And the marquee says Music Hall’s Great Christmas Show. In other photo if you look super close I believe it says Stage Revue Hat’s Off. I guess you would have to look at Variety or daily newspaper ads to see when stage show changed. And then there is the added confusion of the times when the Hall would just lop off The Nativity if the Christmas film was successful enough to run well into Jan continuing with the rest of the holiday show. Was Random Harvest the only Christmas film to last beyond Jan?
I would say this might be a 1943 photo as the Christmas decorations are down and the film played until March. However if the stage show changed before Jan 1st as sometimes happened back then it might still be'42. I’m sure CC knows when it changed from the Christmas to a more secular show. In LeRoy’s autobio he was told by the Hall the film could have played another 11 weeks there but MGM wanted to get it into the nabes.
I assume Sunflower(the poster was recently added to photos) was the only dubbed film to ever play the Music Hall. It was not mentioned in any of the ads and there were some who were justifiably upset though I’m sure that whatever audience the Music Hall still had left the majority didn’t care and certainly didn’t want to see it in Italian. I saw it the first Saturday morning and I remember it being crowded with a full orchestra. There had been a lot of publicity on its opening day because Loren made a personal appearance and I believe Variety compared the crowd to those that showed up for a Disney film at holiday time.
How long did Hail Hero play? The opening seems to have been Oct 23rd but The Brain was the Thanksgiving film. Until the mid 70s ‘69 seems to have been the Music Hall’s worst selection of films. One dreadful film after another. Seems like the only watchable films were Love Bug and True Grit. The American New Wave took hold and even if a few style old films were made that fit the Hall they ended up on the upper East Side playing along with Loew’s State if they would even be seen among the hoi polloi of Times Square.
The Music Hall which always had the highest grosses no matter how low was even beaten out by I am Curious Yellow during its run of Mayerling.
I got the quotes from Bluray.com on a thread of people discussing the restoration. As I said myself I was surprised as I saw the film twice during the week when it was shown for its anniversary and I was pretty wowed as well.
I do though envy Haas seeing a new movie print struck by Fox and not a digital projection which I think is mostly what you get these days. I must admit though for a strict purist like myself I don’t hate some of the digital projections I’ve seen. Brief Encounter at FF was pretty wonderful.
Is that a record for shortest roadshow run in NY? Poor Half a Sixpence. It’s a stunningly designed Edwardian musical. Visually gorgeous with some sensational Gillian Lynne numbers who went on to gain fame as the choreographer of Cats and Phantom. I guess Tommy Steele on film was a bit much but it does have the wonderful Julia Foster straight from Alfie.
By the way I have not seen the bluray of Cleo but I assume it is from the 50th anniversary restoration I saw which I thought magnificent as stated above. However there are those on threads on bluray.com who think it is a botched job with some of the colors poorly judged and a lost opportunity claiming the film will never be seen again in it’s original visual glory. This was very surprising to me.
One quote ‘Yup, totally agree. In the documentary they’re all set to film Cleopatra’s entrance into Rome when director of photography Leon Shamroy called a halt, the light wasn’t quite right, & what did they end up with on the Blu-ray? A scene that could have been shot on Scotland in the winter. The whole film is too cool, & the colours have been mucked about with, all the yellow has been taken out, all the gold bling the Cleopatra wears now looks like silver. I still have the Blu-ray, I don’t know why, I’ll never watch it again.’‘ I agree with what others have said, this needs to be re-color timed, but first it needs an 8K scan. I’ll be very surprised if any of that comes to be.’
As concerns Half a Sixpence the run might have been longer as it played at the Criterion for Easter so probably had at least a two month run as Easter was in mid April and the film opened in NY in mid February. If it closed before Easter that’s quite a disaster. I guess one has to look at Variety and the ads in the NY Times. I also believe Paramount was lying to Variety and inflating boxoffice figures at least 10k a week. Variety was not happy.
The film had a respectable road show run at the Astoria in London and was nowhere near the disaster there as it was here.
The history of the Rivoli as a roadshow house is a very confusing one in terms of screen size and reserved seat runs turning into continuous runs.
