the main reason the management renovated the underground concourse was to close off corridors and use the space to create new storefronts or enlarge existing ones. (Larger storefronts are seen, I believe, as more appropriate for modern day retailing and easier to rent out to financially sound large companies.) It seems to me that holdovers from the past, like the box office, were left alone if they didn’t interfere with this or other goals of the renovation. I think this would be especially true with a small “oddity” such as the box office and the stairs behind it — why tear them out unless you have something specific in mind to replace them with?
If I recall correctly, the Landmark Preservation Commission did review the changes to the underground concourse (along with other changes that were done all throughout the Center). While it’s possible that they may have protected it, I tend to doubt it, as they let so many other, much more noticeable and more important, features of the Center be demolished. (For instance they allowed management to totally close off some functional, handsome art deco entrances to the buildings on Fifth Ave. in order for these corridors to be incorporated into larger storefronts.) And when you think about it, how aesthetically and historical important can this box office and stairs be if even the cinema enthusiasts of Cinema Treasures know so little about them?
I doubt that a box office would be structurally important. At the very least, it’s easy to imagine them boarding it over or re-paneling it if they wanted to use it and the surrounding stairways differently.
More trivia: The executive entrance on 50th Street was also used by guests of the management, celebraties, and preferred patrons, who could walk down a few steps, be greeted at the desk then escorted by an usher on to the executive elevator and taken directly to the first mezzanine.
From street level that would not have been a problem as they could enter by the front entrance thereby avoiding the line on 50th St. However they then would have had to deal with the main lobby. If they enterd by the lower level they still would have to have dealt with walking across the lower lounge to get to the elevators.
I’m wondering if the RCMH patrons who had first mezzanine reserved seats could enter that way and avoid the crowds, lines and general chaos of the lobby. The Metropolitan Opera also allows patrons who have dinner reservations on the Grand Tier to use the entrance located in the underground shopping and garage area.
I wonder if the Rockefeller Center management has some kind of plans for the box office. Not that long ago, a MAJOR renovation was done to the concourse area. Strange that they would leave the box office there. Either it has some kind of structural element, it’s landmarked as part of RCMH or they have plans for it in the future…
So when was this box office permanently closed? From the very early 70’s I don’t remember it ever being opened. Also when did the Music Hall start letting group sales in by this entrance? I seem to remember that the Music Hall didn’t start allowing group sales with preferential entrance privileges until about 1970. I believe Pauline Kael in her review of the 69 Christmas show writes about the groups of school children being forced to join the outside line which seems kind of strange.
Re: Radio City Music Hall underground boxoffice
Thanks Warren for the fascinating info — especially with the date of the article itself. With the date, it was a cinch to find the article to check it out. Given what I’ve read about Rockefeller Center in Krinsky and Loth, however, I’d like to offer a slightly different interpretation of what it says.
From the very beginning of the construction of Rockefeller Center everyone knew that there were plans for the Sixth Avenue elevated to come down, and for a subway to be built in its place. The underground concourse was planned with the subway in mind. The underground concourse was to provide a weather-controlled passageway between all the buildings of Rockefeller Center and the subway — and the corridors would be lined with shops.
But as it happens, until the subway was actually built, Rockefeller Center had a hard time getting people down underground to shop there. Which makes sense, really, when you think about it: who wants to go downstairs a full-story below the street in order to shop in small stores along narrow dead end corridors — and, especially during the Great Depression, when even more conveniently located street-level stores were having problems attracting customers?! (And what kinds of stores are going to be able to survive in such an inconvenient underground environment? With probably few store owners willing to risk it, there were also probably too few stores to attract shoppers — a vicious cycle.)
Actually, even unto this very day the concourse has some trouble attracting people outside of “rainy day” traffic and people using it during the rush hours. This is one reason that the landmarks preservation community didn’t raise a fuss (a grave mistake, in my opinion) when the new owners of Rockefeller Center decided to remodel large portions of it a few years ago.
The original (and much more severe) problem with the concourse was due, I think, to a combination of naivete on the part of the builders of Rockefeller Center (being pioneers, they didn’t realize it wouldn’t work at all without a subway) and the subway being built a little behind schedule (leaving them stranded a little longer than they thought they’d be). I don’t have the Krinsky and Loth books handy, but I think they discuss the specifics.
By the way, the creation of the skating rink at Rockefeller Center is related to the problem of getting people down to the underground concourse. Originally the area was intended as a plaza / grand entryway to the underground concourse (which is why the pedestrian way from Fifth Ave. slopes down towards the skating rink). With the concourse attracting far fewer people than expected before the construction of the subway, the owners of Rockefeller Center decided to make it into a skating rink in the winter — and the rest is history!
Getting back to the box office. My guess is that the box office was built and operated with the completion of the subway in mind. (Given the paucity of shoppers before the subway, it’s hard to imagine them building and staffing it for seven years solely to catch the nearly non-existent shopping trade.)
I wonder if maybe the box office wasn’t actually put into operation until maybe just a few months or so before the subway opened — which, given the way things usually happen, probably opened later than originally announced. The article just says that use of the box office tripled — it doesn’t indicate, however, the period that they are comparing it to. So my guess is that they are comparing the period just after the opening of the subway with the few months prior to the subway opening (a period when the subway was supposed to be open, but wasn’t).
“Use of the subway-level box-office in Radio City Music Hall has more than tripled since the opening of the Sixth Avenue subway, it was reported yesterday by the management.”
The underground boxoffice was also very useful in that large prepaid -groups could be guided there to gain entrance to the theater and avoid conflict the patrons waiting in the street line. However, as far as my memory serves, the underground boxoffice was closed to individual patron ticket sales when there was a street line. As you can surmise, it would have been unfair to allow admittance to the theater by this little known route while others (possibly)were waiting in the rain and snow.
How unfortunate today that things must be extreme. Just saw some of the Big Spender number from the revival of Sweet Charity on TV last week. The jaded dance hall hostesses of New York 1966 have become soft core Russ Meyer vixens circa 1973. In todays entertainment world your either a dogma thunping fundamentalist or an arrested development teenage prostie like Britney.
The Hall is just another symptom of todays cultural rot.
Regarding sam_e’s comment about doing away with The Nativity scene altogether, I’m surprised that they haven’t done so yet. From a PC point of view, it might be considered too Christian (why not call it the “Radio City Holiday Show”?). I’m joking here…
During this whole “discussion” last week about the narration that I did not like, I thought EXACTLY as Vincent did of the beautiful Charlie Brown Christmas show and how nicely the integrated the story of the Nativity into the show without beating it over your head. It’s graceful and, most importantly, subtle.
No one wants or needs to have ANY religon rammed down anyone’s throats. What people DO like and appreciate is a story, even if it’s religous, told in an intelligent and thoughtful way. THAT is what made the old Nativity so good. It didn’t force it’s message on you. It made you “feel” by it’s subtle, beautiful and unforced presentation. Less is more…
It’s interesting that during all this talk about the Christmas show, no one has mentioned another seasonal and religious-oriented tradition: “Kol Nidre” that was presented every September (app.)during the high Jewish holy days. Like the “Nativity,” it preceded a regular show with the Rockettes, ballet, choral ensemble and symphony orchestra. The traditional “Kol Nidre” melody was played by a solo cellist at stage left and sung in cantorial style by a solist (seen) the choral ensemble (unseen). The backdrop was simply rolling clouds. There was no accompanying narrative, but it was reverential, brief, and tasteful. I can’t tell you when it began or how many years it remained a tradition.