So when was this box office permanently closed? From the very early 70’s I don’t remember it ever being opened. Also when did the Music Hall start letting group sales in by this entrance? I seem to remember that the Music Hall didn’t start allowing group sales with preferential entrance privileges until about 1970. I believe Pauline Kael in her review of the 69 Christmas show writes about the groups of school children being forced to join the outside line which seems kind of strange.
OK so let’s say I’ve died and gone to heaven.
This would be the Loew’s presenting 70mm. However they install a screen of 60 to 70 ft for just such a purpose.
The Loews is great for Vistavision(how about Vertigo, Funny Face or Strategic Air Command?) But cinemascope in that huge place is a disappointment as screen size is reduced by a third to a half.
Anyway if the people at the Loew’s(and though I don’t know you I love you all)are interested I’m for starting a NY wide-screen club and working to find a way to make a portable screen for such events. Having no expertise in such matters I don’t know if this is even doable. Might the Loew’s be interested in something like this? Any comments?
I’d like top amend my above comment about having the dvd in a couple of months, today you can literally trip over them in the street or the subway on opening day.
I don’t know about that. The mass audience seems to like the useless and the pointless(MI, Spiderman II, the collected works of Adam Sandler.) Times when thousands would line up outside the Hall to see Top Hat, Mrs Miniver and The Odd Couple seem to me today paleolithic.
But lets face it the audiences don’t give a damn either so why spend the money? They’re more than happy to shove their money in the till many times over for the latest rotten blockbuster that they’ll buy on DVD in a few months.
Wasn’t Funny Face in true stereo?
I’m sorry this is off topic but the Coronet, the original, was one of my favorite art houses. It was along with the Beekman maybe one of the two best in terms of a comfortable pleasant auditorium and nice screen size. Why are people only now realizing the loss to the upper East Side and to New York as a whole?
Most of this information can be found in exhaustive detail on Marty Hart’s incredible website Screenhttp://www.widescreenmuseum.com/
This guy is amazing.
Only wish he had an actual theater museum here in New York to demonstrate it. Of course we would need a few theaters. Like the Criterion for Super Panavision 70 The Rivoli for Todd AO and the Paramount for VistaVision and the Music Hall or the Roxy for the original 2:55 ratio Cinemascope (rather than the later 2:35.)
For those of you who were fortunate to have seen true VistaVision at either the Music Hall(Funny Face I imagine in 57 would be included)or the Paramount is there an appreciable difference?
How unfortunate today that things must be extreme. Just saw some of the Big Spender number from the revival of Sweet Charity on TV last week. The jaded dance hall hostesses of New York 1966 have become soft core Russ Meyer vixens circa 1973. In todays entertainment world your either a dogma thunping fundamentalist or an arrested development teenage prostie like Britney.
The Hall is just another symptom of todays cultural rot.
Speaking of the TC can somebody verify what a previous post says that this was not shown in genuine VistaVision at the Criterion. It seems odd that a major New York roadshow presentation in 56 was not shown it its original film process. Kind of like the Criterion deciding in 62 to present Lawrence in a 35mm reduction instead of the available 70mm.
Bob they did you a favor.
Yes there was a narration in the original Nativity. However it was more like the Linus narration in Charlie Brown Christmas which I happen to think is wonderful.
Banal pieties seem to have taken the place of eloquence and brevity.
But I think that basically there was no longer a paying audience even for $3.00. The Hall was no longer getting the cream of Hollywood films(that’s why they would play a dubbed foreign film like Sunflower and crud like See No Evil) and the stage shows were becoming increasingly threadbare. I went to many Saturday performances during this era that were not well attended and I believe up until the mid 60’s the weekends always had lines.
Another example-when The Way We Were was new the Hall was showing The Optimists. And after the summer of 70 Bolero was never done again and it was I think after the holiday shows its most popular stage attraction.
Leonidoff’s Nativity and Glory of Easter were two of my favorite theatrical events.
The current show is a manifestation of current religious smugness and righteousness(and Christians are not the only perpetrators.)
