So how did a Goldwyn/Wyler film like Wuthering Heights miss the Music Hall and what was Powell at her height as an MGM star doing headlining a vaudeville bill for a second run feature at the State?
Yes I remember that echo from the Westwood Pascack and the Hackensack Fox. What warm memories that evokes. I remember standing at the back of the balcony at the Loews Jersey once while they were working and was amazed at how wonderful the sound was coming from the stage. One of those secrets that seems to be lost with time.
I can’t give enough credit to Collin and his crew for what they have achieved. To take on Jersey politicos and Jersey developers and come out on top is beyond miraculous.
To Richard Haines,
I’m glad you mentioned the ‘76 showing of 2001 at the Rivoli with the Cinerama card. This was one of the greatest cinematic experiences of my life. The print was so beautiful and enveloping and despite being contiuous perfs it was full roadshow presentation. The closing of the curtains at intermission on the moving mouths with Hal looking on was chilling beyond belief. The 78 print was good but not nearly the same experience.
I so regret they did not show Sound of Music there again in the '70s and instead showed it at the National which I found a horrible theater. And why did the Ziegfeld at this time become the major presentation big movie theater at this time when New York still had the Criterion and the Rivoli?
The owners of these theaters should be tried for cultural vandalism.
I can’t even walk in front of their former sites.
Mr.Audio could you be talking about the late ‘60’s rather than early 70’s for the last go round? And are the IB prints for films like GWTW and Ben Hur even available? The studios for these classic films seem pretty uncaring.
However when I win the lottery and build my classic film theater adaptable for everything from silents to CinemaScope 2.55 to Todd AO to 3 screen Cinerama I want Bob to program it for me.
Interesting because I am very sensitive to focus and if it is slightly off it drives me crazy whereas other people don’t seem to notice or care unless it is really bad. And yes there were times when it was slightly out of focus but I thought the projectionist really did a good job of keeping on top of it. I’ve had experiences in the past where entire reels would be out of focus and I would have to complain.
As for the color. I saw a bit of the film not long ago on TCM and I would say the color was comparable and it also matches the tones in the souvenir book for the movie. So what did the movie really look like in ‘59?
To CC- I think Two for the Road only played 3 weeks which for an Audrey Hepburn picture in the spring was a major disaster. Donen didn’t even want it there(I got to meet him once and he said it was his favorite of his non musical films.) The Hall NY audience didn’t like it and the tourists for some reason were not interested in a salute to Canada. So then Barefoot in the Park comes in and blows everything out of the water. Another cashier told me she started at the Hall during this engagement and could not believe how people just kept coming. The work was nonstop.
In defense of the Odd Couple’s run even if Paramount were papering the 1rst Mezz(3,000 tickets a day?)you don’t think the Music Hall knew what was going on? The Music Hall had it’s own tricks. And then what about the additional 5,000 seats a perf? Did it keep the third Mezz permanently closed except at holiday time? Was then the Music Hall also lying to Variety about the grosses? (Though I think that sometimes everybody did. Especially for roadshows playing to empty houses.) But the people at Variety had been to the Rodeo a few times themselves. And why would years later a manager and cashier lie to me about the crowds a film brought in? There was really no reason for it.
I’m sure what Paramount was doing had been done for years by all the studios. What probably counted most were the general admission sales concerning a films longevity. Otherwise you would have had Two For the Road with a 14 week engagement. But boy the Hall pulled that one fast.
CC I probably made that comment about Times Square Christmas ‘68 somewhere. It was dazzling. Then by autumn '70 you could take a home movie of the place and have it come out Taxi Driver.
Warren I don’t quite understand. How could Paramount send people to advance sale box office if they wanted a ticket for the film that day? And if you didn’t want to sit in the first Mezz I’m sure the crowd could see the cheaper general admission prices right there(I personally would pay $100 very happily to see this film and Berlin salute today. Not that I could afford it mind you.) It seems from the Variety grosses the film was wildly successful every week it played there fully justifying the run. This is as opposed to when I worked for Robin and Marion(10-12 weeks) where I seem to remember many perfs where if we were lucky there were a hundred people in the place. I am not exagerating.