Dolly is probably another one that eventually showed a profit. Even Jerry Herman who did not like it when it opened came around to it. Streisand claims a lot of people tell her how much they like it at which she is incredulous. Why is she so surprised? She’s at her vocal best in terms of a movie musical. Cleopatra which I saw twice at its 50th anniversary restoration is wonderful. The flop status it was accorded at the time is totally unjust. If only the 6 hour director cut had survived. Those 4 hours flew by for me.
How the West Was Won ran under 44 weeks? That seems pretty surprising to me. I stand corrected. Where did Funny Thing roadshow? And to be honest I thought Mutiny was considered a major disappointment.
I guess Can Can was some sort of hit though I don’t believe there’s anyone who’s going to claim it among their favorite movie musicals. Outside of HTWWW Lion in Winter is surprising.
So what film did the Glory of Easter premiere with? I believe the Music Hall did a tableau of the Last Supper before Glory of Easter was first produced.
Also see in the ad for the stage show with the film Richelieu the name Aronson as in Boris. He certainly created the most astonishing designs I saw on stage in his Harold Prince productions. Sadly this theatrical genius no longer exists.
What roadshow runs were considered successes that didn’t run at least 44 weeks?
I think the only successful film that I know of was Patton which AAlvarez explained was Fox wanting to get into general release as soon as possible because of its publicity and controversy managing somehow in this socially confusing period to appeal to both the youth market and the aging conservative population.
It seems that all the films that bombed as a roadshow were not successful in general release either.
I don’t remember where I read it(maybe here years ago) but I didn’t realize it until it was pointed out- the general release print of Dolly was the same length as the roadshow release, as far as I can remember nothing was cut. But strangely enough, and why this was done God only knows, two different cuts of Streisand running towards the camera in Before the Parade Passes By are used. In the roadshow release everything is fine. Nothing goes wrong. However in the general release version when she starts running she must have felt the hat coming off because she reaches up with her hand to hold the hat on her head. It is really effective and did some editor say ‘hey this is terrific, let’s replace the original hard ticket choice with this better one’?
Anybody know of other instances of roadshow versus general release where two different shots of the exact same scene were used? In fact I think this is the only instance I know of no matter the exhibition format.
What’s the point of saving a beautiful theater if they are going to turn it into a multiplex? I get no pleasure from seeing this kind of nonsense.
Honestly tearing it down would have been the same thing. You people have got to be kidding praising this in any way.
Nice to see a comic book movie playing in a fraction of its space when I had some of the greatest theatrical experiences of my life here?
You clearly did not experience what I did. Otherwise this stupiddagine would make you angry.
Like a believer seeing St Patrick’s desecrated.
It just infuriates me that people have anything good to say about it.
This was a great stage theater. And showing films is fine as long as the theater is basically kept intact.
Nice to see a blockbuster playing here! I mean come on.
This is terrible. A wonderful theater cut up into a multiplex. I don’t understand how people can extoll such a place. I saw some wonderful Ingmar Bergman stage productions here. I don’t understand you people.
Do you know what Christopher Strong made and did it play just one week?
The bank holiday started on March 6 and lasted until March 13th. 88k was only ok for a week at the Music. Good but not great. Perhaps the film should not have played at the RKO Roxy and would have done blockbuster business at the Music Hall and have been held over a second week. Or the bank holiday really did hurt business and if FDR hadn’t implemented it both theaters would have done tremendous business.
Anybody know if Disney’s Cinderella opened here? I’ve seen ads for the NY openings of all the Disney classic animated films until even Sword in the Stone except for this one. If the ad has been posted I don’t recall seeing it. For some reason like Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp it seems like a Roxy film. In fact if the Music Hall could show Snow White and Bambi Cinderella would have been a good fit. But after Bambi it seemed it turned to a no animated film policy until they were forced to with Charlie Brown as the Christmas movie because there were no other family friendly G rated films in late ‘69. And Charlie Brown was so famous and so much a part of the Zeitgeist of the time. It certainly wasn’t because of quality. I’m sure if Dolly or Mr. Chips had been available they would have been happy to have either as a holiday film.
And the marquee says Music Hall’s Great Christmas Show. In other photo if you look super close I believe it says Stage Revue Hat’s Off. I guess you would have to look at Variety or daily newspaper ads to see when stage show changed. And then there is the added confusion of the times when the Hall would just lop off The Nativity if the Christmas film was successful enough to run well into Jan continuing with the rest of the holiday show. Was Random Harvest the only Christmas film to last beyond Jan?
