Directors Guild of America Theater
110 W. 57th Street,
New York,
NY
10019
110 W. 57th Street,
New York,
NY
10019
15 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 84 comments
I used to go to this theater a lot when I first moved to the city in ‘88. I was 16 and I worked at Tower Records at Lincoln Center and would frequent most theaters in that general area. I remember seeing Shame, Kansas, Chicago Joe & The Showgirl, and one one of my first dates in the city, Miles From Home. I used to frequent it a lot between 1996 and 1998 after it was bought by the DGA. I used to love the year end marathons they would hold- a double feature almost every night of the week and four movies on Saturday and Sunday. I remember going to a very bizarre double feature of a pre-release The English Patient and Bill Murray’s circus movie Larger Than Life. The theater was packed for English Patient and within 45 minutes, the whole audience was asleep. You could just feel the energy drain out of the crowd. I remember thinking at the time what a huge bomb it was going to be. After it ended, everyone but myself and five other people left and we had an almost private screening of the Bill Murray film.
Here are operating dates I have found.
Dec. 1951- Oct. 1964 as the Normandie
Oct. 1964- 1971 as the Cinema Rendezvous
1971- 1978 as the Playboy.
1979-1998 as the 57th Street Playhouse.
1966 ad for the Italian film La Visita, when the theatre was known as Cinema Rendezvous.
Yes, understood, Warren. Thank you. I typed my earlier comment too hastily and wasn’t as clear as I might have been. But it was based on the fact I’d discovered that “Pandora” had opened at the Normandie.
I love all those interior and exterior shots and the ads that contain plenty of detail – but especially those that show surrounding ads to we can see again which pictures were running concurrently. We had MOVIES then.
It was interesting to me to learn a few days ago that when “Pandora and the Flying Dutchman” opened in New York, MGM premiered it in a new art house, several blocks from the heart of Broadway. In my hometown of Pittsburgh it went into Loew’s Penn (now called Heinz Hall), a 3300-seater that was MGM’s main outlet in Western Pennsylvania.
The Puccini opera TOSCA at the Trans-Lux Normandie in 1958, reserved seats only.
This theater, under its various identities, has yielded an eclectic variety of bookings over the years. I saw Disney’s “The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit” on one visit and “I Am Curious (Yellow)” on another – both first-runs. My fondest memory is of a period when the theater was running double features of great contemporary films at midnight on weekends. I caught a bill consisting of “A Thousand Clowns” and a great personal favorite, “Lord Love a Duck.” – Ed Blank
Have many of you noted that many/most of the photos and newspaper pages entered into Cinema Treasures under Photobucket.com expire, or for whatever reason become inaccessible, after a year or two? I’ve found that’s true in a hundred different moviehouse blogs on the Cinema Treasures site. – Ed Blank
WH… “Add a Photo” hasn’t worked in ages. You can go to photobucket.com or some other image-hosting site and get a free account. From there, you can post a link to your image here in your comment – just as RobertR did back on Jan 28th of this year.
I would like to add a photo since I have discovered some material of my grandfather’s theater work but unfortunately the “Add A Photo” function has been off line for over a year.
Early 60’s summer film festival
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Early 60’s summer film festival
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Designed by William I. Hohauser. It’s was one of his last theater jobs.
Check out this ad for Wizard of Oz in 1955. Very ahead of it’s time for the 50’s.
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I HATED Broken Flowers…I fled after about half an hour..It felt like they were continuing on with Lost In Translation..But Murray’s ennui worked in Japan, here it just was boring..And all the accolades!
Anyway, this was once the greatest theater in New York, along with the Guild in Rockefeller Center..It is such a shame that these theaters are gone..
I saw some great films here..too many to remember. It was a very plush theater. Now it has this wierd sometimes-open sometimes-not feel to it..I think one day it will vanish.
The last film I saw here was a screening of a Todd Solodnz film, and he was there to answer questions..He is a pretty strange character! I thought it was interesting at the time that he only had a few films out, yet already he was getting legendary status.
The funniest memory of that event was watching him come out of the theater..A young student, with a big flashing neon sign over her head that said “craven soul”..She kept following him down the block, trying to talk to him, telling him that she had waited two years to see him…Eeeek!
Thanks JohnG for confirming that. That’s the one I was most confident about. Still searching here and on those other theater’s respective pages for confirmations on the other titles.
Ahhh… Great. Thanks for clarifying that part of my memory. Now if I could untangle my confusion over where I saw those movies. I love this site!
Complete Beatles did play at the Festival
Yes, the 57th Street playhouse had a flat marquee, and just an awning over the sidewalk. When I worked there in the early 90s we had a blue flag on the pole with silver letters spelling out ‘57th St. Playhouse’. The Festival never had a marquee either, and no awning, only a sign in the window of the upstairs lobby.
In my memory, I always confuse this theater with the Festival Theater, further to the east on 57th Street. To add to the confusion, I’m not entirely sure that the Plaza on East 58th Street isn’t also entering into the fray! Anyway, between these three theaters I saw a gorgeously restored 35 mm print of Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” sometime in the mid-to-late ‘80’s, an interesting and very frank documentary on the adult film industry entitled “Not a Love Story” and the 1983 documentary “The Complete Beatles.” I’m almost positive that “The Complete Beatles” played at the Festival and that “Strangelove” was at the 57th Street Playhouse, but, as I said, my memories are a bit muddled.
Did this theater have a marquee projecting out over the sidewalk, or was it a flat marquee over the entrance similar to the Loew’s Paradise in the Bronx? I might be thinking of the Festival again, as I seem to recall that theater anounced its existence via a large blue banner that hung from a flagpole from the 2nd floor above the entrance.
Can anyone out there help me sort out these memories?
The summer of 1964 an MGM musical festival
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A NY story:
Jackie and Aristotle Onassis were watching “I Am Curious (Yellow)” at the Cinema 57 Rendezvous on October 5, 1969, when Mrs. Onassis left the auditorium half-way through the show, only to discover photographers in the lobby. She asked that they be removed, which they were. She then exited the building and, according to a Daily News photographer among the group, used a judo move to flip him over onto the ground. An AP photographer caught the “post-flip” moment on film but no witnesses, including the theatre’s doorman and the AP photographer and people in the background of his photo, could confirm the account of the News photog. Through sources close to her, Mrs. Onassis also denied the accusation.
Mr. Onassis remained in the theatre auditorium for the remainder of the feature.
By artie-indie I mean the stuff that gets standing ovations at Sundance which means its probably unwatchable. When Bergman dies I don’t think there will be one great director left alive.
His Royal Stockholm productions out in Brooklyn were along with the Prince/Sondheim productions of the ‘70’s the greatest theatrical experiences of my life.
And I’m hoping it is well air-conditioned, given NYC’s current tropical rain forest atmosphere.
How were the seats at the DGA? I’m thinking of doing Robert McKee’s STORY workshop which is to be held there. Before I commit to three days in a theater seat, I’d like to know if they’re nice and wide and comfortably spaced, or if I’d be in for three days of hell…