Warren I don’t quite understand. How could Paramount send people to advance sale box office if they wanted a ticket for the film that day? And if you didn’t want to sit in the first Mezz I’m sure the crowd could see the cheaper general admission prices right there(I personally would pay $100 very happily to see this film and Berlin salute today. Not that I could afford it mind you.) It seems from the Variety grosses the film was wildly successful every week it played there fully justifying the run. This is as opposed to when I worked for Robin and Marion(10-12 weeks) where I seem to remember many perfs where if we were lucky there were a hundred people in the place. I am not exagerating.
Also CC just think in ‘68 the Music Hall had its most successful movie of all time. The Odd Couple. 14 weeks and somebody at the Music Hall who worked there during the engagement told me there were as many people on the final day as there had been on the first. A box office cashier said it was the last film where the work had no let up. Two years later when I started going there on my own it had already become a ghost town.
Reading these postings from BOB and Warren tear me apart. So close and yet so far! What I wouldn’t give after work today to head down to Times Square and pick up a ticket at the State or Criterion or the Rivoli for a 70mm road show. Or head over to the Hall or the Roxy for a musical(really anything would do.)
Well there’s always something like Sideways at the Angelica…
Does anyone know if I’ll See You in My Dreams was in color. I remember seeing it a long time ago on TV and thinking that it was a really good choice for a Christmas film except for the fact that it was in B and W but I might have seen it on a black and white TV. It seems odd that the Hall which only had shown color films for Christmas since ‘46 would then in 51 pick a black and white one. The black and white '61 Easter show was even more surprising. Though in and of themselves the films were good choices they both would have been better if they had been filmed in color and considering when they were made the choice to save money on color seems pretty strange(though in the case of Professor this might have been due to the special effects.)
Many years ago I saw Selznick’s Tom Sawyer at the MOMA. It was probably one of the first 3 strip Technicolor films. The print was excellent and while the colors were rich they also gave the effect of water color illustations in a children’s book of the period.
This contrasted enormously with the TS I saw at the Music Hall in ‘73 with its grainy washed out home movie look. Technically films at that point had become so shoddy and no one seemed to notice.
Trivia question for Mitchell. This was obviously a road show length print with overture and entracte. If there had been a curtain and reserved seating we could have been in Loew’s State in ‘59. So did prints that were reduced from 65 to 35mm include all road show elements. Was this for first run engagements in small cities where MGM did not want to spring for a 65mm print?
Was at the Ben Hur(avoided GWTW after initial postings about the print.) Absolutely sensational. The projectionist was on top of the print at all times and the print itself was terrific. Movie palace heaven.
One small point. the angle of one of the projectors is slightly off so that a bit of the top of image is cut off with a strip of empty space at the bottom of the screen.
So now I will look a gift horse in the mouth and ask for more movie palace movies. With summer coming up how about a 60’s teenage weekend with Where the Boys Are, Bye Bye Birdie and Beach Party. Or a Broadway musical weekend with Music Man, Oliver and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Speaking of CCBB how about a Broadway inspired by movies weekend with Producers(10 times better on the screen than on TV) Monty Python and the Holy Grail and CCBB for a matinee?
Great job guys.
This seems to have been the case until the mid 60’s when road show fever took over. Fall ‘61 had Flower Drum Song, '62 had Gypsy and '64 had Mary Poppins. From this point on except for Bullitt the autumn bookings were pretty poor. The summer bookings held up though until 71 when what once was one of the most profitable times of the year became a wasteland.
Mitchell,
I’m not sure what you mean. Is this the original 1.33 image or did the reissue cut off the image from the top and bottom?
What exactly does “side letterboxed” mean?
What is the color like?
Warren, How many times a day did the Robe play at the Roxy? Were there extra early morning perfs and what about midnight showings? At the Hall there were only 4 complete perfs a day.
To Paulb what films did you see at the Plaza? The Ziegfeld in NY is only 50 ft! But I seem to be the only one that finds that lame.
When I saw 7 Brides at the Hall in the late 70’s it seemed larger than the Panavision or 70mm screen there. It was huge. I can’t even begin to imagine what 90 to 100 ft Cinerama screens were like. Now I’m beginning to think that the 60ft Todd AO screen at the Rivoli was on the small side.
So how did a Goldwyn/Wyler film like Wuthering Heights miss the Music Hall and what was Powell at her height as an MGM star doing headlining a vaudeville bill for a second run feature at the State?
