CC I have to agree that not all these films are four star winners but a couple are first rate and I would have happily seen the others in such gilt edged presentations. Yeah Star is mediocre and all the revisionists can’t change that but boy do I wish I could have seen it at the Rivoli in Todd AO. I also think Chitty isn’t very good but again if only I could have seen it in 70mm at the State 2.
By the way in the summer of ‘65 you also had Magnificent Men at the Demille. Wow!!!
Criterion-Funny Girl
Loew’s State 1-Oliver
Loew’s State 2- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Demille- Shoes of the Fisherman
Rivoli-Star
Cinerama-Ice Station Zebra
Penthouse-Finian’s Rainbow
Wow!
And if the Capitol hadn’t been closed a few months earlier
2001 would probably have still been playing as well!
We are culturally still in this same frame of mind. Look at Times Square. Look at what is happening at Astor Place and lower Broadway. Look at the modern buidldings going up in London and Paris. If anything it is getting worse. Its seems that we who speak here are in a derided minority.
Unfortunately Hall’s book did little in the short run to end the slaughter. In the few years following its publication we were to lose 3 of the great houses Hall featured; the NY Paramount, the Capitol and the SF Fox. Then years later the Strand and the Rivoli.
Gance was alive at the time of this screening and though too ill to attend(that would have been something!) I believe they hooked up a sound system so he could hear it. When he heard the applause at the end he said “It’s too late.”
CC brings up a good point. Before computers audiences saw the budget on screen. The production designs even for musicals like Fair Lady and Dolly are pretty staggering and certainly worth the $5.50 mezzanine price. Can you imagine how much it cost to create one Cecil Beaton dress or all of 14th Street?
Now even an historical movie uses the same computer design sofware one can see on the History Channel any night of the week. I assume that today a large part of the budget goes to star salaries and the caterer who is acknowledged in the clossing credits. Take a look at the original closing credits for Fair Lady or Sound of Music. Sheesh!
William SON didn’t open until the fall of ‘70 at the Cinerama in Times Square. I didn’t go simply because somehow it wasn’t a Cinerama roadshow with Mrs. Brady in the lead.
I regret it now. I wonder if the movie is as bad as they said.
Pauline Kael said it seems to have been made by trolls.
Robert, Lost Horizon opened in continuous perfs at Loew’s State 1. Should have played at the Music Hall. Either way it still was one of those inexplicable 70s musical atrocities.
CC if you can get your hands at your library of Variety on microfilm you can see how well a film was doing during its entire run week by week at a specific theater in a major city.
Of course this is subject to if the theater was being honest or not about its grosses.
For example Mike Todd would put up the sold out sign in the Rivoli even when 80 Days was not sold out just to make it a bit more difficult to get into.
The Music Hall would close the third balconey even when it had the patronage to open it.
Tim you’ve given us a wonderful mini history of roadshows in Toronto.
I guess today as everywhere it is a very different city. Wish I could have known it then.
Sound of Music at the Rivoli might have beat out 80 Days if the management had anything to do with it. Fox pulled it to get the prestige booking for Sand Pebbles when the Riv wanted to hold onto SOM. They wanted to keep it so badly that they ended up suing Fox over the matter. Who knows it might have lasted another 3 months until Easter of ‘67.
Being an east coast boy this is the first I am even hearing of the Fox Rosemary. I would love to know however what happened to the D 150 and Todd AO shorts which were created to show off these systems. What eyepopping time capsules these must be. Perhaps Mike Todd’s son would know? And how I wish he would spearhead a campaign to restore 80 Days to its original splendor and equip perhaps a Broadway theater to play it.(Much in the same way The Broadway theater was used for This is Cinerama and the Royale was used for the roadshow Gigi.)
From what I remember the Rockettes had the opening number and were not in any way incorporated into the show. They seemed tagged on at the beginning. I rmember it was a very dreary stage show and The Black Cauldron was very violent. Huge speakers had been placed on the side risers for the earsplitting Dolby. An usher told me parents were complaining about the film. A very depressing evening.
REndres I remember that Sound of Music Print very well. I never liked roadshow movies at the Hall. I would have preferred to see them at a Broadway house. But that print was stunning and so was the sound. I can still hear that organ during the processional. I would have sworn it was the organ of the theater itself.
