RKO Warner Twin Theatre
1579 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
1579 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
41 people
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Showing 301 - 325 of 378 comments
Charles Chaplin’s The Gold Rush opened at the Strand on August 16, 1925, with Chaplin in attendance. He later recalled in his 1964 My Autobiography, “From the moment the film started, showing me blithely rounding a precipice unconscious of a bear following, the audience yelled and applauded. Throughout the laughter there was sporadic applause till the end of the picture.”
The Strand Theatre in Providence was completed a year after this New York Strand, was named after it, and imitated its architecture and decor.
Here is Cinerama Holiday from 1955.
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According to someone I knew who ventured there in the late 40s/early 50s the first show would be at 10am. A stage show, then movie, stage show and movie. Xavier Cugat with Abbe Lane. The Ritz Brothers, The Count Basie Band with Billy Eckstine. Always a juggler, a comedian and then the headliner. Phil Spitalny and his All-Girl Orchestra featuring Evelyn and Her Magic Violin.
There are also photos of the amazing interiors of the Earl Carroll Theater in William Morrison’s “Broadway Theaters: History and Architecture.” This book is one of those inexpensive Dover paperback picturebooks. The list price is $17.95, but brand new copies were on sale at Manhattan’s Strand Bookstore (Bdway & 12th St.) a few weeks ago for about the same price as they are on Amazon ($12.21). (By the way, at the Strand Bookstore there were also a few used copies of one of the great books on movie palaces, “The Best Remaining Seats,” for about $30.00, I think.)
The Morrison book is terrific and has many wonderful photos of old Broadway theaters. Although the primary focus is on Broadway “legit” theaters, many of the theaters in the book also showed movies at one time or another and are thus listed on the Cinema Treasures website.
One Amazon reviewer said the book contained a good number of factual errors, which may be true since I believe I was able to detect a few myself. (But to be fair to the author, I don’t know how the number of errors in his book compares with the the number found in other books — all these books seem to have at least some errors.)
On November 4, 1961 the Warner was day and dating “Susan Slade” with Trans-Lux 52nd St. That day only they advertised “Come meet Troy Donahue and Connie Stevens in our lobby for free autographed pictures”. Gone are the days !!
There is a section on the Earl Carroll Theater, including a number of photos, in the book “Lost Broadway Theatres”. The theater was an art-deco extravaganza.
I hate writing this on the Strand page, but there was a theatre on Seventh Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets I believe. It was on the East Side of the street and was long closed. The theater had been converted into a Woolworth’s, then they knocked Woolworth’s down and it was a parking lot for a while before an office building went up. Lehman Brothers is the tenant in the building.
I remember when they were about to take the Woolworth’s down the Times ran a piece about someone who got into Woolworth’s and got above the ceiling and was admiring what was left of the theater detail. The developer was nervous because he didn’t want any obstacles in taking the building down if anything architecturally significant was found.
Was this building a live theater or a movie theater?
I posted in the Adelphi page and there’s more info regarding this here: /theaters/3354/
I don’t think that the Ed Sullivan Theater (located on the west side of Broadway, between 53rd and 54th Sts.) was ever a movie theater, but I will have to look it up later. There are brief histories of it (with photos) in a number of theater books, including, I believe, William Morrison’s “Broadway Theatres: History and Architecture,” and Mary Henderson’s “The City and the Theater.”
The Adelphi Theater, which was where I think the one half-hour “Hooneymooners” series was done for its one season, is a different theater from the Ed Sullivan Theater and was located on the south side of 54th St., just east of Seventh Ave. Before and after housing the “Honeymooners” it was a “legit” Broadway theater that housed shows like “On the Town” and “No Strings.” In its last years, the Adlephi was called the 54th St. Theater and the George Abbott Theater.
However, the Jackie Gleason show itself, which often included a “Honeymooners” sketch, was done, I believe, at the Ed Sullivan Theater in its New York days. At that time, the theater was called, according to the IBDB, CBS Studio No. 50.
For quick histories, both of these theaters are can be found on the Internet Broadway Database. (I’d post a link, but I’ve seen that sometimes this causes problems on the Cinema Treasures webpage.)
Not sure about whether it was a movie theater, but at that time it was known as the Adelphi Theater and was were the Honeymooners episodes were filmed with DuMont’s Electronicam system (a film chain in which a a movie camera was positioned in front of a television monitor….essentially a Kinescope) http://www.pharis-video.com/p4589.htm
I don’t know where to post this, but was the Ed Sullivan Theatre, home to the Letterman show, ever a movie theatre? And, if so, where is it listed?
Sept 1972 RKO was day and dating this house along with the 59th St Twin and 86th St Twin. In the Penthouse was Jim Brown in Slaughter and in Cinerama 2 was Peter Sellers in “Where Does it Hurt”, which was released by Cinerama Releasing.
Could someone point me in the direction of a theatre name that would have been diagonally across the street from the Strand. It was on Broadway on the east side of the street a block or two above the TKTS booth. It was a porno theater in the 1980s/90s before closing. I’d like to read the history of the theatre if it is listed here.
Both the Forum 47th Street (Movieland) and the Cinerama/Penthouse/Orleans were on Broadway within a block or two of each other.
So, this and the Movieland Cinema closed at roughly the same time/era. I must have seen STAR WARS here, though I must admit I cannot remember this cinema nor the nearby MOVIELAND. These two cinemas must have been right near each other — a block or two apart — if not next door.
The Warner Twin/Strand closed on February 8, 1987, hardbop.
When did this theater close? Was it open into the 1980s? I caught a revival of the original STAR WARS in the summer of ‘83 at what I thought was the Movieland theatre, but someone on that thread said Star Wars was revived at this theatre. So, was the Strand open as late as '83?
An image of how the re-christened Cinerama auditorium of the former Warner Twin appeared (and, I’d guess, as well, in similar design the upstairs Penthouse and backstage Orleans), post-retrofitting, in 1968, accompanied by a brief article from the August 5, 1968 issue of Boxoffice magazine, can be found at the bottom of this page: http://cinerama.topcities.com/ctwarner.htm At the top, one can catch a small glimpse of how a portion of the lobby looked at the time, followed by a series of exterior shots and images of some of the projection equipment used in the presentation of Cinerama-based productions at the Warner.
X rated films did indeed play at the Cinerama Theatre. “Her, She & Him” (just before “Song of Norway” played there) and “Whirlpool”.
Most houses are listed by their last known names, but some are listed by their most famous names.
If this board lists theatres by their last known names, (ie: Embassy 5, better known as the Victoria) why isn’t this theatre listed as the Cinerama, Penthouse and Orleans? or even the Cinerama 1 & 2?
I bought Finian’s Rainbow and you’re right, the Penthouse premiere special is great. Plus, Francis Ford Coppola’s commentary is priceless.
I thought that but it seemed too close
My quess, as only a occassional visitor to New York City over my many years, would be that it is what later was called the Forum 47th St. Theatre and even later the B.S.Moss Movieland Theatre. That theatre was located between the Strand and the Victoria and Astor Theatres on Times Square. Once again, this is only a quess. Anyone have any other ideas?!
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A pic from 1931