Dave-Bronx— In the Bronx, you might have said, “Yo, I went to ‘da Loweez” (at least since the '80s, when “Yo” took root). My wife grew up near the Orpheum. During the '60s in that neighborhood, they pronounced it “Low’s Orrrrrph'yum” (no “Loweez”). In Brooklyn where I grew up, we said, “Yeah, Oy wen’ ta Loweez” (but no “th'” or “da” with “Loweez,” at least from the ‘40s to the '60s, though “da” or “deh” with the theater’s given name if stripped of “Loew’s”). Mostly we said, “Oy wen’ teh deh Alpoyne” or “teh deh Bay Ridddge.”
Right—Previously “Cavalcade” ran at the Gaiety (aka Victoria, aka Embassy 5—I never got used to that last name), where it had opened on 5 January 1933—so the film’s original run wasn’t more than three months. Less for “The Sign of the Cross,” which had opened on 30 November 1932 at the Rivoli and then on 2 February at RCMH. Its predecessor there was “State Fair” (Will Rogers!), which had opened on 26 January, and its successor was “Topaze,” which opened on 9 February. Charles Francisco mentions an on-stage chariot race, but does not link it to any specific film. If so, management was clearly experimenting with format. DeMille next took over its screen on 26 March ‘42 with “Wake of the Red Witch” at the start of the boom years, finishing with a till-then record of five weeks, and next with “The Greatest Show on Earth,” opening on 10 January '52 and running until “Singin’ in the Rain” dislodged it eleven weeks later for the Easter show at the middle of the boom years. Both “Wake” and “Greatest Show” used the MagnaScope screen for the climactic octopus and train-wreck sequences. (Simon: thanks for the tip about widescreenmuseum.com—the posse has finally retrieved me.)
Gerald— I’ve seen neither “Ti ho sposato” nor “Non ti pago,” though I know that the film version of the former has played on RAI (with Monica Vitti in one of the in-law roles!). The family cast of “Non ti pago” would add to the play’s Hamletic -fremito d'orrore-: did De Filippo’s father act as the hero’s father? The only screen performance of De Filippo that I’ve seen is in “L'Oro di Napoli.” I imagine “Fortunella” is available on tape? I’d like to see the original film-version of “Filumena” and compare it with De Sica’s remake in a back-to-back viewing. I know the teatro Rossini, but can’t recall seeing anything there. The pope should see “Christ Stopped at Eboli” at the Azzurro Scipioni, no? Ars longa, but vita has to move forward.
Many, many thanks, Gerald — Your info about this theater is valuable, because the programming seems terrific. The via San Vicenzo is indeed the major touristic feed from the Quirinale, and the vicolo Scanderbeg runs off it with prominent tourist attractions (as your attachment points out)—I don’t know how we missed the Puttarello (perhaps we were distracted by a quirky “Museo di prodotto artigianiale di pasta” on the Scanderbeg). In the opposite direction (toward the via Tritone) is the teatro Vittorio Gassman, on a street off the left named via delle Vergini. It hosts travelling groups — currently “King Lear,” to be followed by Natalia Ginzburg’s debut play, “Ti ho sposato per allegria” ‘I Married You for a Good Time,’ and then by Eduardo De Filipo’s “Non ti pago” ‘I’m Not Paying You.’ Elsewhere, the Filmstudio was showing the five “Creamaster Cycle” films ‘round the clock on two screens (!), while the Azzurro Scipioni was screening “Bowling for Columbine” upstairs, and a Wim Wenders festival downstairs. Quite a feast, largely unavailable at most North American outposts.
Molte grazie: but the streets are narrow and tortuosi. By “walking away,” do you mean toward the Quirinale (with your back to the fountain), or toward the via Tritone (passing the fountain face forward), or diagonally toward the Corso (with the fountain on your right) or toward the Traforo (with the fountain on your left)? Faro un tentativo di ricordare questo consiglio la prossima volta.
I couldn’t find this theater during a work-trip to Rome last month. According to my reasonably detailed map (Blue Guide Rome), the vicolo del Puttarello should run off from the Piazza della Republica, but I couldn’t find it. But the theater is apparently alive and well, since the Corriere della Sera listed among its Rome attractions an homage there to ninety-year old Suso Cecchi d’Amico, a scriptwriter who worked with Visconti (“Bellissima,†“Rocco and His Brothers,†“The Leopard,†“Sensoâ€), Zampa (“Angelinaâ€), and Monicelli (“Big Deal on Madonna Street,†“Caro Michelleâ€). Closer to Trevi is the teatro Vittorio Gassman, a stage for live theater and music presenting a small-scale “Magic Flute†and other classical repertoire.
There are some wicked descriptions of teen-age, um, activities at the Polk Theater in the widely praised memoir about pre-Stonewall gay life, James McCourt’s “Queer Street” (Norton, 2003). The author grew up on 94 Street in the 40s-50s.
CConnolly—
The review for “China Syndrome” (by Vincent Canby, mentioning its opening at Loews' State 2) is reprinted photostatically (along with every other NYT film review from 1913-89)in the six-volume “New York Times Film Reviews,” available in well-stocked libraries. Reviews from the ‘nineties to the present are not yet in print. My library supplements the NYT reviews with more recent ones from “Variety,” which has likewise collected its reviews in multi-volume format. In NYC, the NY Public, the Lenox, and the Lincoln Center Libraries likely have these volumes (along with Columbia U and NYU, if you can gain access). Elsewhere, seek out the best university research library you can get to.
CConnolly—
“The China Syndrome” opened at Loews' State 2 on 15 March 1979. That was a bigger theater than the Mayfair/DeMille/Embassy234. But what do you mean by “split down the middle”?
In the late ‘40s and early '50s, newspaper ads for the Paramount stressed “Doors open 10:30 a.m. / 55 cents to 1 p.m.” In December 1950, Variety reported a beefed-up price scale of .90 to $1.80 for “Samson,” the same as at the Rivoli (instead of a stage show, the Rivoli offered its patrons the film’s climactic scene on the theater’s giant Cycloramic screen; q.v. this site’s page for that theater). The previous feature at the Paramount was Bob Hope’s “The Great Lover” and Sarah Vaughan(!) on stage, for a held-over four weeks with a price scale of .55 to $1.50. The previous feature at the Rivoli was Elia Kazan’s “Pinky,” which ran for thirteen weeks with a price scale of .60 to $1.25. Comparative price scales: the Capitol playing “The Red Danube” and Eddy Duchin Orchestra on stage at .80-$1.50; the Strand playing “The Inspector General” and Vaughn Monroe on stage at .55-$2.00; the Roxy playing “Dancing in the Dark” and Mindy Carson on stage at .80-$1.75 (with a 25 cent surcharge for reserved seats); RCMH playing “On the Town” and its Christmas stage show at .80-$2.40; the Astor playing “Battleground” at .60-$1.50; Loew’s State playing “East Side, West Side” at .50-$1.50; the Victoria playing “All the King’s Men” at .95-$1.50. All in all, the Paramount offered a bargain deal.