Considering that religious groups and parochial schools were a big market for roadshow films they hit pay dirt with Sound of Music.
Robert do you remember if the Rivoli utilized its curved screen for this engagement?
Robert thats a great picture and I’d like to see a a color photo of it. The Rivoli also had large vetrines on both sides of the entrance doors and all the big movies had elaborate displays. I’d love to see photos of those as well. As a boy in Nov ‘66 I remember walking behind the Rivoli and seeing the huge sign for SOM on the back of the theater. It was very worn and faded. If only I could have convinced my mother to have walked to the other side so I could have see that marquee! (My mother though would have thought I was out of my mind.)
It seems like for most of its history the Roxy audience was looking at drapes. When were its magnificent proscenium and decorative boxes covered up never to be seen again?
This was posted today on a theater chat site regarding the question of film musicals adapted from the stage. I wish I knew who the person is who wrote it and where they saw this. I am not registered on this site so could not respond. Maybe somebody out there knows where this took place. World premiere was at the criterion.
I understand a lot of people think “South Pacific,” as a film, is boring and the color is overdone.
But recently, I had this privilege to see the film in its complete premiere version (170 mins — 20 minutes longer than the video, TV, LD, and DVD version). Not only this — most important of all, it was shown in its original Todd-AO format, on a gigantic deep-curved screen, with the magnificent six-channel magnetic soundtracks! When the song “Bali Hai” reached its climax, with the close-up of Juanita Hall’s tremendous face on that 25-odd feet high, 60-odd feet long deep-curved screen, I was transfixed. And if there is a musical heaven, one of its greatest attractions must be when Alfred Newman’s orchestra doing “I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy” and is played on the six-channel Todd-AO stereophonic sound system. I can still feel the chills down my spine when writing this. It is an experience of lifetime.
Many said that the musical numbers filmed with the color-filter were overdone, but on the contrary, the problem of this film is within the segments WITHOUT the color filters. Just as the director, Joshua Logan, once predicted, the glorious on-location scenes of Hawaii are too beautiful. Much too beautiful and colorful that we were often drawn away from the dramatic center to appreciate the glorious color possessed by some flowers in the background…
That’s astounding as it seems to me one of the worst adaptations of a musical I have seen. Earlier that year in ‘71 I had seen the Broadway production only a few blocks north of the Rivoli at the Broadway theater and I was overwhelmed. Magnificently stage by Jerome Robbins and designed by the genius of Boris Aronson it was filled with joy and color. The grainy, washed out neutered bore I saw on the curved screen at the Rivoli to a huge sold out house was a huge dissapointment. I watched a little of it recently on TCM and it was just as dull and unimaginative as I remembered. It played on roadshow for over a year and I never went back. Too bad as it was the last successful musical roadshow. I’m glad though you liked it as in and of itself it is a great work. I haven’t seen the current production but you might want to take your daughter to it.
Well CC I only caught the tail end of it as well as the movies I mentioned above were in Times Square first run for me only names on a marquee. (Did though see Fair Lady at the Cri in both 65 and 71.)Then saw Nick and Alex at the Cri in 71 and Fiddler at the Riv. Lousy both of them. And neither in 70mm!
Amazing. As a proud Italian I never found this movie demeaning only very funny. I think it is one of Chaplin’s best.
You could call Chaplin a lot of things egotistical, self righteous, overly sentimental (just like self-important movie stars today) but I don’t think a bigot is one of them.
CC I think the top for SOM at the Rivoli was $4.50 whereas the top for Fair Lady at the Criterion was a full dollar more for a whopping $5.50. This was four years before Funny Girl! I believe in an article at the end of ‘68 the Criterion manager said that the mezz seats were sold out through Feb '69. I remember my mother telling me that my aunt spent 4.00 a ticket for Fair Lady in Asbury Park(this was at the St James on roadshow.) I thought that was a crazy amount of money to spend on a movie.
Today if the Riv and the Cri still existed I would happily pay $40 for a 70mm film.
