Loew's Capitol Theatre

When I saw Nicholas at the Criterion I could swear there was no souvenir book. As soon as I went to a theater back then it was the first I looked for.

However the film does have a souvenir book so I don’t know why it wasn’t being sold. The Criterion had men in tuxes hawking the souvenir books.

Earlier in the year when they had the reissue of MFL they had a soft cover abridged version of the original hard cover which I bought.

When I got to finally meet Jeremy Brett after Aren’t We All(this was right before his sensational portrayal of SH so there was only one other person there. After I’m sure nobody would have been able to get near him)I presented him with the program to sign. Fortunately he did not look for his bio because it had been deleted in the abridgement.

Radio City did not have the souvenir book for Happiest Millionaire though they had a comic book based on the story! Go figure.

I know I’m the last person in the world who should be asking this question bigjoe59 but why in the world in 2016 does this matter?

For what it’s worth when I saw MFL in Jan of 71 at the Criterion though it was a Super Panavision 70 print it was continuous perfs without intermission and the souvenir program was a flimsy flyer compared to the hardcover edition of the original run.

Hello to All-

I thank everyone for their replies but the central question I asked in my original post still hasn’t been answered. of the 7 theaters in the Times Square area the studios used for most of their roadshow engagements(Criterion,Loews State, RKO Palace, Demille, Warner, Rivoli and Loews Capitol)does anyone know of a roadshow engagement at one of those 7 theaters that did not have a souvenir program? thanks in advance for any info.

Hello to All-

to patryan6019- i have souvenir programs for all the films you listed except Last Tango In Paris, Young Winston, The Last Valley or Ryan’s Daughter. in fact i don’t think LTIP had one. and eventhough i saw TLV in its first run engagement at the Rivoli twice i never remember seeing one for sale. also i saw RD at the Ziegfeld twice and again don’t remember a program being sold.

to Coate-

i am aware several other theaters in Manhattan hosted roadshow engagements. in fact i went to all the ones you listed. what i am trying to find out is if any of the roadshow engagements that played the 7 big theaters in the Times Square area i listed in my original post did not have a souvenir program.

FWIW, “Ryan’s Daughter” actually was a roadshow in some locales. In most major markets it was a reserved performance engagement (including the NYC run), but it played with reserved seating in markets in which it was booked into a Syufy theater (i.e. San Jose, Orange, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, etc.). And in Chicago the engagement at the Michael Todd switched to a reserved-seat policy a few weeks into the run.

Another roadshow-era oddness that always gets ignored is “I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW)” at the Evergreen in Greenwich Village.

Mean!

But I agree with you.

Except for Ryan’s Daughter which is a pretty great film. The storm alone is one of the most stupendous sequences ever put of film. Lean hadn’t lost his touch but got put through the meat grinder by those wretched New York film critic hacks who couldn’t review a grocery bill without mucking it up.

bigjoe59…what programs do you have of the last roadshows (working backwards): Paris, Mancha, Winston, Nicholas, Fiddler, Norway, Tora. And non roadshown Valley and Ryans.

bigjoe59…. There were several other NYC theaters that played roadshows during the era you’re describing besides the ones you cited. I don’t have a complete listing, but just from the latter half of the 1960s and into the early 1970s, consider the following:

57th St. Lincoln Art (“The Lion in Winter”)
Columbia (“Young Winston”)
Coronet (“The Taming of the Shrew”)
Fine Arts (“The Charge of the Light Brigade”)
Ziegfeld (“Marooned”)

And if you wish to count modified roadshows (i.e. reserved performance engagements), then consider:

86th St. East (“The Great Waltz”)

Hello-

to Al A. i do tend to forget Last Tango in Paris don’t I. but its always been my suspicion that UA opted for a reserved seat run at the Trans Lux East to make the film appear “important” and not because it was warranted by the budget.

also my question pertained to the 7 Bway houses that the studios used for their roadshow runs. so does anyone remember/know of a roadshow film which played one of the 7 Bway houses during the 20 year period I mentioned in my original post that did not have a souvenir program?

I will give “CALIGULA” a pass since it was eight years after the Roadshow era and quite an anomaly. But “LAST TANGO” was very much a part of the trend to move Roadshows out of Broadway and into the prestigious upper east side, before the whole concept died out with spontaneous youth audiences controlling all ticket sales in the mid-seventies. I do think “CALIGULA” uncut had a souvenir program, though.

Let’s not forget that “LAST TANGO IN PARIS” was a roadshow AFTER “MAN OF LA MANCHA”. We have a legacy of ignoring movies, and theatres we find morally offensive in hindsight. But not here on Cinema Treasures.

Hello- the heyday of the reserved seat or roadshow engagement was the Sept. 1952 opening of This Cinerama to the Dec. 1972 opening of Man of La Mancha. there were seven theaters used by the studios in the Times Square area for their roadshow engagements this theater plus the Criterion, Loews State, RKO Palace, Demille, Warner, and the Rivoli. which is where my question comes in. while I didn’t go to every roadshow engagement in the approx. 20 year period every one i did attend had a souvenir program. so does anyone remember attending a roadshow engagement in that 20 year period at one of the seven theaters that did not have a souvenir program?