Before the giant curved screen, the Sunrise Drive-In of course had a smallish flat standard-ratio screen, the reverse side of the gaudy neon wall that faced the Sunrise Highway. In the late 40s, its film fare was pretty dreary: third-runs and second-rate revivals, largely because RKO and Loew’s cornered the market on first-run showings. After months of questioning my carless parents about what a “drive-in movie” might be, I was taken by a car-owing aunt and uncle. The feature was “The Prairie,” a film so minor that it’s not even listed in Leonard Maltin’s admirably inclusive guide. After a scene about a dustbowl storm, I fell asleep, but woke up toward the end when flood-lights above the screen flashed on and off to alert patrons keen on leaving before the picture was over so as to beat the traffic rush. Some time later, my father borrowed his brother’s car and took me there to see “Pitfall,” a film-noir already many, many months (perhaps even a year) past its first-run (release date: 25 August ‘48; so likely I’m referring to the following summer). The Sunrise had a mate, the Whitestone Drive-In, on the Bronx side of the bridge it was named after (the site today of a giant multiplex). Newspapers carried their ads in tandem. The Sunrise received its films a week after they played at the Whitestone. The Sunrise (but not the Whitestone) closed during the winter months, a nod (I suppose) to its rural location outside of the city limits and to the chill factor on Lawn Guyland. The great post-war development of LI had just begun, and Valley Stream seemed barely a spot on the map. In later years (and after the Whitestone was torn down), the Sunrise edged up to first-run films and stayed open year-round. Have LI folk developed into a hardier stock, or has increased body-heat made the place warmer?
SimonL and Vincent are both right — “The Jolson Story” premiered at RCMH on 10 October ‘46 and ran until the Xmas show “'Till the Clouds Roll By” opened on 5 December — a long eight weeks. It then moved to the State, where it was accompanied by a Vaudeville show, as the State in the mid-to-late '40s was wont to take films after their openers elsewhere. (Earlier in '46, at the age of three, I saw—and still remember— “Glida” at the State after it had moved from RCMH: my parents took me because the Vaudeville presentation featured a puppet show that they thought I’d like— quite a pairing to lure young tots and their folks to that seductive film— I have hazy memories of the puppet show set against a green backdrop, but can never forget Rita in stunning black-and-white.) After the State, “The Jolson Story” moved to the Fox in Brooklyn, where I remember seeing it; then, on to the nabes. “Jolson Sings Again” opened at the State on 17 August '49, and never played at RCMH. By that time, Larry Parks’s reputation was tainted by Communist allegations, no? (It’s awful to remember all this trivia—the dates come from “The NY Times Directory of the Film.”
Erwin— I visited the New School for a conference about twelve years ago and I believe I saw the mural there then (even though I didn’t recall its setting in the original theater). Among films I remember seeing there in the mid-late-‘50s was Ingmar Bergman’s “Magician.”
For the RCA Synchro Ray screen, there’s a pictorial spread about it in Theatre Catalogue (1950-51) with full explanation and photos of its installation in the RKO 58 Street as the first of its kind. I remember the Albee advertising its installation in conjunction with its showing of “All About Eve” in late Fall ‘50. My aunt saw it there, and I quizzed her about it. It did not seem at all special. When I finally saw it for Disney’s “Robin Hood,” the thrill had worn off. The screen showed up at other theaters beyond the RKO chain. In upstate NY, for example, an Ithaca Journal from summer 1952 advertises it as the house special at the art-deco Ithaca Theater in an ad for “Where’s Charley.”
Thanks, Warren, for the nicely researched double-bills. Yes, ‘52 was a flop. I’m shocked to realize that I’d seen only two of those billings day-dating at my local nabe (RKO Dyker)that year, even though memory has tricked me into thinking that as a movie-mad ten-year-old I went to the Dyker nearly every week. (I did see six of those features at other theaters, however, some first-run in Manhattan, others third- or subsequent-run in B'klyn.) One downside of seeing films first-run in Manhattan was missing some curious co-features that have meanwhile achieved cult-status: “Rancho Notorious,” “Three for Bedroom C,” “The Thief,” “Beware My Lovely.” One surprise is the reversal of status that sometimes happened in double-billing: that year, “Wait till the Sun Shines Nellie” was a prestige opener at the Roxy (with an ice show on stage!), while “Don’t Bother to Knock” snuck into the Globe: then Monroe became a sensation, so that “Don’t Bother” (deservingly)got top billing when it reached the boroughs. And what a sad end to Irene Dunne’s fame to go out on a second-billing in “It Grows on Trees.” For the record, the two programs that I saw at RKO were “Les Mis” & “Wife’s Best Friend” on a chilly, rainy autumn day (late in the year, implying that I hadn’t been in that theater for at least ten months!) and “Snows of Kilimanjaro” & “Raiders,” which I recall as the Christmas-week show (and remember darkly for having eaten popcorn, the first time ever, which made me sick later that evening—uugh). I’m sure that I saw many, many more films at the Loew’s circuit that year. For RKO, yes, '52 was a bummer.
Leider also points out that in ‘28 “Diamond Lil” opened at the Royale Theater on W. 45 Street. MW likely had a penchant for theaters of that name. (Apologies for my typos in the preceding squib.)
According to Emily Leider in her re For what it’s worth, my grandally good “Becoming Mae West” (Farrar Straus Giroux,1997), “Baby Mae” mad eher debut at the age of seven (1900) at “The Royal, on Willoughby Street, near Fulton” (p. 32). Leider goes on to describe it: “The theater … was no great shakes, though large. It seated about seven hundred people. One vaudevillian characterized it as a ‘dingy spot,’ but Mae upgraded it in her fond recollection to a well-appointed house with two balconiues, boxes, and its own twelve-piece orchestra” (pp. 32-33). Leider’s source is John E. Di Meglio, “Vaudeville USA” (Bowling Green Univ Press, 1973), p. 132. For what it’s worth, my maternal grandfather claimed to have worked with La West in Coney Island before WW I (he bartended at a cabaret there). Another frienend of mine interviewed La West in the 1970s — and claimed she was the real thing!