CC I have to agree that not all these films are four star winners but a couple are first rate and I would have happily seen the others in such gilt edged presentations. Yeah Star is mediocre and all the revisionists can’t change that but boy do I wish I could have seen it at the Rivoli in Todd AO. I also think Chitty isn’t very good but again if only I could have seen it in 70mm at the State 2.
By the way in the summer of ‘65 you also had Magnificent Men at the Demille. Wow!!!
Times Square Roadshow
Christmas ‘68
Criterion-Funny Girl
Loew’s State 1-Oliver
Loew’s State 2- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Demille- Shoes of the Fisherman
Rivoli-Star
Cinerama-Ice Station Zebra
Penthouse-Finian’s Rainbow
Wow!
And if the Capitol hadn’t been closed a few months earlier
2001 would probably have still been playing as well!
We are culturally still in this same frame of mind. Look at Times Square. Look at what is happening at Astor Place and lower Broadway. Look at the modern buidldings going up in London and Paris. If anything it is getting worse. Its seems that we who speak here are in a derided minority.
Unfortunately Hall’s book did little in the short run to end the slaughter. In the few years following its publication we were to lose 3 of the great houses Hall featured; the NY Paramount, the Capitol and the SF Fox. Then years later the Strand and the Rivoli.
Gance was alive at the time of this screening and though too ill to attend(that would have been something!) I believe they hooked up a sound system so he could hear it. When he heard the applause at the end he said “It’s too late.”
What a brilliant idea for LOA at the Criterion. I hoped they sold lemonade!
Anybody know what happened to Frank? He was a wonderful programmer.
CC brings up a good point. Before computers audiences saw the budget on screen. The production designs even for musicals like Fair Lady and Dolly are pretty staggering and certainly worth the $5.50 mezzanine price. Can you imagine how much it cost to create one Cecil Beaton dress or all of 14th Street?
Now even an historical movie uses the same computer design sofware one can see on the History Channel any night of the week. I assume that today a large part of the budget goes to star salaries and the caterer who is acknowledged in the clossing credits. Take a look at the original closing credits for Fair Lady or Sound of Music. Sheesh!
William SON didn’t open until the fall of ‘70 at the Cinerama in Times Square. I didn’t go simply because somehow it wasn’t a Cinerama roadshow with Mrs. Brady in the lead.
I regret it now. I wonder if the movie is as bad as they said.
Pauline Kael said it seems to have been made by trolls.
Robert, Lost Horizon opened in continuous perfs at Loew’s State 1. Should have played at the Music Hall. Either way it still was one of those inexplicable 70s musical atrocities.
CC if you can get your hands at your library of Variety on microfilm you can see how well a film was doing during its entire run week by week at a specific theater in a major city.
Of course this is subject to if the theater was being honest or not about its grosses.
For example Mike Todd would put up the sold out sign in the Rivoli even when 80 Days was not sold out just to make it a bit more difficult to get into.
The Music Hall would close the third balconey even when it had the patronage to open it.
Tim you’ve given us a wonderful mini history of roadshows in Toronto.
I guess today as everywhere it is a very different city. Wish I could have known it then.
Sound of Music at the Rivoli might have beat out 80 Days if the management had anything to do with it. Fox pulled it to get the prestige booking for Sand Pebbles when the Riv wanted to hold onto SOM. They wanted to keep it so badly that they ended up suing Fox over the matter. Who knows it might have lasted another 3 months until Easter of ‘67.
Being an east coast boy this is the first I am even hearing of the Fox Rosemary. I would love to know however what happened to the D 150 and Todd AO shorts which were created to show off these systems. What eyepopping time capsules these must be. Perhaps Mike Todd’s son would know? And how I wish he would spearhead a campaign to restore 80 Days to its original splendor and equip perhaps a Broadway theater to play it.(Much in the same way The Broadway theater was used for This is Cinerama and the Royale was used for the roadshow Gigi.)
From what I remember the Rockettes had the opening number and were not in any way incorporated into the show. They seemed tagged on at the beginning. I rmember it was a very dreary stage show and The Black Cauldron was very violent. Huge speakers had been placed on the side risers for the earsplitting Dolby. An usher told me parents were complaining about the film. A very depressing evening.