Yes I remember that echo from the Westwood Pascack and the Hackensack Fox. What warm memories that evokes. I remember standing at the back of the balcony at the Loews Jersey once while they were working and was amazed at how wonderful the sound was coming from the stage. One of those secrets that seems to be lost with time.
I can’t give enough credit to Collin and his crew for what they have achieved. To take on Jersey politicos and Jersey developers and come out on top is beyond miraculous.
To Richard Haines,
I’m glad you mentioned the ‘76 showing of 2001 at the Rivoli with the Cinerama card. This was one of the greatest cinematic experiences of my life. The print was so beautiful and enveloping and despite being contiuous perfs it was full roadshow presentation. The closing of the curtains at intermission on the moving mouths with Hal looking on was chilling beyond belief. The 78 print was good but not nearly the same experience.
I so regret they did not show Sound of Music there again in the '70s and instead showed it at the National which I found a horrible theater. And why did the Ziegfeld at this time become the major presentation big movie theater at this time when New York still had the Criterion and the Rivoli?
The owners of these theaters should be tried for cultural vandalism.
I can’t even walk in front of their former sites.
Mr.Audio could you be talking about the late ‘60’s rather than early 70’s for the last go round? And are the IB prints for films like GWTW and Ben Hur even available? The studios for these classic films seem pretty uncaring.
However when I win the lottery and build my classic film theater adaptable for everything from silents to CinemaScope 2.55 to Todd AO to 3 screen Cinerama I want Bob to program it for me.
Heartbreaking post paulb. Excellent but heartbreaking.
Heartbreaking post paulb. Excellent but heartbreaking.
Interesting because I am very sensitive to focus and if it is slightly off it drives me crazy whereas other people don’t seem to notice or care unless it is really bad. And yes there were times when it was slightly out of focus but I thought the projectionist really did a good job of keeping on top of it. I’ve had experiences in the past where entire reels would be out of focus and I would have to complain.
As for the color. I saw a bit of the film not long ago on TCM and I would say the color was comparable and it also matches the tones in the souvenir book for the movie. So what did the movie really look like in ‘59?
Now was Manhattan during the middle of the Twentieth Century the greatest place in the history of the world or what.
To CC- I think Two for the Road only played 3 weeks which for an Audrey Hepburn picture in the spring was a major disaster. Donen didn’t even want it there(I got to meet him once and he said it was his favorite of his non musical films.) The Hall NY audience didn’t like it and the tourists for some reason were not interested in a salute to Canada. So then Barefoot in the Park comes in and blows everything out of the water. Another cashier told me she started at the Hall during this engagement and could not believe how people just kept coming. The work was nonstop.
In defense of the Odd Couple’s run even if Paramount were papering the 1rst Mezz(3,000 tickets a day?)you don’t think the Music Hall knew what was going on? The Music Hall had it’s own tricks. And then what about the additional 5,000 seats a perf? Did it keep the third Mezz permanently closed except at holiday time? Was then the Music Hall also lying to Variety about the grosses? (Though I think that sometimes everybody did. Especially for roadshows playing to empty houses.) But the people at Variety had been to the Rodeo a few times themselves. And why would years later a manager and cashier lie to me about the crowds a film brought in? There was really no reason for it.
I’m sure what Paramount was doing had been done for years by all the studios. What probably counted most were the general admission sales concerning a films longevity. Otherwise you would have had Two For the Road with a 14 week engagement. But boy the Hall pulled that one fast.
CC I probably made that comment about Times Square Christmas ‘68 somewhere. It was dazzling. Then by autumn '70 you could take a home movie of the place and have it come out Taxi Driver.
Warren I don’t quite understand. How could Paramount send people to advance sale box office if they wanted a ticket for the film that day? And if you didn’t want to sit in the first Mezz I’m sure the crowd could see the cheaper general admission prices right there(I personally would pay $100 very happily to see this film and Berlin salute today. Not that I could afford it mind you.) It seems from the Variety grosses the film was wildly successful every week it played there fully justifying the run. This is as opposed to when I worked for Robin and Marion(10-12 weeks) where I seem to remember many perfs where if we were lucky there were a hundred people in the place. I am not exagerating.