SimonL—You’re right about comparing the Roxy and RCMH. Part of the Roxy’s problem stemmed from the height of its projection booth and the distance of the screen from the curtain line. As the Roxy’s contour curtain rose or fell, the film projected nearly a quarter-way up on it, and the curtain cast an elongated shadow back upon the the screen. The Roxy could have solved the problem by using a traveller as well (as RCMH did), but it would have lost some of the Fox fanfare if the heavy curtains remained closed until the music began. The Roxy, of course, didn’t install its golden contour curtain until December ‘52 (with Ice Colorama on stage)— before that, it flaunted a wonderful burgundy-red opera-style swag. And, yes, the curtains at RCMH were so heavy that they muffled the sound — most damagingly for “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” which I saw there in January '57 (one of the few, to judge from the attendance figures you cited last 23 July): the movie began with an off-screen recitation of Elizabeth BB’s “How do I love thee,” which you couldn’t hear because of the curtain. I earlier described how, before CinemaScope brought alterations, RCMH’s contour curtain used to rise in a fully lit house, framing the yellow traveller behind it for a half-minute or so as the organist built to his finale. When the film flashed on the traveller, the lights dimmed and the curtain parted. That way, spectators saw the waterfall effect in brightly lit glory, and marvelled at the draped tableau for a fractional pause before the film began. That ended when larger-screen projection required a more complicated masking mechanism that likely interfered with the effect. In the late 50s, if you looked very, very carefully at the contour curtain during the organist’s finale, you could see the outline of a draft shield rising behind it, with an accompanying backstage gust of air that drew the curtain inwards. Or so it seemed to my un-professional but very sharp teen-aged eyes.
I remember some stereo effect with RCMH’s first CinemaScope fims, viz. “Knights of the Round Table,” and with others as well, notably the “Glorious Technicolor, Breathtaking CinemaScope, and StereoPhonic Sound” number in “Silk Stockings.” But the device never seemed to me as, um, pronounced as it did at other theaters, chiefly and memorably at the Roxy. Perhaps the auditorium’s vastness at RCMH diffused the sound? In all honesty, too, I remember a distracting echoic effect at RCMH, particularly when the house was less than full, as at the 10:30 am showings that my parents took me to as a kid. I hate to complain about the facilities at RCMH, because their grandeur certainly more than compensated for their recognizable failings. But sometimes other theaters worked as better venues for certain presentations. For “White Christmas,” I recall a wider frame (at 1.85 rather than the usual 1.66 that RCMH used for conventional projection) but still its flat screen, with the same for later VistaVision that I saw there, principally “High Society” and the fabulous “North-by-Northwest.” (I remember viewing the last one as a teen, from the third balcony where my friends and I could smoke cigarettes and anticipate going for a beer afterwards—NYC in those days!) As for VistaVision at the Capitol, I recall no special bally-hoo about it, and certainly no vast curvilinear screen as at the Paramount and Criterion.
How can you describe a theater that’s been dead for more than fifty years? I’ll try. It was not a great theater, but an odd one. Chiefly, it was much wider than deep. Its depth extended half the city block, approximately 90’. With the still-existing building, you can see today that its rear wall hits the property line of the private homes behind it on 85 Street. (If you walk up that street, you can view the rear wall by looking down the two or three alleys separating these homes.) Its width extends about 110’ along busy 86 Street. (The ever popular Century Department Storeâ€"the very first, parent-original one that dates to the early ‘60sâ€"faces it across the street.)
The windowless red-brick façade with shallow stone-fluted columns rises somewhat more than three stories. The pitched roof behind the facade rises higher than four stories. The main body of the building comes to an abrupt stop about 70’ in depth from the front. The remaining 20’ is a one-and-a-half story extension that housed the proscenium and screen, as well as several rows of front seats. Because there were absolutely no fly-space and no stage apart from a shallow apron, the theater was designed for movies only. And the building’s extreme width must have made for some uncomfortable screen-viewing from the far sides.
The box office faced the street, and a shallow but wide ticket-taker lobby led into a likewise shallow but wide interior promenade with a candy-stand in the middle and staircases to the balcony at either end. Nestled beneath these staircases were rest rooms, each gender to a side. The stairs led to a relatively capacious balcony whose rear abutted the façade, and whose front curved at an inward concave several yards from where the building’s main section joined the proscenium extension. The orchestra section was quite shallow as, with allowances for the lobby, promenade, and screen-apron, it could have measured no more than 60’ in depth: might that have allowed for about twenty-four rows of seats? The greater width would have allowed for three central- and two side-aisles.
The outside and inside ornamentation was fairly restrained. The large marquee sported blinking and running yellow lights around the trapezoidal RKO logo and theater name, with white-lettering on black-plate film titles. As with many RKO houses of that era, I remember the lobby’s black granite siding, white marble flooring, and brass-plated doors (any of it faux?). The interior style seemed a restrained beaux-arts, if by that term you mean a dominant Italian classicism punctuated by some eclectic but faint baroque features. The page on this site for the nearby RKO Dyker describes the latter’s style as Baroqueâ€"no, no, hardly so: both theaters were Palladian on the cheap: no side boxes, no proscenium bas reliefs, no tapestries, but the suggestion of organ screens on each side (neither theater had one) and some shallow fluted columns, with a recessed dome in the center ceiling. A lightly ornamented shell-like tympanum descended from the ceiling to the top of the space where the proscenium extension began. A few modern-style lighting fixtures descended from the ceiling. The color scheme was a grey-ivory or dull-beige. I remember the wide but shortened curtain as burgundy.
The films were subsequent-runs inherited from nearby Loew’s Bay Ridge, which had inherited its fare from Loew’s Alpine. If I’m right, the last film was “Inside Straight,†which had opened at either the Capitol or Loew’s State in March ’51. It would have made its way to the Shore Road by late May. Possibly the theater had poor air conditioning, and so the management closed it before summer took charge? The marquee came down quickly. Three or four large store-fronts then took over the ground floor: Davega Sports, Davoe Paints, latterly The Wiz. The second floor housed a series of dance studios, insurance carrier offices, and the like. On the third floor, a fairly successful banquet facility held sway for several decades. I’ve come to imagine that this facility kept the theater’s recessed dome and tympanum decoration for ornament. If I had the wit to check it out, I could have done so. But now I live more than 200 miles away. Folks in the neighborhood might want to investigate.