I would say this might be a 1943 photo as the Christmas decorations are down and the film played until March. However if the stage show changed before Jan 1st as sometimes happened back then it might still be'42. I’m sure CC knows when it changed from the Christmas to a more secular show. In LeRoy’s autobio he was told by the Hall the film could have played another 11 weeks there but MGM wanted to get it into the nabes.
I assume Sunflower(the poster was recently added to photos) was the only dubbed film to ever play the Music Hall. It was not mentioned in any of the ads and there were some who were justifiably upset though I’m sure that whatever audience the Music Hall still had left the majority didn’t care and certainly didn’t want to see it in Italian. I saw it the first Saturday morning and I remember it being crowded with a full orchestra. There had been a lot of publicity on its opening day because Loren made a personal appearance and I believe Variety compared the crowd to those that showed up for a Disney film at holiday time.
How long did Hail Hero play? The opening seems to have been Oct 23rd but The Brain was the Thanksgiving film. Until the mid 70s ‘69 seems to have been the Music Hall’s worst selection of films. One dreadful film after another. Seems like the only watchable films were Love Bug and True Grit. The American New Wave took hold and even if a few style old films were made that fit the Hall they ended up on the upper East Side playing along with Loew’s State if they would even be seen among the hoi polloi of Times Square.
The Music Hall which always had the highest grosses no matter how low was even beaten out by I am Curious Yellow during its run of Mayerling.
Wasn’t Krakatoa continuous perfs in NY?
I wonder why LA was roadshow.
Legend of the Vikings must have been a lot of fun. Too bad it was never done again. I would have loved to have seen it.
I got the quotes from Bluray.com on a thread of people discussing the restoration. As I said myself I was surprised as I saw the film twice during the week when it was shown for its anniversary and I was pretty wowed as well.
I do though envy Haas seeing a new movie print struck by Fox and not a digital projection which I think is mostly what you get these days. I must admit though for a strict purist like myself I don’t hate some of the digital projections I’ve seen. Brief Encounter at FF was pretty wonderful.
Do Cheyenne Autumn, Hallelujah Trail and even Fall of the Roman Empire exist any longer in 70mm or are their negatives gone for good?
Is that a record for shortest roadshow run in NY? Poor Half a Sixpence. It’s a stunningly designed Edwardian musical. Visually gorgeous with some sensational Gillian Lynne numbers who went on to gain fame as the choreographer of Cats and Phantom. I guess Tommy Steele on film was a bit much but it does have the wonderful Julia Foster straight from Alfie.
By the way I have not seen the bluray of Cleo but I assume it is from the 50th anniversary restoration I saw which I thought magnificent as stated above. However there are those on threads on bluray.com who think it is a botched job with some of the colors poorly judged and a lost opportunity claiming the film will never be seen again in it’s original visual glory. This was very surprising to me.
One quote ‘Yup, totally agree. In the documentary they’re all set to film Cleopatra’s entrance into Rome when director of photography Leon Shamroy called a halt, the light wasn’t quite right, & what did they end up with on the Blu-ray? A scene that could have been shot on Scotland in the winter. The whole film is too cool, & the colours have been mucked about with, all the yellow has been taken out, all the gold bling the Cleopatra wears now looks like silver. I still have the Blu-ray, I don’t know why, I’ll never watch it again.’‘ I agree with what others have said, this needs to be re-color timed, but first it needs an 8K scan. I’ll be very surprised if any of that comes to be.’
As concerns Half a Sixpence the run might have been longer as it played at the Criterion for Easter so probably had at least a two month run as Easter was in mid April and the film opened in NY in mid February. If it closed before Easter that’s quite a disaster. I guess one has to look at Variety and the ads in the NY Times. I also believe Paramount was lying to Variety and inflating boxoffice figures at least 10k a week. Variety was not happy.
The film had a respectable road show run at the Astoria in London and was nowhere near the disaster there as it was here.
The history of the Rivoli as a roadshow house is a very confusing one in terms of screen size and reserved seat runs turning into continuous runs.
Dolly is probably another one that eventually showed a profit. Even Jerry Herman who did not like it when it opened came around to it. Streisand claims a lot of people tell her how much they like it at which she is incredulous. Why is she so surprised? She’s at her vocal best in terms of a movie musical. Cleopatra which I saw twice at its 50th anniversary restoration is wonderful. The flop status it was accorded at the time is totally unjust. If only the 6 hour director cut had survived. Those 4 hours flew by for me.
