Ziegfeld Theatre

The Center is still there on the north side of Queens Blvd alongside the elevated Flushing IRT line, Gary. Don’t know what the fare was back in the late ‘50’s, but today it is a 6-screen multiplex. Here is the CT page for the Center Cinemas (as it is known today) that includes a recent exterior photo – which I took about a week before I snapped the Bliss.

Gary… the Sunnyside has been bulldozed and a big drug store stands on its site. Meanwhile, the Bliss is still standing and is serving as a Jehovah’s Witness church. I snapped a few exterior photos late last year and posted them on the CT page for the Bliss – which you can open right here.

According to posts on that page, the interior has been pretty much stripped of original decor and streamlined in appearance, but the exterior appears to be in good shape. I’ve always been curious if the nice wood doors that are now in the entrance were original or installed by the church. Perhaps you could shed some light on that if you visit the page.

My mistake… I saw “Ben-Hur” at the 4:30 Saturday showing, NOT Sunday.

Gary… When did you ask Monique about doing this? It wouldn’t have been at the Sunday matinee showing of “Ben-Hur” the other week, would it have? I only ask because after that showing, I went up to Monique (who, before the show, offered me free passes if I wasn’t happy with the print quality) to thank her and compliment the excellent job being done by all Ziegfeld hands and I noticed a couple of gentlemen discussing with her the possibility of one of them saying a few introductory words before an upcoming feature. She explained that her manager thought it would be OK if they were able to get a copy of the comments before hand.

I didn’t catch the title of the film in question (as I didn’t really want to eavesdrop) so it might not have been you. If it wasn’t, isn’t it interesting that this series is attracting such a passionate crowd – including folks who have an interest in offering some public comments to preface the presentations? Nothing lasts forever, but I hope this series – and the grass-roots spirit that makes it so exciting – continues to prosper for many years to come.

Good luck, Gary!

Congratulations Gary, that’s terrific! I look forward to hearing your introduction.

Ed-

Nice thought my friend, but I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that that’s not going ot happen, although I would LOVE IT if it did. In my opinion, The Ziegfeld can stay the way it is, as far as the Mayfair goes that would be a great idea. The catch to that would be making that theater attractive to all the tourists that now invade Times Square. It would have to be Cinerama and IMAX for that, because I don’t think mainstream America (ie. the huge chunk of the Times Square tourists) even know what Cinerama is. IMHO, a theater like that would have to have some sort of diverse programming especially for IMAX because most people know what that is. If there was say ‘Star Wars’ in IMAX or a reallly popular film like that than maybe that could work. They could also dig up something like that Rolling Stones IMAX thing from a few years ago. The Cinerama thing would have to “piggy back” if you will, on the notoriety of IMAX and then geeks like us could see “Once Upon a Time in the West' or ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ in Cinerama. Can an IMAX and Cinerama theater physically exist? Don’t know, but at least one can dream…

One good thing I’ll say about the Oscars the other night. They were plugging for people to get out to the theaters again with that montage they did about the beauty of the ‘big screen’. They even had a clip in it from ‘This Is Cinerama’. Great idea from the Hollywood folks, right? Here’s my note to them: start putting out some original material instead of insipid remakes, and some films that need to be seen on the big screen and MAYBE you’ll get people back in the theaters again. So far though, I don’t see that happening. I just read last night that ‘Hairspray'is being made into a movie again starring John Travolta in the role Divine originated in the movie and the one Harvey Firestein did on Broadway. How ridiculous is that? And they wondering why people buy DVDs and stay at home. I think maybe they’re also wondering why something like the classics series at the Ziegfeld is successful and being extended.

Irv… We all know what is TRULY missing from the NY scene – a proper three-strip Cinerama house for the City! Is that just a lost cause? Either the Ziegfeld would have to renovate or the shuttered Mayfair/Demille in Times Square would have to be refurbished and rescued from oblivion. Neither one of these options appears to be a good bet at this point, so I imagine I’ll have to travel across country for that particular cinematic experience.

Hey Bob-

Thanks for the tip. I actually visited the Lafayette for a screening of Hitchcock’s ‘Suspicion’ around this time last year(?). Great theater and great presentation of the film. I’m a city dweller and don’t own a car, so the trek to the Lafayette for me begins at about 8:30 AM if I want to get the PATH to Hoboken for the train to Suffern. Long story short, I’m not really a morning person, especially on the weekends. And although ‘Suspicion’ was great I couldn’t help from nodding out here and there during the screening. Not my favorite thing to do in a movie theater, even if the film is bad. But I’m sure I’ll find a good reason to visit The Lafayette in the future. Just have to go to bed early the night before…

Oh my goodness Ed, I sure do remember those Castle films.
I too collected the 8mm versions of many of the Universal International pictures, wasn’t it fun the way they condensed an 80/90 min movie down to 10/12 mins. Later on, I switched to the
400'16mm sound versions, in fact my local store would rent them out by the day or a weekend, similar to the way they do today with DVDs.
Before video, you could rent full length 16mm films from most of the major studios from an outfit called Films Incorporated, the movies were available 6 months after the theatrical release. I loved reading your story, it reminded me of great times.

