Radio City Music Hall

I would like to add my thanks to Bill. This stuff is amazing. But I must add that for those of us who were not able to enjoy this kind of showmanship during its heyday we can only regret what we missed(though I love DVD’s they are no replacement.) How very often after work or on the weekend would I love to see a good film at the Music Hall, the Criterion or the Rivoli.
The talk above about London’s Leicester Square also makes one want to get into a time machine and see those great 1 screen theaters.
Going to Paris and seeing the theaters on the Champs Elysee and see nothing but multiplexes was such a bummer. Now its happening in Italy.The french and italians may despise us but they love to imitate us at every opportunity.

SimonL—You’re right about comparing the Roxy and RCMH. Part of the Roxy’s problem stemmed from the height of its projection booth and the distance of the screen from the curtain line. As the Roxy’s contour curtain rose or fell, the film projected nearly a quarter-way up on it, and the curtain cast an elongated shadow back upon the the screen. The Roxy could have solved the problem by using a traveller as well (as RCMH did), but it would have lost some of the Fox fanfare if the heavy curtains remained closed until the music began. The Roxy, of course, didn’t install its golden contour curtain until December ‘52 (with Ice Colorama on stage)— before that, it flaunted a wonderful burgundy-red opera-style swag. And, yes, the curtains at RCMH were so heavy that they muffled the sound — most damagingly for “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” which I saw there in January '57 (one of the few, to judge from the attendance figures you cited last 23 July): the movie began with an off-screen recitation of Elizabeth BB’s “How do I love thee,” which you couldn’t hear because of the curtain. I earlier described how, before CinemaScope brought alterations, RCMH’s contour curtain used to rise in a fully lit house, framing the yellow traveller behind it for a half-minute or so as the organist built to his finale. When the film flashed on the traveller, the lights dimmed and the curtain parted. That way, spectators saw the waterfall effect in brightly lit glory, and marvelled at the draped tableau for a fractional pause before the film began. That ended when larger-screen projection required a more complicated masking mechanism that likely interfered with the effect. In the late 50s, if you looked very, very carefully at the contour curtain during the organist’s finale, you could see the outline of a draft shield rising behind it, with an accompanying backstage gust of air that drew the curtain inwards. Or so it seemed to my un-professional but very sharp teen-aged eyes.

Vito: Your description of the RCMH traveller closing and the contour descending was right on, but you should have noted that at the second that the sound track ended, the organ would pick up on the exact note so that there was no glaring change in key, after which the organist would segue into his medley. Even with the showing of “Executive Suite,” which had no sound track except for the peeling of a bell that began and ended the film, the organ picked this up before continuing. It should be noted that the Roxy was notoriously sloppy about this part of the presentation and the film would end with the curtain still halfway down exposing a blank screen.

Vito:

Well…we were an ocean apart at the time but the kind of showmanship I talked about was exactly as you mentioned. The trick of cementing a piece of film was not one I saw done but it sure sounds like a heck of a good idea. The Chief or second who always ran the shows where I was did it strictly by practising dry runs.
The Dorchester had a beautiful gold festoon (drop) curtain and some slow moving big side curtains. We would use the side curtains to close the movie as you describe. We would drop the festoon after the side curtains closed during the intermission. No one would see it because it came down behind the side curtains. So when we opened again with the house lights dimmed and the lights all around the stage changing colours we would open with the side curtains again first..displaying the dropped festoon. Then we opened up the movie on the festoon which began to rise at the same time. Now you see why we liked the Fox fanfare so much! In England at the time each movie began with a Board of Film Censors title but we left that on the festoon. By the time the festoon was up all the stage lights were gone. What a great feeling that was. When we ran shorts, previews and newsreels between continuous shows we just used the festoon to close….it would rise again almost immediately which gave us time to open the tabs for Cinemascope previews after a newsreel or non scope preview or short without the audience seeing the screen open up. After all that we would close off using the side curtains and then drop the festoon behind…..ready to open the main show again. Busy time!
I wish have could have seen that stuff as you described in such splendid surroundings as RCMH. The best showmanship I ever saw in England was at the Odeon Leicester Square butI always thought the show at the Dorchester was pretty close behind.