Warren I don’t quite understand. How could Paramount send people to advance sale box office if they wanted a ticket for the film that day? And if you didn’t want to sit in the first Mezz I’m sure the crowd could see the cheaper general admission prices right there(I personally would pay $100 very happily to see this film and Berlin salute today. Not that I could afford it mind you.) It seems from the Variety grosses the film was wildly successful every week it played there fully justifying the run. This is as opposed to when I worked for Robin and Marion(10-12 weeks) where I seem to remember many perfs where if we were lucky there were a hundred people in the place. I am not exagerating.
Also CC just think in ‘68 the Music Hall had its most successful movie of all time. The Odd Couple. 14 weeks and somebody at the Music Hall who worked there during the engagement told me there were as many people on the final day as there had been on the first. A box office cashier said it was the last film where the work had no let up. Two years later when I started going there on my own it had already become a ghost town.
Reading these postings from BOB and Warren tear me apart. So close and yet so far! What I wouldn’t give after work today to head down to Times Square and pick up a ticket at the State or Criterion or the Rivoli for a 70mm road show. Or head over to the Hall or the Roxy for a musical(really anything would do.)
Well there’s always something like Sideways at the Angelica…
Does anyone know if I’ll See You in My Dreams was in color. I remember seeing it a long time ago on TV and thinking that it was a really good choice for a Christmas film except for the fact that it was in B and W but I might have seen it on a black and white TV. It seems odd that the Hall which only had shown color films for Christmas since ‘46 would then in 51 pick a black and white one. The black and white '61 Easter show was even more surprising. Though in and of themselves the films were good choices they both would have been better if they had been filmed in color and considering when they were made the choice to save money on color seems pretty strange(though in the case of Professor this might have been due to the special effects.)
Many years ago I saw Selznick’s Tom Sawyer at the MOMA. It was probably one of the first 3 strip Technicolor films. The print was excellent and while the colors were rich they also gave the effect of water color illustations in a children’s book of the period.
This contrasted enormously with the TS I saw at the Music Hall in ‘73 with its grainy washed out home movie look. Technically films at that point had become so shoddy and no one seemed to notice.
Is that true? Color is being toned down in
DVD’s? That would be insane!
Ben Hur was a perfect Saurday night film. Thank God Rocky was shown in the afternoon. One of those what was Oscar thinking best pictures.
Trivia question for Mitchell. This was obviously a road show length print with overture and entracte. If there had been a curtain and reserved seating we could have been in Loew’s State in ‘59. So did prints that were reduced from 65 to 35mm include all road show elements. Was this for first run engagements in small cities where MGM did not want to spring for a 65mm print?
Was at the Ben Hur(avoided GWTW after initial postings about the print.) Absolutely sensational. The projectionist was on top of the print at all times and the print itself was terrific. Movie palace heaven.
One small point. the angle of one of the projectors is slightly off so that a bit of the top of image is cut off with a strip of empty space at the bottom of the screen.
So now I will look a gift horse in the mouth and ask for more movie palace movies. With summer coming up how about a 60’s teenage weekend with Where the Boys Are, Bye Bye Birdie and Beach Party. Or a Broadway musical weekend with Music Man, Oliver and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Speaking of CCBB how about a Broadway inspired by movies weekend with Producers(10 times better on the screen than on TV) Monty Python and the Holy Grail and CCBB for a matinee?
Great job guys.
This seems to have been the case until the mid 60’s when road show fever took over. Fall ‘61 had Flower Drum Song, '62 had Gypsy and '64 had Mary Poppins. From this point on except for Bullitt the autumn bookings were pretty poor. The summer bookings held up though until 71 when what once was one of the most profitable times of the year became a wasteland.
Mitchell,
I’m not sure what you mean. Is this the original 1.33 image or did the reissue cut off the image from the top and bottom?
What exactly does “side letterboxed” mean?
What is the color like?
Warren, How many times a day did the Robe play at the Roxy? Were there extra early morning perfs and what about midnight showings? At the Hall there were only 4 complete perfs a day.
To Paulb what films did you see at the Plaza? The Ziegfeld in NY is only 50 ft! But I seem to be the only one that finds that lame.
When I saw 7 Brides at the Hall in the late 70’s it seemed larger than the Panavision or 70mm screen there. It was huge. I can’t even begin to imagine what 90 to 100 ft Cinerama screens were like. Now I’m beginning to think that the 60ft Todd AO screen at the Rivoli was on the small side.
So what was the size of the Roxy screen from 27 til 53? Then what was the size of the Cinemascope screen that people were overwhelmed by?