I hate to post-script my contribution, but I do want to register my crabby memory that in the early ‘50s the screen at RCMH had an annoying distraction: you could see the lines where its panels had been sewn together. I know that the much-E-Bayed Souvenir Pictorial of that time proclaims a totally seamless screen. But the truth was otherwise. The CinemaScope screen consisted of seven panels (each 4’ wide) sewn together horizontally, unlike the panels at other theaters that were joined vertically with less noticeable sutures. For its regular wide-screen format, the masking rose to reveal an eighth horizontal panel, even as the side maskings closed in for a 1.66 ratio (RCMH seemed always to have had a narrower ratio than other theaters, even when the format was 1.33â€"an optical illusion perhaps?). In any case, the black lines crossing the screen were maddeningly annoying. Every kid in the theater noticed it and would draw attention to it. Parents would shh us and tell us not to spoil the show. But the sutures remained. At some point in 1956, around the run of “Friendly Persuasion†if I remember correctly, RCMH finally installed a truly seamless screen, or so it seemed. Or maybe because I was older and perhaps going blind from teenage activities, I didn’t see the familiar old lines so acutely. To me in the early ‘50s, the most impressive wide-screen was at the Capitol. Gently curved and with barely perceptible seams, it was proportioned at 1.85 and it covered nearly the entire proscenium. It awed me in August ’53 at “From Here to Eternity†(with stereophonic sound, too, which RCMH did not offer until much later). Later the Capitol reduced the size of its wide-screen somewhat (in truth, its larger size probably invited graininess), but still used its flawless facilities for such films as “War and Peace,†“The Pride and the Passion,†“Vertigo,†and others of that era.
SimonL— Thanks for the notes about the program fillers in the ‘40s-'50s. They concur exactly with my memories. The Rivoli named its expanded screen “the Cycloramic screen.” I describe its use in this site’s listing for the Rivoli. Aside from the Destruction of the Temple in “Samson and Delilah” (December '49), I did not see it used again at that theater. In Summer '53, the Rivoli (like every other NYC house) installed its all-purpose CinemaScope screen, which it used until converting to Todd-AO in October '55. In my movie-going experience, RHMH used its Magnascope screen for the scenes described above, as well as for the sea storm sequence in “Plymouth Adventure” and the Busby Berkeley aquatic scene in “Million Dollar Mermaid,” in November and December '52 respectively. My parents told me that RCMH used it for the horserace scene in “National Velvet” as well. The Rivoli’s Cycloramic screen raised my seven-year-old consciousness to delerious heights, so whenever I saw it at RCMH, I snapped to attention. I expected that the theater would have used it for all its “big” pictures, and was chagrined when it didn’t. Except for the Esther Williams splasher, I recall it for no other MGM musical, including “The Great Caruso,” “Show Boat,” “An American in Paris,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” and a bunch of others that I saw there (the latter-day “That’s Entertainment” of course deployed the device for excepts from these films). I can still taste my disappointment when RCMH withheld it from scenes in such spectaculars as “Kim,” “Scaramouche,” and “Ivanhoe.” (You may gather correctly that I was a pint-sized nut about that projection device.) There would have been no concern about cropping, since the Magnascope screen was framed in the standard 1.33 ratio. With “Shane” in May ‘53, RCMH used it (now named “the Panoramic Screen” and still at 1.33 ratio) for the entire picture, in lieu of installing a new curved screen, and continued to do so until introducing its properly proportioned all-purpose screen the following December, in anticipation of CinemaScope. There’s a swell picture of the latter in the journal “Theatre Catalogue” (1954-55). I know of no other first-run B'way theaters that used Magnascope in the late '40s-'50s, or at least I saw none other used there or then. The Roxy, a candidate, did not, because it projected its films onto a black-bordered sheet hanging in front of voluminous, dimly-lit lavender curtains. For a picture of the remodeled (but still old-screen) Roxy in December '52, with its then shamefully draped proscenium, see the above mentioned “Theatre Catalogue” (1952-53).
Yes, exactly, “Thunder Bay” was the first (after RCMH showed “Shane” on its flat “Panoramic” screen, actually its old Magnascope screen), and a big event at the State in May ‘53. (There’s an article on its installation in Theatre Catalogue, ca. summer '53.) The Capitol might have inaugurated its new screen with “Battle Circus” a week or so later. Then, a week after that, MGM opened “Julius Caesar” at the Booth on a reserved-seat run. The nabes followed one-by-one throughout the summer. The newspaper ads for the Loew’s circuit marked a check next to each theater that had a new screen, and a double-check next to each that had stereophonic sound. I followed the newspapers every day to see which had what. Every two or three days a new check-mark would crop up, implying that it took at least that long to get the work done. And the trail seemed to move from neighborhood to neighborhood in each borough, implying that each territory had its roving squad of installers. One of the last to get fitted was Loew’s Bay Ridge, a subsequent-run house, with (I believe) “The Band Wagon” in October or so. I then wondered what the installers did for work after that.
That was an exciting time in Summer ’53 when theaters were installing wide screens. As an eleven-year-old, I wondered how managers could do it without interrupting screenings. To replace a flat 15x20 sheet with a panel-curved 20x40 framed by movable masks to accommodate CinemaScope (which wasn’t available until the following winter!) must have invited a lot of chaos. I imagine that from midnight until morning, roving bands of workers moved from theater to theater in a given circuit until each house was equipped. Did it take two or three nights to set up the new screen behind the old one, and then strike the latter when the work was done? But how a new screen be set up behind the old one while the original sound-speakers were still in place? Stereophonic sound installation must have required an additional step afterwards, no? All of this without missing a single frame from any show! At my local RKO nabe, the Dyker, I remember seeing on the old screen “Titanic†(the Negulesco one, with “Destination Gobi†as co-feature, another example of a second-billing that topped the first), while hearing the sounds of hammering and sawing behind the proscenium. A few inches of backstage light shone out beneath the bottom mask. When I returned to the theater a few days later to see “The Maze†(a b&w 3D schlocker), the miracle-mirror wide screen was up and running, but low-grade and disappointing since I’d hoped for something mammoth, on the scale of Cinerama. For my Loew’s nabe, the Alpine, I should address questions on that site to someone who might know how the unique design of that house (no stage, no conventional proscenium) created special problems for hanging a wide screen. If memory serves, that theater installed a temporary one, fairly hulking and squarish, which it replaced scant months later with a wonderfully large, elegantly proportioned, and amazingly seamless one.
