Paramount Theatre
1501 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
1501 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
38 people
favorited this theater
Showing 401 - 425 of 508 comments
Check out this RKO release that played the Paramount during WWII.
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Was reading the earlier posts and wanted to let Warren know it was Dean & Jean who performed at the WMCA Goodguys Show at the Paramount. They were a couple who had a hit called “Tra La La Suzy” around that time.I happened to catch that show and it was great. But the one I was at had a different lineup. I believe the Goodguys changed the headliners after a few days. Along with Dean & Jean and some of the other acts Warren mentioned were The 4 Seasons,Lesley Gore and James Brown. I do remember the theater being massive and that the movie with Juliet Mills was quite boring. It was a black & white British comedy about a misadventures of a bad daughter.
Anyway,I wish I would have saved my program from the show.As a kid in the 60’s I didn’t realize it might be a collecters item today.
I’ve just posted my Playbill program from that famous production on the page for the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, where the run took place in June 1964.
You recall correctly Warren, in 1964 Hamlet played in Electronvision in just under 1000 theatres, with the New York run lasting just two days. The 3 hour and 20 minute running time permitted only two shows a day, and was shot live with 15 cameras. By the way, as the story goes it was Burton who, unhappy with the quality, and controlled distribution, pulled the film, never to be shown again. There are some reports of the film playing in some U.S cities for almost two weeks.
“The last movie to play the Paramount was ‘Thunderball’ which…played continuously 24 hours a day for the first three weeks.” (Orlando, Feb 27, 2004)
“ ‘Thunderball’ was released in December, 1965, nearly a year and a half after ‘The Carpetbaggers’ closed at the Paramount. I don’t recall ‘Thunderball’ playing there…” (Warren, Feb 27, 2004)
“Could it have been ‘Goldfinger’ not ‘Thunderball’, you were thinking of? Because ‘Goldfinger’ had special 24 hour a day screenings when it opened in the city. And it was released a year earlier than ‘Thunderball’.” (William, Feb 27, 2004)
“I remember ‘Thunderball’ having a special engagement at the Paramount.” (p7350, Feb 27, 2004)
Consulting The New York Times on microfilm can help sort this out….
Both “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball” had special 24-hour round-the-clock Manhattan screenings.
“Goldfinger” opened on Dec. 22, 1964 exclusively at the DeMille and the Coronet. Between Dec. 23, 1965 – Jan. 2, 1965, the DeMille featured round-the-clock screenings.
“James Bond Now In Action 24 Hours A Day — Due to the incredible crowds that stormed the doors of the DeMille Theatre yesterday, opening day, the management announces that the following extraordinary, unprecedented schedule is now in effect for the showings of ‘Goldfinger’: The DeMille Theatre will remain open 24 hours a day…so that all who wish to follow the latest exploits of Agent 007 will have unlimited opportunity to do so.”
As for “Thunderball,” this opened Dec. 21, 1965 on a United Artists Premiere Showcase simultaneously in nearly 30 greater New York City area theaters. The Manhattan engagements were held at the Paramount, Sutton, and Cinema II. The Paramount stayed open 24 hours a day to show the movie round-the-clock.
RobertR mentioned Electronovision and if anyone wondered what the heck that was, in 1965, two competing versions of Harlow’s bio were in production, Harlow, Paramount Studios' version was photographed in 35mm widescreen color. The Magna Pictures rendition of Harlow, which was released first, was photographed in black-and-white Electronovision, which was a live TV style kinescope type production. The Electronovision Harlow was more of a curiosity than a movie and was pulled from its few bookings quickly. Soon after, along with few kinescope prints, the Electronovision cameras became part of video-movie history.
May 1965 the Paramount opened the Carol Lynley version of “Harlow” which was filmed in Electronovision. This film was released by Magna Pictures of which United Artists Theatres was the majority owner. The stage show (yes it was back) starred Clay Cole and had the lineup of Mary Wells, The Doves, The Marvelettes and 4 other acts. When the film left the Paramount it went on a massive showcase run of virtually every UA, Randforce and Skouras theatre in every boro, Long Island and Westchester. I think they were trying to beat the far superior color version Paramount made with Carol Baker. The next attraction to go into the Paramount was “Operation Snafu” starring Sean Connery and on stage a tribute to Glenn Miller.
Christmas of 1960 Elvis had two films in release. The Paramount was playing “Flaming Star” and all the neighborhood Loews were showing a double bill of “G.I. Blues” and “The Boy Who Stole a Million”. It seems by this time the Paramount was just running films, no stage show is listed.
How is it that no one has written a long overdo book about Manhattan’s Paramont? Or am I mistaken?
THE PARAMOUNT called itself THE HOUSE OF BLOCKBUSTERS during its final few years of regular operation. Having exclusive first run blockbusters at top prices was what kept the big downtown theaters in business. It wasn’t New York’s notorious pre-Rudy high crime —– immortalized in Charles Bronson’s DEATH WISH film in which New York was accurately described as “a toilet” —– no, it was the producer/ director of THE FRENCH CONNECTION. Mr Dantonio insisted 20th Century Fox book this movie “wide” immediately placing it in dozens of neighborhood theaters and bypassing downtown. The financial payoff was fantastic and forever doomed the downtown first runs. Soon after, not even RADIO CITY could grab off first runs of QUALITY films with mass appeal; booking second rate things like ROBIN & MARION et cetera along with their 4-a-day stage show. Of course the horrible crime problem —– unknown to young New Yorkers —– helped nail the coffin. When I see literally thousands of persons, even in freezing temperatures in January, cramming Times Square at 11 PM, why couldn’t New York cure their crime nightmare a few decades earlier?