If RH were not so quick to label us as Christian bashers(I was raised a good Catholic boy) he or she would understand that what we find objectional is the reduction of a great theatrical pageant narrating the story of Christmas using imagery from Rennaissance painters to a flattened out fundamentalist tract that does little to impart the true meaning of Christmas and only reinforces a tendancy to assume superiority.
Leonidoff avoided this while at the same time creating a thrilling sense of exhiliration. And he was Russian Orthodox!!!
What in the world has happened to us?
Christian bashing indeed.
Benjamin a first run non roadshow movie for instance at the Loews State cost $3.00. $2.00 was the afternoon price at the Music Hall until 6pm. So if you saw the 6pm stage show and then the movie you payed the afternoon price. I believe weekday prices were 1.50, 2.00, 2.50.
Prices went up that summer with Darling Lili. At that point the evening price matched the price of a first run movie. 1.75 became the mornng weekday price at the Hall. This was an incredible bargain even for the time. I mean a movie a symphony orchestra, a ballet, and the Rockettes and the place itself. And this was the 70’s!
This is what is said currently in the holiday show?
Are they insane?
I had mercifully forgotten most of it.
Thank God Leonidoff is dead so as not to see this travesty. He would be aghast.
Maybe they can invite Mel Gibson to stage The Gory of Easter.
There was a chinese place near the Music Hall on 50th Street between 7th and 6th. It was on a second floor. Could this have been Ho Ho?
I ate there after seeing Airport. It was $2.50 for a complete chow main dinner. Everything mentioned above including an egg roll.
Airport with the Easter show was $2.00.
OK so today the Christmas show is $100.00. But I don’t think a full chow main dinner would cost $125.00 even accounting for inflation.
Silent movies require more concentration creating a more rapt focused audience. I imagine these vast audiences of thousands of people totally involved in what was going on. That must have been something.
So CC I guess you were born in 66 making that the year I first visited the Hall(October.) I thought the stage show was spectacular and my mother, who hadn’t been there in years, remarked that it was pretty disappointing in comparison to the ones she had seen in the 40s and 50s.
Amazingly enough I saw a program on ebay from 33 or 34 where the stage show included some of the same features or acts that I saw in my very first show! Also the stage show I saw with the Timothy Dalton Wuthering Heights in 71(the Rockettes did a thing called Bayou Rythym and it was one of their great numbers) was the same as with the film Picnic in 56. I guess as the years went on the thing that basicially changed was scale of the presentation.
What about the line that goes something like-when you find yourself climbing up(to the 2nd and 3rd Mezz) and find the going hard
They are on their guard.
They send a St Bernard.
Hart got that last line wrong. Even back in the 30’s the success of a week at the Hall depended on what film was being shown.
Also the song from I Married an Angel(the whole musical is wonderful but would be too expensive to revive today and I would be the only person in the audience in any case)introduced a Balanchine production number which was the highlight of the show. From what I gather it was very funny including a Rockette line of 2 and an Undersea Ballet terrorized by a sea monster.
Also the photos of the stage shows alluded to above and placed in front of the theater were quite wonderful and I believe taken by a company called Impact. What I liked were the photos of old stage shows which were on 50th St. These were more spectacular as they were from the 50’s and 60’s. I’d like to know what happened to them as they are an invaluable record as to the what the shows actually looked like. A few can be seen in souvenir books from the era but there were many more.
Does anybody remember like me that when they were tearing down the marquee one saw that underneath was the curved frame of the marquee that one sees in photos of the exterior of the theater from the early 30s? Who would have thought that it still existed for 50 years hidden away.
But guys even if the Hall management would want to do this(yeah right)is this a Christmas family film? Better a revival of Meet Me St Louis or Singing in the Rain.(They blew Mary Poppins big time.)Of course then I would have to go in and completely redo that wretched stage show.