Dave-Bronx— In the Bronx, you might have said, “Yo, I went to ‘da Loweez” (at least since the '80s, when “Yo” took root). My wife grew up near the Orpheum. During the '60s in that neighborhood, they pronounced it “Low’s Orrrrrph'yum” (no “Loweez”). In Brooklyn where I grew up, we said, “Yeah, Oy wen’ ta Loweez” (but no “th'” or “da” with “Loweez,” at least from the ‘40s to the '60s, though “da” or “deh” with the theater’s given name if stripped of “Loew’s”). Mostly we said, “Oy wen’ teh deh Alpoyne” or “teh deh Bay Ridddge.”
Vincent— right, it was “Reap,” not “Wake.”
Right—Previously “Cavalcade” ran at the Gaiety (aka Victoria, aka Embassy 5—I never got used to that last name), where it had opened on 5 January 1933—so the film’s original run wasn’t more than three months. Less for “The Sign of the Cross,” which had opened on 30 November 1932 at the Rivoli and then on 2 February at RCMH. Its predecessor there was “State Fair” (Will Rogers!), which had opened on 26 January, and its successor was “Topaze,” which opened on 9 February. Charles Francisco mentions an on-stage chariot race, but does not link it to any specific film. If so, management was clearly experimenting with format. DeMille next took over its screen on 26 March ‘42 with “Wake of the Red Witch” at the start of the boom years, finishing with a till-then record of five weeks, and next with “The Greatest Show on Earth,” opening on 10 January '52 and running until “Singin’ in the Rain” dislodged it eleven weeks later for the Easter show at the middle of the boom years. Both “Wake” and “Greatest Show” used the MagnaScope screen for the climactic octopus and train-wreck sequences. (Simon: thanks for the tip about widescreenmuseum.com—the posse has finally retrieved me.)
Gerald— I’ve seen neither “Ti ho sposato” nor “Non ti pago,” though I know that the film version of the former has played on RAI (with Monica Vitti in one of the in-law roles!). The family cast of “Non ti pago” would add to the play’s Hamletic -fremito d'orrore-: did De Filippo’s father act as the hero’s father? The only screen performance of De Filippo that I’ve seen is in “L'Oro di Napoli.” I imagine “Fortunella” is available on tape? I’d like to see the original film-version of “Filumena” and compare it with De Sica’s remake in a back-to-back viewing. I know the teatro Rossini, but can’t recall seeing anything there. The pope should see “Christ Stopped at Eboli” at the Azzurro Scipioni, no? Ars longa, but vita has to move forward.
Many, many thanks, Gerald — Your info about this theater is valuable, because the programming seems terrific. The via San Vicenzo is indeed the major touristic feed from the Quirinale, and the vicolo Scanderbeg runs off it with prominent tourist attractions (as your attachment points out)—I don’t know how we missed the Puttarello (perhaps we were distracted by a quirky “Museo di prodotto artigianiale di pasta” on the Scanderbeg). In the opposite direction (toward the via Tritone) is the teatro Vittorio Gassman, on a street off the left named via delle Vergini. It hosts travelling groups — currently “King Lear,” to be followed by Natalia Ginzburg’s debut play, “Ti ho sposato per allegria” ‘I Married You for a Good Time,’ and then by Eduardo De Filipo’s “Non ti pago” ‘I’m Not Paying You.’ Elsewhere, the Filmstudio was showing the five “Creamaster Cycle” films ‘round the clock on two screens (!), while the Azzurro Scipioni was screening “Bowling for Columbine” upstairs, and a Wim Wenders festival downstairs. Quite a feast, largely unavailable at most North American outposts.
Molte grazie: but the streets are narrow and tortuosi. By “walking away,” do you mean toward the Quirinale (with your back to the fountain), or toward the via Tritone (passing the fountain face forward), or diagonally toward the Corso (with the fountain on your right) or toward the Traforo (with the fountain on your left)? Faro un tentativo di ricordare questo consiglio la prossima volta.
I couldn’t find this theater during a work-trip to Rome last month. According to my reasonably detailed map (Blue Guide Rome), the vicolo del Puttarello should run off from the Piazza della Republica, but I couldn’t find it. But the theater is apparently alive and well, since the Corriere della Sera listed among its Rome attractions an homage there to ninety-year old Suso Cecchi d’Amico, a scriptwriter who worked with Visconti (“Bellissima,†“Rocco and His Brothers,†“The Leopard,†“Sensoâ€), Zampa (“Angelinaâ€), and Monicelli (“Big Deal on Madonna Street,†“Caro Michelleâ€). Closer to Trevi is the teatro Vittorio Gassman, a stage for live theater and music presenting a small-scale “Magic Flute†and other classical repertoire.
There are some wicked descriptions of teen-age, um, activities at the Polk Theater in the widely praised memoir about pre-Stonewall gay life, James McCourt’s “Queer Street” (Norton, 2003). The author grew up on 94 Street in the 40s-50s.
CConnolly—
The review for “China Syndrome” (by Vincent Canby, mentioning its opening at Loews' State 2) is reprinted photostatically (along with every other NYT film review from 1913-89)in the six-volume “New York Times Film Reviews,” available in well-stocked libraries. Reviews from the ‘nineties to the present are not yet in print. My library supplements the NYT reviews with more recent ones from “Variety,” which has likewise collected its reviews in multi-volume format. In NYC, the NY Public, the Lenox, and the Lincoln Center Libraries likely have these volumes (along with Columbia U and NYU, if you can gain access). Elsewhere, seek out the best university research library you can get to.
CConnolly—
“The China Syndrome” opened at Loews' State 2 on 15 March 1979. That was a bigger theater than the Mayfair/DeMille/Embassy234. But what do you mean by “split down the middle”?
In the late ‘40s and early '50s, newspaper ads for the Paramount stressed “Doors open 10:30 a.m. / 55 cents to 1 p.m.” In December 1950, Variety reported a beefed-up price scale of .90 to $1.80 for “Samson,” the same as at the Rivoli (instead of a stage show, the Rivoli offered its patrons the film’s climactic scene on the theater’s giant Cycloramic screen; q.v. this site’s page for that theater). The previous feature at the Paramount was Bob Hope’s “The Great Lover” and Sarah Vaughan(!) on stage, for a held-over four weeks with a price scale of .55 to $1.50. The previous feature at the Rivoli was Elia Kazan’s “Pinky,” which ran for thirteen weeks with a price scale of .60 to $1.25. Comparative price scales: the Capitol playing “The Red Danube” and Eddy Duchin Orchestra on stage at .80-$1.50; the Strand playing “The Inspector General” and Vaughn Monroe on stage at .55-$2.00; the Roxy playing “Dancing in the Dark” and Mindy Carson on stage at .80-$1.75 (with a 25 cent surcharge for reserved seats); RCMH playing “On the Town” and its Christmas stage show at .80-$2.40; the Astor playing “Battleground” at .60-$1.50; Loew’s State playing “East Side, West Side” at .50-$1.50; the Victoria playing “All the King’s Men” at .95-$1.50. All in all, the Paramount offered a bargain deal.