Superb postings by Paul Noble and CPark. The much-lamented Paramount had the power to imprint itself on one’s memory in a variety of ways.
Ernie Nagy
The day world war II ended, my sister was on stage at the Paramount. She was the soprano (Jeannie) with Phil Spitalny’s all girl orchestra. Imogene Coca was also on the bill.
They suspended shows that afternoon so that everyone could get out of the theater. A number of the girls decided the best way out was through a kind of underground passageway to the front of the theater opening on Broadway. We all joined hands & once on the street, snaked our way through the crowd to the subway. A very memorable experience for a boy of 15.
According to one of the biographies of Woody Allen, for his seventh birthday on December 1, 1942, he and his mom went to the Paramount and saw “The Road to Morocco” (where he became fascinated by Bob Hope) and a stage show with Woody (!) Herman and his orchestra. The Paramount had an obvious effect on him. I attended five days later for my 7th birthday, too, but I didn’t become a comedian or a sax player, or change my name. I just became a theater buff!
Ernie Nagy— scroll upwards to 27 and 28 Feb and 2, 8, and 23 March ‘05, where Warren has eloquently chronicled the end of stage shows at the Paramount.
Does anyone know exactly when the Paramount terminated the booking of vaudeville/big band acts?
Ernie Nagy
The only other VistaVision films that I recall having played at the Paramount besides “Strategic Air Command” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” were “To Catch a Thief,” “Artists and Models,” and “Anything Goes”—a perfect waste of terrific VV equipment, especially if the exhibitors went all the way with horizontal projection. The Paramount in those days was chiefly a showcase for Warner Bros. films. I believe that “We’re No Angels” and “Desperate Hours” opened at the Criterion. “The Trouble with Harry” premiered at the Paris, a highly unusual booking for a Hollywood studio film at the time. From my previous account of VV films that I’d seen in their first runs, I left out “Funny Face,” the sublime Easter show at RCMH in ‘57.
Vito and BOB. You guys are killing me.
Of course all of you realise that only “White Christmas” played RCMH in actual horizontal VistaVision. After that, all movies shot in VistaVision were shown with a standard 35mm reduction print.
However, the Paramount actually projected many horizontal VistaVision prints, I am not sure which titles were shown that way, hopefully someone knows. As for the Capital and Criterion, VistaVision projectors were, as far as I know, were never installed at either theatre. Even “The Ten Commandments” was shown using a 35mm reduction print. By the way Bill,regarding your New Years Eve outing, exactally one year after later in 1959, I too spent New Years Eve at the Paramount watching “Journey to the Center of the Earth”
VistaVision at the Paramount was superior to its projection at any other theater in NYC.
At RCMH, where “White Chritmas,” High Society,“ and "North by Northwest” were projected on to the theater’s standard flat wide screen, it looked hardly different from any 35mm film in the auditorium’s vast expanse.
At the Criterion, whose screen was slightly more curved than most but not at all so deeply curved as those at the Rivoli, Warner, or Loew’s State, the viewing surface sat well inside the limited proscenium and deeply behind the red traveler curtain; for “The Ten Commandments” its size seemed unexceptional and even unimpressive.
At the Capitol, the framing and projection were first-rate for its gently curved screen, but the VistaVision look for “War and Peace” and “Vertigo” carried no special distinction.
The Brooklyn Paramount projected the medium onto a flat and somewhat squarish screen.
I was a flabbergastingly opinionated, movie-mad, camera-toting teen-ager when I saw those films at these theaters in the ‘50s. Only the Times Square Paramount impressed me for its VistaVision presentation. It’s a wonder people didn’t kick me in the pants for my ad hoc critiques.
So was Vistavisions much more impressive at the Paramount than it was at the Music Hall these being the two NY theaters with Vistavision projectors?
Here’s a photo of the Paramount’s deeply curved VistaVision screen, which made its debut with the showing of “Strategic Air Command” in April 1955. It comes from Theatre Catalog, 12th ed. (1954-55).
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You can see that the original proscenium columns were cut off and removed just above the screen so as to make use of the entire but cramped stage width. The dark midnight-blue house curtain traveled into wing spaces beyond the proscenium, past the audience’s sightlines. For CinemaScope films, masking dropped several feet to frame the 2.6 ratio (I recall seeing “Inn of the Sixth Happiness” there on New Year’s Eve, ‘58). For conventional widescreen, masking moved down at the top and in at the sides to reduce the exaggerated size (I recall seeing “Love in the Afternoon” there in August '57). I remember the Paramount’s VistaVision screen in its full glory—and it was glorious—for “The Man Who Knew Too Much” in May '56. My friends and I sat in the fifth row or thereabout.
There is a NY Times picture here of the theatre being gutted.
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I saw that show during it’s run. The Red Skelton film was the least interesting part of it, although I believe it included Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra, one of my favorites.
I came primarily to see and hear Woody Herman and his Orchestra. This was known as “The Band That Plays the Blues.” Ah, halcyon days.
Ernie Nagy
I have never seen this night shot of the Paramount and other marquees.
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Great story Paul, so I guess the sound was not so “Phonic” after all.
Seriously however, it reminded me of those wonderfull times in the 50s when we had the birth of all of those great sight and sound inovations in motion pictures. As projectionists, we seem to have a new toy to play with almost every couple of months.