So when was this box office permanently closed? From the very early 70’s I don’t remember it ever being opened. Also when did the Music Hall start letting group sales in by this entrance? I seem to remember that the Music Hall didn’t start allowing group sales with preferential entrance privileges until about 1970. I believe Pauline Kael in her review of the 69 Christmas show writes about the groups of school children being forced to join the outside line which seems kind of strange.
Thanks for your response. I look forward to your next program.
But an image of 2.35:1 has a screen size distinctly smaller than a 1:33 or 1:85 with the type of proscenium the Loew’s has.
OK so let’s say I’ve died and gone to heaven.
This would be the Loew’s presenting 70mm. However they install a screen of 60 to 70 ft for just such a purpose.
The Loews is great for Vistavision(how about Vertigo, Funny Face or Strategic Air Command?) But cinemascope in that huge place is a disappointment as screen size is reduced by a third to a half.
Anyway if the people at the Loew’s(and though I don’t know you I love you all)are interested I’m for starting a NY wide-screen club and working to find a way to make a portable screen for such events. Having no expertise in such matters I don’t know if this is even doable. Might the Loew’s be interested in something like this? Any comments?
I’d like top amend my above comment about having the dvd in a couple of months, today you can literally trip over them in the street or the subway on opening day.
I don’t know about that. The mass audience seems to like the useless and the pointless(MI, Spiderman II, the collected works of Adam Sandler.) Times when thousands would line up outside the Hall to see Top Hat, Mrs Miniver and The Odd Couple seem to me today paleolithic.
But lets face it the audiences don’t give a damn either so why spend the money? They’re more than happy to shove their money in the till many times over for the latest rotten blockbuster that they’ll buy on DVD in a few months.
Wasn’t Funny Face in true stereo?
I’m sorry this is off topic but the Coronet, the original, was one of my favorite art houses. It was along with the Beekman maybe one of the two best in terms of a comfortable pleasant auditorium and nice screen size. Why are people only now realizing the loss to the upper East Side and to New York as a whole?
Most of this information can be found in exhaustive detail on Marty Hart’s incredible website Screenhttp://www.widescreenmuseum.com/
This guy is amazing.
Only wish he had an actual theater museum here in New York to demonstrate it. Of course we would need a few theaters. Like the Criterion for Super Panavision 70 The Rivoli for Todd AO and the Paramount for VistaVision and the Music Hall or the Roxy for the original 2:55 ratio Cinemascope (rather than the later 2:35.)
For those of you who were fortunate to have seen true VistaVision at either the Music Hall(Funny Face I imagine in 57 would be included)or the Paramount is there an appreciable difference?
How unfortunate today that things must be extreme. Just saw some of the Big Spender number from the revival of Sweet Charity on TV last week. The jaded dance hall hostesses of New York 1966 have become soft core Russ Meyer vixens circa 1973. In todays entertainment world your either a dogma thunping fundamentalist or an arrested development teenage prostie like Britney.
The Hall is just another symptom of todays cultural rot.
Speaking of the TC can somebody verify what a previous post says that this was not shown in genuine VistaVision at the Criterion. It seems odd that a major New York roadshow presentation in 56 was not shown it its original film process. Kind of like the Criterion deciding in 62 to present Lawrence in a 35mm reduction instead of the available 70mm.
$100! Sheesh!
For $100 I expect to see My Fair Lady.
With the original cast.
Bob they did you a favor.
Yes there was a narration in the original Nativity. However it was more like the Linus narration in Charlie Brown Christmas which I happen to think is wonderful.
Banal pieties seem to have taken the place of eloquence and brevity.
But I think that basically there was no longer a paying audience even for $3.00. The Hall was no longer getting the cream of Hollywood films(that’s why they would play a dubbed foreign film like Sunflower and crud like See No Evil) and the stage shows were becoming increasingly threadbare. I went to many Saturday performances during this era that were not well attended and I believe up until the mid 60’s the weekends always had lines.
Another example-when The Way We Were was new the Hall was showing The Optimists. And after the summer of 70 Bolero was never done again and it was I think after the holiday shows its most popular stage attraction.