Before the giant curved screen, the Sunrise Drive-In of course had a smallish flat standard-ratio screen, the reverse side of the gaudy neon wall that faced the Sunrise Highway. In the late 40s, its film fare was pretty dreary: third-runs and second-rate revivals, largely because RKO and Loew’s cornered the market on first-run showings. After months of questioning my carless parents about what a “drive-in movie” might be, I was taken by a car-owing aunt and uncle. The feature was “The Prairie,” a film so minor that it’s not even listed in Leonard Maltin’s admirably inclusive guide. After a scene about a dustbowl storm, I fell asleep, but woke up toward the end when flood-lights above the screen flashed on and off to alert patrons keen on leaving before the picture was over so as to beat the traffic rush. Some time later, my father borrowed his brother’s car and took me there to see “Pitfall,” a film-noir already many, many months (perhaps even a year) past its first-run (release date: 25 August ‘48; so likely I’m referring to the following summer). The Sunrise had a mate, the Whitestone Drive-In, on the Bronx side of the bridge it was named after (the site today of a giant multiplex). Newspapers carried their ads in tandem. The Sunrise received its films a week after they played at the Whitestone. The Sunrise (but not the Whitestone) closed during the winter months, a nod (I suppose) to its rural location outside of the city limits and to the chill factor on Lawn Guyland. The great post-war development of LI had just begun, and Valley Stream seemed barely a spot on the map. In later years (and after the Whitestone was torn down), the Sunrise edged up to first-run films and stayed open year-round. Have LI folk developed into a hardier stock, or has increased body-heat made the place warmer?
SimonL and Vincent are both right — “The Jolson Story” premiered at RCMH on 10 October ‘46 and ran until the Xmas show “'Till the Clouds Roll By” opened on 5 December — a long eight weeks. It then moved to the State, where it was accompanied by a Vaudeville show, as the State in the mid-to-late '40s was wont to take films after their openers elsewhere. (Earlier in '46, at the age of three, I saw—and still remember— “Glida” at the State after it had moved from RCMH: my parents took me because the Vaudeville presentation featured a puppet show that they thought I’d like— quite a pairing to lure young tots and their folks to that seductive film— I have hazy memories of the puppet show set against a green backdrop, but can never forget Rita in stunning black-and-white.) After the State, “The Jolson Story” moved to the Fox in Brooklyn, where I remember seeing it; then, on to the nabes. “Jolson Sings Again” opened at the State on 17 August '49, and never played at RCMH. By that time, Larry Parks’s reputation was tainted by Communist allegations, no? (It’s awful to remember all this trivia—the dates come from “The NY Times Directory of the Film.”
Erwin— I visited the New School for a conference about twelve years ago and I believe I saw the mural there then (even though I didn’t recall its setting in the original theater). Among films I remember seeing there in the mid-late-‘50s was Ingmar Bergman’s “Magician.”
For the RCA Synchro Ray screen, there’s a pictorial spread about it in Theatre Catalogue (1950-51) with full explanation and photos of its installation in the RKO 58 Street as the first of its kind. I remember the Albee advertising its installation in conjunction with its showing of “All About Eve” in late Fall ‘50. My aunt saw it there, and I quizzed her about it. It did not seem at all special. When I finally saw it for Disney’s “Robin Hood,” the thrill had worn off. The screen showed up at other theaters beyond the RKO chain. In upstate NY, for example, an Ithaca Journal from summer 1952 advertises it as the house special at the art-deco Ithaca Theater in an ad for “Where’s Charley.”
Thanks, Warren, for the nicely researched double-bills. Yes, ‘52 was a flop. I’m shocked to realize that I’d seen only two of those billings day-dating at my local nabe (RKO Dyker)that year, even though memory has tricked me into thinking that as a movie-mad ten-year-old I went to the Dyker nearly every week. (I did see six of those features at other theaters, however, some first-run in Manhattan, others third- or subsequent-run in B'klyn.) One downside of seeing films first-run in Manhattan was missing some curious co-features that have meanwhile achieved cult-status: “Rancho Notorious,” “Three for Bedroom C,” “The Thief,” “Beware My Lovely.” One surprise is the reversal of status that sometimes happened in double-billing: that year, “Wait till the Sun Shines Nellie” was a prestige opener at the Roxy (with an ice show on stage!), while “Don’t Bother to Knock” snuck into the Globe: then Monroe became a sensation, so that “Don’t Bother” (deservingly)got top billing when it reached the boroughs. And what a sad end to Irene Dunne’s fame to go out on a second-billing in “It Grows on Trees.” For the record, the two programs that I saw at RKO were “Les Mis” & “Wife’s Best Friend” on a chilly, rainy autumn day (late in the year, implying that I hadn’t been in that theater for at least ten months!) and “Snows of Kilimanjaro” & “Raiders,” which I recall as the Christmas-week show (and remember darkly for having eaten popcorn, the first time ever, which made me sick later that evening—uugh). I’m sure that I saw many, many more films at the Loew’s circuit that year. For RKO, yes, '52 was a bummer.
Leider also points out that in ‘28 “Diamond Lil” opened at the Royale Theater on W. 45 Street. MW likely had a penchant for theaters of that name. (Apologies for my typos in the preceding squib.)
According to Emily Leider in her re For what it’s worth, my grandally good “Becoming Mae West” (Farrar Straus Giroux,1997), “Baby Mae” mad eher debut at the age of seven (1900) at “The Royal, on Willoughby Street, near Fulton” (p. 32). Leider goes on to describe it: “The theater … was no great shakes, though large. It seated about seven hundred people. One vaudevillian characterized it as a ‘dingy spot,’ but Mae upgraded it in her fond recollection to a well-appointed house with two balconiues, boxes, and its own twelve-piece orchestra” (pp. 32-33). Leider’s source is John E. Di Meglio, “Vaudeville USA” (Bowling Green Univ Press, 1973), p. 132. For what it’s worth, my maternal grandfather claimed to have worked with La West in Coney Island before WW I (he bartended at a cabaret there). Another frienend of mine interviewed La West in the 1970s — and claimed she was the real thing!