REndres I remember that Sound of Music Print very well. I never liked roadshow movies at the Hall. I would have preferred to see them at a Broadway house. But that print was stunning and so was the sound. I can still hear that organ during the processional. I would have sworn it was the organ of the theater itself.
Considering that religious groups and parochial schools were a big market for roadshow films they hit pay dirt with Sound of Music.
Robert do you remember if the Rivoli utilized its curved screen for this engagement?
Vito and BOB. You guys are killing me.
Robert thats a great picture and I’d like to see a a color photo of it. The Rivoli also had large vetrines on both sides of the entrance doors and all the big movies had elaborate displays. I’d love to see photos of those as well. As a boy in Nov ‘66 I remember walking behind the Rivoli and seeing the huge sign for SOM on the back of the theater. It was very worn and faded. If only I could have convinced my mother to have walked to the other side so I could have see that marquee! (My mother though would have thought I was out of my mind.)
If you have to ask you can’t afford them.
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?
It seems like for most of its history the Roxy audience was looking at drapes. When were its magnificent proscenium and decorative boxes covered up never to be seen again?
This was posted today on a theater chat site regarding the question of film musicals adapted from the stage. I wish I knew who the person is who wrote it and where they saw this. I am not registered on this site so could not respond. Maybe somebody out there knows where this took place. World premiere was at the criterion.
I understand a lot of people think “South Pacific,” as a film, is boring and the color is overdone.
But recently, I had this privilege to see the film in its complete premiere version (170 mins — 20 minutes longer than the video, TV, LD, and DVD version). Not only this — most important of all, it was shown in its original Todd-AO format, on a gigantic deep-curved screen, with the magnificent six-channel magnetic soundtracks! When the song “Bali Hai” reached its climax, with the close-up of Juanita Hall’s tremendous face on that 25-odd feet high, 60-odd feet long deep-curved screen, I was transfixed. And if there is a musical heaven, one of its greatest attractions must be when Alfred Newman’s orchestra doing “I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy” and is played on the six-channel Todd-AO stereophonic sound system. I can still feel the chills down my spine when writing this. It is an experience of lifetime.
Many said that the musical numbers filmed with the color-filter were overdone, but on the contrary, the problem of this film is within the segments WITHOUT the color filters. Just as the director, Joshua Logan, once predicted, the glorious on-location scenes of Hawaii are too beautiful. Much too beautiful and colorful that we were often drawn away from the dramatic center to appreciate the glorious color possessed by some flowers in the background…
That’s astounding as it seems to me one of the worst adaptations of a musical I have seen. Earlier that year in ‘71 I had seen the Broadway production only a few blocks north of the Rivoli at the Broadway theater and I was overwhelmed. Magnificently stage by Jerome Robbins and designed by the genius of Boris Aronson it was filled with joy and color. The grainy, washed out neutered bore I saw on the curved screen at the Rivoli to a huge sold out house was a huge dissapointment. I watched a little of it recently on TCM and it was just as dull and unimaginative as I remembered. It played on roadshow for over a year and I never went back. Too bad as it was the last successful musical roadshow. I’m glad though you liked it as in and of itself it is a great work. I haven’t seen the current production but you might want to take your daughter to it.
Well CC I only caught the tail end of it as well as the movies I mentioned above were in Times Square first run for me only names on a marquee. (Did though see Fair Lady at the Cri in both 65 and 71.)Then saw Nick and Alex at the Cri in 71 and Fiddler at the Riv. Lousy both of them. And neither in 70mm!
Amazing. As a proud Italian I never found this movie demeaning only very funny. I think it is one of Chaplin’s best.
You could call Chaplin a lot of things egotistical, self righteous, overly sentimental (just like self-important movie stars today) but I don’t think a bigot is one of them.
CC I think the top for SOM at the Rivoli was $4.50 whereas the top for Fair Lady at the Criterion was a full dollar more for a whopping $5.50. This was four years before Funny Girl! I believe in an article at the end of ‘68 the Criterion manager said that the mezz seats were sold out through Feb '69. I remember my mother telling me that my aunt spent 4.00 a ticket for Fair Lady in Asbury Park(this was at the St James on roadshow.) I thought that was a crazy amount of money to spend on a movie.
Today if the Riv and the Cri still existed I would happily pay $40 for a 70mm film.