Vito:

Yes I do ….it was South Pacific. I helped out with the manual re-winding, changeovers and lighting at a large theatre (the Dorchester, Hull, England) occasionally. If I remember correctly, they installed the extra speakers and equipment just for South Pacific which ran for about 3 months. In the theatre I worked at on weekends in a small town nearby we got South Pacific much later that year but it was the regular soundtrack. I was not connecting the fanfare to South Pacific in my previous post. Just pointing out the impact that movies at the time had on me. South Pacific was also the first and only time I ran a blank reel with just the soundtrack containing the overture before the movie started. Thrill was right. I was lucky to be doing that job at 16. The job lasted about a year.
I have made some inquiries through the daily paper in Hull to see if I can get some photo’s of the Dorchester to set up a listing here on Cinema Treasures. It was a wonderful 16 hundred seat theatre, the showmanship by the regular projection staff was superb. I am told the Dorchester was demolished several years ago.

Porter wrote: “ How could you choose just one?”

Porter: You are right of course. There were so many great movie intros that came after the fanfare.
For me though it was all about a time and a place.I just loved that short part of my young life when I was in the projection business. For some reason that combination of the fanfare and the intro to the music stayed with me over many others. Thats probably also why I like “South Pacific” despite the movie’s many faults including those ridiculous colour filters. I just loved showing that movie and seeing the audience leave with smiles on their faces.
MartinC

Favourite music to follow Newmans great Fox fanfare and CinemaScope extension? The Fox music department and its head Alfred Newman embarked on hiring the greatest selection of film composers for CinemaScope product which was designed to bring the “world to your doorstep”

There was great music for the many moods of Fox CinemaScope. Manhattan chic/“How to Marry a Millionaire”, Western drama/“Broken Lance”, Grandeur/“Anastasia”, Raunch,“Revolt of Mamie Stover”, Drama/“Rains of Ranchipur” Exotica/“Boy on a Dolphin”, Adventure/ “Soldier of Fortune”, Musical/“The King and I” and just plain fun/ “The Girl Can’t Help It”

How could you choose just one? But best seen mostly at the Roxy with magnetic sound.

Forget Dolby and all its sanitised technical sharpness. Give me the enormous depth and power of magnetic 4 or 6 track anytime, I can live with the hiss.

“ I for one missed the extended scope Fox fanfare which disapeared with the switch to Panavision”

Vito: Ah yes….what a wonderful fanfare that was. In the theatre I worked we used to crank the sound up a couple of notches when we opened up after the intermission and the curtain rose…..just to make sure the audience paid attention! My favourite movie music follow right after the 20th Century-Fox fanfare was “North To Alaska” with Johnny Horton singing the theme. What a great way to open a show.

Another question …did the projectionists at RCMH operate the curtains, house lights and stage lights for the movie part of the show or was it all done by the stagehands union?

MartinC

Thanks Warren, I long standing question of mine has been answered.
A lot of movie peole complained about CinemaScope and refused to use it. Making things worse in those days was the refusal on the part of the studios to pay Fox royalties to use the process, which spawned many ananorphic nightmares like SuperScope. MGM stayed with CinemScope until late 50s but others came up their own version like WarnerScope etc. Thank heavens we were able to project all of these anamorphic processes with the same lens, the only odd ball was SuperScope which required a different aperature plate than the others. Panavision is of course a superior anamorphic process. Perspecta never was accepted very much although the Paramount on Staten Island did have it.
By the way it sure is a great pleasure chatting with you guys!