SimonL—You’re right about comparing the Roxy and RCMH. Part of the Roxy’s problem stemmed from the height of its projection booth and the distance of the screen from the curtain line. As the Roxy’s contour curtain rose or fell, the film projected nearly a quarter-way up on it, and the curtain cast an elongated shadow back upon the the screen. The Roxy could have solved the problem by using a traveller as well (as RCMH did), but it would have lost some of the Fox fanfare if the heavy curtains remained closed until the music began. The Roxy, of course, didn’t install its golden contour curtain until December ‘52 (with Ice Colorama on stage)— before that, it flaunted a wonderful burgundy-red opera-style swag. And, yes, the curtains at RCMH were so heavy that they muffled the sound — most damagingly for “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” which I saw there in January '57 (one of the few, to judge from the attendance figures you cited last 23 July): the movie began with an off-screen recitation of Elizabeth BB’s “How do I love thee,” which you couldn’t hear because of the curtain. I earlier described how, before CinemaScope brought alterations, RCMH’s contour curtain used to rise in a fully lit house, framing the yellow traveller behind it for a half-minute or so as the organist built to his finale. When the film flashed on the traveller, the lights dimmed and the curtain parted. That way, spectators saw the waterfall effect in brightly lit glory, and marvelled at the draped tableau for a fractional pause before the film began. That ended when larger-screen projection required a more complicated masking mechanism that likely interfered with the effect. In the late 50s, if you looked very, very carefully at the contour curtain during the organist’s finale, you could see the outline of a draft shield rising behind it, with an accompanying backstage gust of air that drew the curtain inwards. Or so it seemed to my un-professional but very sharp teen-aged eyes.
I remember some stereo effect with RCMH’s first CinemaScope fims, viz. “Knights of the Round Table,” and with others as well, notably the “Glorious Technicolor, Breathtaking CinemaScope, and StereoPhonic Sound” number in “Silk Stockings.” But the device never seemed to me as, um, pronounced as it did at other theaters, chiefly and memorably at the Roxy. Perhaps the auditorium’s vastness at RCMH diffused the sound? In all honesty, too, I remember a distracting echoic effect at RCMH, particularly when the house was less than full, as at the 10:30 am showings that my parents took me to as a kid. I hate to complain about the facilities at RCMH, because their grandeur certainly more than compensated for their recognizable failings. But sometimes other theaters worked as better venues for certain presentations. For “White Christmas,” I recall a wider frame (at 1.85 rather than the usual 1.66 that RCMH used for conventional projection) but still its flat screen, with the same for later VistaVision that I saw there, principally “High Society” and the fabulous “North-by-Northwest.” (I remember viewing the last one as a teen, from the third balcony where my friends and I could smoke cigarettes and anticipate going for a beer afterwards—NYC in those days!) As for VistaVision at the Capitol, I recall no special bally-hoo about it, and certainly no vast curvilinear screen as at the Paramount and Criterion.
How can you describe a theater that’s been dead for more than fifty years? I’ll try. It was not a great theater, but an odd one. Chiefly, it was much wider than deep. Its depth extended half the city block, approximately 90’. With the still-existing building, you can see today that its rear wall hits the property line of the private homes behind it on 85 Street. (If you walk up that street, you can view the rear wall by looking down the two or three alleys separating these homes.) Its width extends about 110’ along busy 86 Street. (The ever popular Century Department Storeâ€"the very first, parent-original one that dates to the early ‘60sâ€"faces it across the street.)
The windowless red-brick façade with shallow stone-fluted columns rises somewhat more than three stories. The pitched roof behind the facade rises higher than four stories. The main body of the building comes to an abrupt stop about 70’ in depth from the front. The remaining 20’ is a one-and-a-half story extension that housed the proscenium and screen, as well as several rows of front seats. Because there were absolutely no fly-space and no stage apart from a shallow apron, the theater was designed for movies only. And the building’s extreme width must have made for some uncomfortable screen-viewing from the far sides.
The box office faced the street, and a shallow but wide ticket-taker lobby led into a likewise shallow but wide interior promenade with a candy-stand in the middle and staircases to the balcony at either end. Nestled beneath these staircases were rest rooms, each gender to a side. The stairs led to a relatively capacious balcony whose rear abutted the façade, and whose front curved at an inward concave several yards from where the building’s main section joined the proscenium extension. The orchestra section was quite shallow as, with allowances for the lobby, promenade, and screen-apron, it could have measured no more than 60’ in depth: might that have allowed for about twenty-four rows of seats? The greater width would have allowed for three central- and two side-aisles.
The outside and inside ornamentation was fairly restrained. The large marquee sported blinking and running yellow lights around the trapezoidal RKO logo and theater name, with white-lettering on black-plate film titles. As with many RKO houses of that era, I remember the lobby’s black granite siding, white marble flooring, and brass-plated doors (any of it faux?). The interior style seemed a restrained beaux-arts, if by that term you mean a dominant Italian classicism punctuated by some eclectic but faint baroque features. The page on this site for the nearby RKO Dyker describes the latter’s style as Baroqueâ€"no, no, hardly so: both theaters were Palladian on the cheap: no side boxes, no proscenium bas reliefs, no tapestries, but the suggestion of organ screens on each side (neither theater had one) and some shallow fluted columns, with a recessed dome in the center ceiling. A lightly ornamented shell-like tympanum descended from the ceiling to the top of the space where the proscenium extension began. A few modern-style lighting fixtures descended from the ceiling. The color scheme was a grey-ivory or dull-beige. I remember the wide but shortened curtain as burgundy.
The films were subsequent-runs inherited from nearby Loew’s Bay Ridge, which had inherited its fare from Loew’s Alpine. If I’m right, the last film was “Inside Straight,†which had opened at either the Capitol or Loew’s State in March ’51. It would have made its way to the Shore Road by late May. Possibly the theater had poor air conditioning, and so the management closed it before summer took charge? The marquee came down quickly. Three or four large store-fronts then took over the ground floor: Davega Sports, Davoe Paints, latterly The Wiz. The second floor housed a series of dance studios, insurance carrier offices, and the like. On the third floor, a fairly successful banquet facility held sway for several decades. I’ve come to imagine that this facility kept the theater’s recessed dome and tympanum decoration for ornament. If I had the wit to check it out, I could have done so. But now I live more than 200 miles away. Folks in the neighborhood might want to investigate.