How the West Was Won ran under 44 weeks? That seems pretty surprising to me. I stand corrected. Where did Funny Thing roadshow? And to be honest I thought Mutiny was considered a major disappointment.
I guess Can Can was some sort of hit though I don’t believe there’s anyone who’s going to claim it among their favorite movie musicals. Outside of HTWWW Lion in Winter is surprising.
So what film did the Glory of Easter premiere with? I believe the Music Hall did a tableau of the Last Supper before Glory of Easter was first produced.
Also see in the ad for the stage show with the film Richelieu the name Aronson as in Boris. He certainly created the most astonishing designs I saw on stage in his Harold Prince productions. Sadly this theatrical genius no longer exists.
What roadshow runs were considered successes that didn’t run at least 44 weeks?
I think the only successful film that I know of was Patton which AAlvarez explained was Fox wanting to get into general release as soon as possible because of its publicity and controversy managing somehow in this socially confusing period to appeal to both the youth market and the aging conservative population.
It seems that all the films that bombed as a roadshow were not successful in general release either.
I don’t remember where I read it(maybe here years ago) but I didn’t realize it until it was pointed out- the general release print of Dolly was the same length as the roadshow release, as far as I can remember nothing was cut. But strangely enough, and why this was done God only knows, two different cuts of Streisand running towards the camera in Before the Parade Passes By are used. In the roadshow release everything is fine. Nothing goes wrong. However in the general release version when she starts running she must have felt the hat coming off because she reaches up with her hand to hold the hat on her head. It is really effective and did some editor say ‘hey this is terrific, let’s replace the original hard ticket choice with this better one’?
Anybody know of other instances of roadshow versus general release where two different shots of the exact same scene were used? In fact I think this is the only instance I know of no matter the exhibition format.
What’s the point of saving a beautiful theater if they are going to turn it into a multiplex? I get no pleasure from seeing this kind of nonsense. Honestly tearing it down would have been the same thing. You people have got to be kidding praising this in any way. Nice to see a comic book movie playing in a fraction of its space when I had some of the greatest theatrical experiences of my life here? You clearly did not experience what I did. Otherwise this stupiddagine would make you angry. Like a believer seeing St Patrick’s desecrated.
It’s not just coming to my attention.
It just infuriates me that people have anything good to say about it. This was a great stage theater. And showing films is fine as long as the theater is basically kept intact. Nice to see a blockbuster playing here! I mean come on.
This is terrible. A wonderful theater cut up into a multiplex. I don’t understand how people can extoll such a place. I saw some wonderful Ingmar Bergman stage productions here. I don’t understand you people.
I can just imagine multiplex audiences sitting through The Merry Wives of Windsor overture.
Wow 58k. I assume well under nut.
Do you know what Christopher Strong made and did it play just one week?
The bank holiday started on March 6 and lasted until March 13th. 88k was only ok for a week at the Music. Good but not great. Perhaps the film should not have played at the RKO Roxy and would have done blockbuster business at the Music Hall and have been held over a second week. Or the bank holiday really did hurt business and if FDR hadn’t implemented it both theaters would have done tremendous business.
Interesting. Thank you for Cinderella ad.
Thanks. Didn’t know a Disney film ever played there. Not a very prestigious house for such a major release.
Anybody know if Disney’s Cinderella opened here? I’ve seen ads for the NY openings of all the Disney classic animated films until even Sword in the Stone except for this one. If the ad has been posted I don’t recall seeing it. For some reason like Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp it seems like a Roxy film. In fact if the Music Hall could show Snow White and Bambi Cinderella would have been a good fit. But after Bambi it seemed it turned to a no animated film policy until they were forced to with Charlie Brown as the Christmas movie because there were no other family friendly G rated films in late ‘69. And Charlie Brown was so famous and so much a part of the Zeitgeist of the time. It certainly wasn’t because of quality. I’m sure if Dolly or Mr. Chips had been available they would have been happy to have either as a holiday film.
Another one of the Music Hall’s odd pairing of stage show and film.
Kind of like the earthquake and burning of Nome with The Nun’s Story. Though not quite so bizarre.