Leonidoff’s Nativity and Glory of Easter were two of my favorite theatrical events.
The current show is a manifestation of current religious smugness and righteousness(and Christians are not the only perpetrators.)
If RH were not so quick to label us as Christian bashers(I was raised a good Catholic boy) he or she would understand that what we find objectional is the reduction of a great theatrical pageant narrating the story of Christmas using imagery from Rennaissance painters to a flattened out fundamentalist tract that does little to impart the true meaning of Christmas and only reinforces a tendancy to assume superiority.
Leonidoff avoided this while at the same time creating a thrilling sense of exhiliration. And he was Russian Orthodox!!!
What in the world has happened to us?
Christian bashing indeed.
Benjamin a first run non roadshow movie for instance at the Loews State cost $3.00. $2.00 was the afternoon price at the Music Hall until 6pm. So if you saw the 6pm stage show and then the movie you payed the afternoon price. I believe weekday prices were 1.50, 2.00, 2.50.
Prices went up that summer with Darling Lili. At that point the evening price matched the price of a first run movie. 1.75 became the mornng weekday price at the Hall. This was an incredible bargain even for the time. I mean a movie a symphony orchestra, a ballet, and the Rockettes and the place itself. And this was the 70’s!
This is what is said currently in the holiday show?
Are they insane?
I had mercifully forgotten most of it.
Thank God Leonidoff is dead so as not to see this travesty. He would be aghast.
Maybe they can invite Mel Gibson to stage The Gory of Easter.
There was a chinese place near the Music Hall on 50th Street between 7th and 6th. It was on a second floor. Could this have been Ho Ho?
I ate there after seeing Airport. It was $2.50 for a complete chow main dinner. Everything mentioned above including an egg roll.
Airport with the Easter show was $2.00.
OK so today the Christmas show is $100.00. But I don’t think a full chow main dinner would cost $125.00 even accounting for inflation.
Silent movies require more concentration creating a more rapt focused audience. I imagine these vast audiences of thousands of people totally involved in what was going on. That must have been something.
So CC I guess you were born in 66 making that the year I first visited the Hall(October.) I thought the stage show was spectacular and my mother, who hadn’t been there in years, remarked that it was pretty disappointing in comparison to the ones she had seen in the 40s and 50s.
Amazingly enough I saw a program on ebay from 33 or 34 where the stage show included some of the same features or acts that I saw in my very first show! Also the stage show I saw with the Timothy Dalton Wuthering Heights in 71(the Rockettes did a thing called Bayou Rythym and it was one of their great numbers) was the same as with the film Picnic in 56. I guess as the years went on the thing that basicially changed was scale of the presentation.
What about the line that goes something like-when you find yourself climbing up(to the 2nd and 3rd Mezz) and find the going hard
They are on their guard.
They send a St Bernard.
Hart got that last line wrong. Even back in the 30’s the success of a week at the Hall depended on what film was being shown.
Also the song from I Married an Angel(the whole musical is wonderful but would be too expensive to revive today and I would be the only person in the audience in any case)introduced a Balanchine production number which was the highlight of the show. From what I gather it was very funny including a Rockette line of 2 and an Undersea Ballet terrorized by a sea monster.
Also the photos of the stage shows alluded to above and placed in front of the theater were quite wonderful and I believe taken by a company called Impact. What I liked were the photos of old stage shows which were on 50th St. These were more spectacular as they were from the 50’s and 60’s. I’d like to know what happened to them as they are an invaluable record as to the what the shows actually looked like. A few can be seen in souvenir books from the era but there were many more.
Does anybody remember like me that when they were tearing down the marquee one saw that underneath was the curved frame of the marquee that one sees in photos of the exterior of the theater from the early 30s? Who would have thought that it still existed for 50 years hidden away.
But guys even if the Hall management would want to do this(yeah right)is this a Christmas family film? Better a revival of Meet Me St Louis or Singing in the Rain.(They blew Mary Poppins big time.)Of course then I would have to go in and completely redo that wretched stage show.