I am not sure I agree with the statement about RCMH and mag sound. I thought it was used rather extensily during the mid to late 50s.RCMH also used magnetic sound when 70mm was installed. The Simplex 35/70 projectors have 35mm as well as 70mm magnetic readers.
The last four track I saw at RCMH was in 1972 with “The Red Tent”.
“A Star Is Born” in 1976 was just about the last film to have four track, it included Dolby noise reduction which of course became Dolby optical stereo. Then “Star Wars” started the Dolby stereo revolution we enjoy today. Only Fox was completely commited to magnetic sound, all fox releases starting with “The Robe” in 1953 were available in either optical or magnetic versions. later on with the advent of mag/optical prints, all fox releases were distributed mag/optical untill 1963 when Fox abanded CinemaScope for Panavision. The last CinemaScope fox release, I believe was “Capriece” starting Doris Day. After that it was goodbye to mag sound at Fox and all Panavision prints were optical.Fox was going through some tough financial times then and the added cost of magnetic prints was one of the first to go. This brings up a question to which I never really recieved a satisfactory answer.
Why did Fox dump CinemaScope? I for one missed the extended scope Fox fanfare which disapeared with the switch to Panavision, which was never heard again untill “Star Wars” when Lucas changed “A Cinemascope production” to “A George Lucas Production”, returning Mr. Newmans great fanfare to it’s former glory.

Yes, Simon, you are correct. Garbo’s Camille did play at the Capitol.
However, Porter is referring to a clip of “Camille” that was blown up and used in the “Annie” movie musical. It was used quite erroneously. As I recall, Daddy Warbucks buys out a performance at Radio City and takes Orphan Annie et. al. to see Garbo in “Camille”.
As far as I know, “Camille” never played RCMH.

Vito is, of course correct, in stating that they were mostly mono or Perspecta sound prints used in the mid to late fifties at the Music Hall. The Hall was not equipped to show magnetic 4 track prints because of the rejection of audiece-participation speakers in the auditorium and the product base being mainly MGM films. This was a major expense for exhibitors and was also damaging to the decor in many theatres. MGM and Paramount embraced Perspecta which gives a stereo directional effect from a mono soundtrack but in the stage range only. It did not require or benefit from speakers in the auditorium. 20th Century-Fox championed the much more expensive 4 track magnetic prints initially as part of their promotion of CinemaScope.The spectacular multi-directional sound from these prints was expensive for the studio and for the exhibitor but also meant that the print was only usable in one type of theatre and from usually only one studio. Meanwhile, because of the cost of these prints, they developed mag/optical prints. These carried 2 tracks of stereo and and a mono optical track but didnt start to be taken up until the late 50’s. From then on 4 track was only used infrequently,mostly for event pictures or special prints for gala engagements. This continued up until the late seventies when Dolby became widespread.

Just because the wide release of a film was in a certain sound process or aspect ratio doesnt mean that other prints do not exist. The studios ran off prints in all sorts of strange variations in different cities. ‘Scope films were released flat or rereleases of classics or even just new prints were run off in different processes. Having worked in a film exchange I remember having a print of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “Call Me Madam” in 4 track, whilst having “Carousel” in a flat 1:1.66 and mono. One of the last special magnetic 4 track prints I saw was for a premiere of “Hair”, which came direct from UA in Los Angeles and was returned to their library after the engagement.

Part of the reason the 70mm prints of “GWTW” looked so bad is they were printed up from Technicolor IB masters and converted to Metrocolor then blown up. The only way to get enough picture to fill the 70mm ratio was to zoom in on the 1.33 image sufficiently to get enough picture to fill the sides of the screen(a bit like the Pan&Scan process when they need to fill height when printing up from a widescreen image).Resulting an a blotchy,grainy and washed out look to a treasure most people remember as being akin to “Wizard of Oz” A ghastly mistake which MGM never repeated and the 70mm prints of “GWTW” were discarded. This didn’t however stop them from trying it with other classics on the odd occasion as there was a 70mm print struck of “Camille” and used to fill the screen at RCMH when filming John Huston’s “Annie”!!!