Radio City Music Hall

With such films as “Sayonarra,” and “Auntie Mame,” (both 2 ½ hours) the stage show NEVER topped 30 minutes. Regular stage shows ran from 40 to 55 minutes. The show could never run past 3 hours total thus allowing for 4 stage shows and five films…except during Christmas and Easter Week. For “Sayonarra” and “Auntie Mame,” the doors opened (except Sunday) at 6:45 am with the picture starting at 7 am. Can you imagine getting your family up and dressed and over to the Music Hall at that time of day? But if you didn’t, you could depend on standing in line for three hours. For those that didn’t like lines or stage shows, you could go to the Music Hall (during the 1940s and early 1950s) and see a midnight showing of the movie alone (it followed the normal last showing of the complete stage and film show) that began with the stage show around 9:20 with the film at 10:10. I think the worst Christmas picture that ever had was “The Impossible Years,” (1968)with David Niven. Yet it broke attendance records.

Father of the Bride makes sense for the Music Hall but The Next Voice You Hear?!(You can read about it in the current Vanity Fair with the Reagans on the cover.) This was obviously a favor to Dory Schary.
Annie would have been great at the Hall. And Meet Me in St Louis would have been a much better choice than National Velvet and what about them playing a Date with Judy instead of Easter Parade?
And what was it with the lousy Green Mansions as the ‘59 Easter show?
And then the violent, brutal, action World War 2 film Operation Crossbow as the 65 Easter show?
Even Charade was a pretty dark and violent film for a Christmas show.

SimonL and others—

sorry for the typos above—I find it hard to type blindly after running out of space in the visible box allowed — is there a way to edit one’s comments before submitting them tothe site:
Box Office Bill

“Streetcar…” wasn’t the only film originally expected to open at the RCMH but nixed (It went to the Warner…previously the Strand)after it was screened by the executives. “A Place in the Sun” was also removed (too sexy) from the year’s roster…it went instead to the Capitol. Anyone know why “Annie Get Your Gun” went to Loew’s State instead of RCMH. RCMH chose “Father of the Bride.” Annie seems so much more a Hall picture and “Father…” more typical of the Loew’s State fare. Interesting trivia: “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” (Jennifer Jones) was the first film (although a good one)to gross under $100,000 in its opening week in more than 20 years.

One can thank the Republican National Convention being at Madison Square Garden, the Garden is unavalible for the next 5 weeks. All home basketball games had to be moved somewhere.
It is not going to be a permanent installation.

I remember a little program light that was built into the back of the seat in front of me. I think these lights were removed by the 1960’s.

I believe according to Pauline Kael it was booked for the Hall but then Hearst put pressure on the Rockefellers to pull it.
Another great movie that the Hall was planning to show was Streetcar Named Desire which was pulled when the Catholic church was considering giving the film a C rating.
Occasionally the Hall had name talent but this was pretty rare.
Annette Funicello appeared on stage with the film Pollyana.

The only hope for the Music Hall would for the city and various sponsers to take over. It needs to be treated and maintained as a city landmark as much as Grants Tomb or Central Park. It needs to be managed by people who appreciate its history and resources. I believe the last year the Hall showed a profit was ‘55. After that I imagine it was propped up by the Rockefellers.
But this is a city that will spend a fortune of the taxpayers money on a sports stadium in Manhattan something that they wouldn’t even do in the beginning of the last century when the city was a fraction of its current density. This will cause us great security risks , congestion, and financial burdens while its very rich sponsers become even richer.
So I guess we won’t be seeing football games at the Music Hall but how about a golf range?

EdwinM remarks that: “Recently attended an Andres Rieu concert and the Boston Pops and the curtain just sat there in the upward position and didn’t move once.” This should not be faulted to the Music Hall, for it is customary at concerts to NOT use moving drapery, since the tradition is to emulate a standard concert hall which does not usually have a true stage or proscenium, and therefore no real drapery. The other uses of a true stage (legit theatre, opera, ballet, etc.) DO make use of moving/changing draperies to signal the opening, middle parts, and closing of a production, but not so for concerts. Still, I lament with you that the use of the wonderful House Curtain in RCMH (the vast Contour-type of curtain) is evidently so rarely used or moved these days. Who knows? Maybe the stage hands' union now requires a special person just to operate the Contour House Curtain, and that would be another expense for the management, which now exists for profit, NOT showmanship. It is sad, for as was said earlier, the raising and use of the vast golden curtain was part of the magic that made the Hall above and beyond the other theatres. We can but hope that a wiser and less money-focused administration will take over there in future.

Yes, I was there for the “The Great Nome Fire,” in which a replica of the town was engulfed in flames (I believe the Japanese are masters of on-stage fires, and they were also in charge of the burning of Atlanta in the London stage production of “Gone With The Wind”). The finale had fire engines racing through the town across the great stage spraying water on the fire with giant hoses as smoke billowed up and engulfed the entire stage from floor to rafters. The curtain came down as the smoke cleared showing the destroyed building. There were brighter moments during the first part of the show that included the Rockettes, as dance hall girls. It was a rather impressive but short display, as “The Nun’s Story” was 2 hours and 30 minutes leaving only twenty minutes for a stage show. The other shortest stage show (22 minutes)in my memory was for “The Greatest Show on Earth,” (2 hrs 32 mins). It had a circus theme. But when it comes to short stage shows, we can’t forget the 15 minutes devoted to the ice show (American Indian theme) that accompanied “Giant” (3 hrs 20 min at the Roxy. The running time for the entire show was just under 4 hours includidng breaks.

Strange but true. For some reason, which none of us alive now will ever know, someone in the Hall in ‘59 thought a fitting accompaniment to “The Nun’s Story” would be the destruction and devastation of Nome. So they burned the place 4 times a day. Now I wasn’t there so I can’t confirm any of this but I believe they threw in an earthquake as well.

Erwin
How lucky you were you got to see a Cagney, Day Cinemascope film at the Hall along with the Bolero. You might envy those who were there opening night(I wish I had been there too though from all accounts it was a very long, tedious vaudeville show, kind of like the current xmas show( midgets too!)
But I have to say I also envy those who were going there on a regular basis in the 50’s and 60’s. All those wonderful movies(and the Bolero, Undersea Ballet, Serenade to the Stars, the burning of Nome, Alaska…)