I hate to post-script my contribution, but I do want to register my crabby memory that in the early ‘50s the screen at RCMH had an annoying distraction: you could see the lines where its panels had been sewn together. I know that the much-E-Bayed Souvenir Pictorial of that time proclaims a totally seamless screen. But the truth was otherwise. The CinemaScope screen consisted of seven panels (each 4’ wide) sewn together horizontally, unlike the panels at other theaters that were joined vertically with less noticeable sutures. For its regular wide-screen format, the masking rose to reveal an eighth horizontal panel, even as the side maskings closed in for a 1.66 ratio (RCMH seemed always to have had a narrower ratio than other theaters, even when the format was 1.33â€"an optical illusion perhaps?). In any case, the black lines crossing the screen were maddeningly annoying. Every kid in the theater noticed it and would draw attention to it. Parents would shh us and tell us not to spoil the show. But the sutures remained. At some point in 1956, around the run of “Friendly Persuasion†if I remember correctly, RCMH finally installed a truly seamless screen, or so it seemed. Or maybe because I was older and perhaps going blind from teenage activities, I didn’t see the familiar old lines so acutely. To me in the early ‘50s, the most impressive wide-screen was at the Capitol. Gently curved and with barely perceptible seams, it was proportioned at 1.85 and it covered nearly the entire proscenium. It awed me in August ’53 at “From Here to Eternity†(with stereophonic sound, too, which RCMH did not offer until much later). Later the Capitol reduced the size of its wide-screen somewhat (in truth, its larger size probably invited graininess), but still used its flawless facilities for such films as “War and Peace,†“The Pride and the Passion,†“Vertigo,†and others of that era.
SimonL— Thanks for the notes about the program fillers in the ‘40s-'50s. They concur exactly with my memories. The Rivoli named its expanded screen “the Cycloramic screen.” I describe its use in this site’s listing for the Rivoli. Aside from the Destruction of the Temple in “Samson and Delilah” (December '49), I did not see it used again at that theater. In Summer '53, the Rivoli (like every other NYC house) installed its all-purpose CinemaScope screen, which it used until converting to Todd-AO in October '55. In my movie-going experience, RHMH used its Magnascope screen for the scenes described above, as well as for the sea storm sequence in “Plymouth Adventure” and the Busby Berkeley aquatic scene in “Million Dollar Mermaid,” in November and December '52 respectively. My parents told me that RCMH used it for the horserace scene in “National Velvet” as well. The Rivoli’s Cycloramic screen raised my seven-year-old consciousness to delerious heights, so whenever I saw it at RCMH, I snapped to attention. I expected that the theater would have used it for all its “big” pictures, and was chagrined when it didn’t. Except for the Esther Williams splasher, I recall it for no other MGM musical, including “The Great Caruso,” “Show Boat,” “An American in Paris,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” and a bunch of others that I saw there (the latter-day “That’s Entertainment” of course deployed the device for excepts from these films). I can still taste my disappointment when RCMH withheld it from scenes in such spectaculars as “Kim,” “Scaramouche,” and “Ivanhoe.” (You may gather correctly that I was a pint-sized nut about that projection device.) There would have been no concern about cropping, since the Magnascope screen was framed in the standard 1.33 ratio. With “Shane” in May ‘53, RCMH used it (now named “the Panoramic Screen” and still at 1.33 ratio) for the entire picture, in lieu of installing a new curved screen, and continued to do so until introducing its properly proportioned all-purpose screen the following December, in anticipation of CinemaScope. There’s a swell picture of the latter in the journal “Theatre Catalogue” (1954-55). I know of no other first-run B'way theaters that used Magnascope in the late '40s-'50s, or at least I saw none other used there or then. The Roxy, a candidate, did not, because it projected its films onto a black-bordered sheet hanging in front of voluminous, dimly-lit lavender curtains. For a picture of the remodeled (but still old-screen) Roxy in December '52, with its then shamefully draped proscenium, see the above mentioned “Theatre Catalogue” (1952-53).
Yes, exactly, “Thunder Bay” was the first (after RCMH showed “Shane” on its flat “Panoramic” screen, actually its old Magnascope screen), and a big event at the State in May ‘53. (There’s an article on its installation in Theatre Catalogue, ca. summer '53.) The Capitol might have inaugurated its new screen with “Battle Circus” a week or so later. Then, a week after that, MGM opened “Julius Caesar” at the Booth on a reserved-seat run. The nabes followed one-by-one throughout the summer. The newspaper ads for the Loew’s circuit marked a check next to each theater that had a new screen, and a double-check next to each that had stereophonic sound. I followed the newspapers every day to see which had what. Every two or three days a new check-mark would crop up, implying that it took at least that long to get the work done. And the trail seemed to move from neighborhood to neighborhood in each borough, implying that each territory had its roving squad of installers. One of the last to get fitted was Loew’s Bay Ridge, a subsequent-run house, with (I believe) “The Band Wagon” in October or so. I then wondered what the installers did for work after that.
That was an exciting time in Summer ’53 when theaters were installing wide screens. As an eleven-year-old, I wondered how managers could do it without interrupting screenings. To replace a flat 15x20 sheet with a panel-curved 20x40 framed by movable masks to accommodate CinemaScope (which wasn’t available until the following winter!) must have invited a lot of chaos. I imagine that from midnight until morning, roving bands of workers moved from theater to theater in a given circuit until each house was equipped. Did it take two or three nights to set up the new screen behind the old one, and then strike the latter when the work was done? But how a new screen be set up behind the old one while the original sound-speakers were still in place? Stereophonic sound installation must have required an additional step afterwards, no? All of this without missing a single frame from any show! At my local RKO nabe, the Dyker, I remember seeing on the old screen “Titanic†(the Negulesco one, with “Destination Gobi†as co-feature, another example of a second-billing that topped the first), while hearing the sounds of hammering and sawing behind the proscenium. A few inches of backstage light shone out beneath the bottom mask. When I returned to the theater a few days later to see “The Maze†(a b&w 3D schlocker), the miracle-mirror wide screen was up and running, but low-grade and disappointing since I’d hoped for something mammoth, on the scale of Cinerama. For my Loew’s nabe, the Alpine, I should address questions on that site to someone who might know how the unique design of that house (no stage, no conventional proscenium) created special problems for hanging a wide screen. If memory serves, that theater installed a temporary one, fairly hulking and squarish, which it replaced scant months later with a wonderfully large, elegantly proportioned, and amazingly seamless one.