El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood has shown several Disney classics on the big screen for a limited time, prior to their DVD release. They’ve done it recently for “Lady and the Tramp”, and also for the 40th anniversary of “Mary Poppins”, among others. With all the resources that Disney has, I wonder why New York and other major cities are not included in these engagements. And, I can only speak for my 7 year old son, but yes he can sit through “Mary Poppins”!!! It’s one of his favorite films. I am a firm believer in the power and beauty of cinema, and try to pass on that appreciation to my kid. Last fall, he saw “Close Encounters” for the first time on the big screen, and he was in total awe, a jaw dropping experience for him.

I have hope for the future!

Regards,

JSA

Vito… I remember back in the days before VHS and Beta, a company called Castle Films (I always wondered if the great B-movie showman William Castle had anything to do with this outfit) used to issue Readers Digest-like versions of old theatrical films on single 8mm and Super 8mm reels for viewing at home. They may have had 16mm as well, but I defintely had (indeed might STILL have) many 8mm reels from Castle Films for films like the original “Frankenstein”, “Bride of Frankenstein”, “Son of Frankenstein”, “House of Frankenstein” (see a theme developing here?) and “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein”. That last title was my favorite because it was a Super 8 reel with SOUND! The silent reels all had subtitles. I also had a color reel featuring a condensed “Dr. Cyclops” as well as the ‘50’s sci-fi flick “Tarantula” and “Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Some of the titles were on the short 50 foot reels which pared down 90 minute features to the best 3 or 4 minutes while still retaining some semblence of a story line. Some titles also came in the bigger 200 foot reels which ran more like 12-13 minutes.

The films used to be sold in camera stores (or in department stores that had camera sections) and I remember the cover art was always fantastic. In some cases, even more so than the films themselves. My Dad would drag the home movie screen out into the gutter during our annual block parties and run a few extension cords end-to-end from the stoop light fixture to the fire up the projector and he’d run the movies for the neighborhood kids (myself and my brother among them). It was always a big hit. Man, thinking of those old films brings back such awesome memories. I remember how often the film would jam in my Dad’s projector and start to bubble under the heat of the lamp. I became quite the expert splicer under my Dad’s tutelage.

Sure, I’ve got thousands of full length, crisp quality, surround sound movie titles at my fingertips via cable-TV, On Demand services, Netflix, Blockbuster, even the local Library… but nothing will ever replace the experience of watching a familiar old flick with freinds – be it on the bottom of a double bill in some faded grind-house palace, or at the run-down nabe for 80 cents, or when boiled down to a precious few minutes in a heavily spliced silent 8mm print on my Dad’s noisy projector while sitting on a few folding chairs out in the gutter under the stars courtesy of Castle Films.

Hmmm. Thanks for the stats, William. The Ziegfeld’s screen looks big enough when you sit in the front half of the orchestra – as I stated earlier, I like about 10th row or so. But with the theater’s long rectangular shape, the impact of the screen size diminishes the further back one sits (for my tastes, anyway). Many of those older theaters, while much larger and with greater seating capacities, were designed with a porportionately shallower fan-shaped floor plan, which brought a greater number of seats closer to the screen by virtue of their cantilievered loge and balcony sections. As a result, I think the screens seemed even larger than they were.

Not sure what the dimensions in the old Harris on 42nd Street were, but that screen was truly impressive in relation to the size of the auditorium. It’s one of the few Duece grind houses in which I ever visited the balcony and I remember sitting dead center in the 1st row and thinking like I was going to fall into the screen. It felt like I could have leapt off the balcony right onto the face of the screen.

The comments regarding re-releases prompted me to recall the days before video tape when it was quite common for studios to re-release the older movies, quite often in the form of a double feature.
We would receive reburbished prints, which meant the film exchange would consolidate several prints together to replace missing footage, the prints with surface scracthes (non emulsion) would be sent to a lab to have the scratches removed or covered up, consoladated industries in New York did most of that work in NY. Prints would then have new thread up leaders attached and shipped off to the theatres. The exception to that was Disney, who always supplied new prints for re-issues.