Saw “The Goodbye Girl” here in December 1977.
I can’t think of any other theater that one enters from the top of the balcony – a true balcony, that is. – Ed Blank
One final, memorable Palace experience:
I was scheduled to attend a Wednesday matinee of “Woman of the Year” for review purposes and to interview Lauren Bacall’s co-star, the very affable Harry Guardino, immediately after the matinee. This would be time taken out of his dinner break before the evening performance.
After the matinee, I made my way to the stage door, but the press agent intercepted me with the news that Rock Hudson (Bacall’s co-star in “Written on the Wind”) and film producer Ross Hunter had attended that matinee, too, and had come backstage to pay courtesy calls on Bacall (first) and then Guardino.
I cooled my heels backstage, dressed in a suit and tie and holding my pocket-size tape recorder, waiting for the “all clear” sign.
I had hoped to see Hudson and Hunter leaving, but from the area backstage where I was sequestered, I did not.
Eventually the press agent reappeared and told me to take the backstage phone-booth-size elevator up to Guardino’s dressing room, which was on the third or fourth floor.
I hadn’t really minded the delay. The news about Hudson and Hunter being there was a little extra column fodder for me.
So I entered to the mini-elevator and pressed the appropriate button, and at the last minute a woman appeared unexpectedly, entered the elevator with me and, without a word, pressed another button.
There we were, chest to chest, and in a flash I realized it was Bacall. I spontaneously and cheerfully said, “Oh, hi.” She did not make eye contact, and she did not respond. Hey – her privilege. But how much effort does it take? Guardino, on the other hand, apologized for the delay and could not have been friendlier.
Both before and later, I heard Miss Bacall could be, well, unapproachable.
Sixteen years later, almost to the day, when she was a shoo-in to win the supporting actress Oscar for “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” and I don’t think there was an Oscar forecast anywhere that didn’t pick her, she lost the Oscar to an astonished Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”).
I’ve always wondered if, over the years, enough non-celebrity members of the Motion Picture Academy had had cool close encounters with the actress and if experiences mirroring my awkward elevator ride in the Palace had possibly – just possibly – caught up to her and canceled out a sure Oscar win.
But that Palace memory trumps the many more pleasant ones. – Ed Blank
I’ve covered many Broadway shows at the Palace since it went legit and once had a cordial dressing-room interview with George Hearn during the run of “La Cage aux Folles.”
Was there for a final preview of “Break a Leg,” which promptly folded opening night. I had taken an elderly friend named Tom Bate to the Saturday matinee of the comedy starring Julie Harris and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly.
After the show, Mr. Bate, who was 80-something, asked if I’d mind waiting while he made a quick trip downstairs to the men’s room. After an inordinately long wait, during which the theater had finished emptying and the staff was closing the theater until the evening performance, someone came up to the lobby and asked if I was Mr. Blank.
Mr. Bate, it turns out, has been pistol-whipped by someone who was hiding in one of the stalls after the performance. My friend bled profusely. While Mr. Bate and I waiting for an ambulance to take him to a nearby hospital, director Reilly stopped for a few minutes, and Julie Harris stayed with us until the ambulance arrived. Both were so kind to en elderly man who, though a member of the actors' union, they did not know. – Ed Blank
The first movie and possibly the only movie I saw at the Palace was “Bedtime Story,” with Marlon Brando, Shirley Jones and David Niven, in late July 1964. I still think it’s a funnier movie than it was given credit for being. – Ed Blank
From the time Angelika opened in 1989, I attended many times on twice-annual trips to New York. Like Lincoln Plaza and other art houses, it was a place to see foreign and independent movies before they reached my hometown of Pittsburgh PA.
That said, I never enjoyed my trips Downtown to the Angelika because those six subterranean dungeons were dreary and uncomfortable. Once while in the nicest one, beneath the lobby, I found the ceiling was leaking into buckets.
After an experience in the mid to late 1990s, though, I resolved never to return and never did:
I had arrived late in the morning and purchased two tickets immediately – one for the first show in one auditorium and the other for the second performance in a different auditorium.
The food in the lobby had become so pricey I resolved to make do with the popcorn downstairs. I took the long escalator ride down and became the first customer of the morning at the popcorn stand.
While I waited for a bucket from the morning’s first batch, the attendant carried a large bucket of unpopped kernels toward the popcorn machine to pour the kernels into the top.
Just at that moment something knocked him in the feet, and the bucket of unpopped kernels was launched at least a foot into the air. The attendant looked down immediately, even as the kernels were ascending, and gasped, “What a big rat!”
I was stunned, as if someone had punched me, and I involuntarily took a step or two backwards from the concession stand. All of a sudden a rat the size of a tomcat darted out from behind the concession satand and made two sharp left turns. The attendant, who now had a ton of kernels to sweep up, and I looked at each other as if to say, “Did you see what I just saw?”
I got right back on the escalator, went to the ticket taker at the top and said I wanted my money back for both movies.
He phoned the manager’s offioce and said, “Some guy out here wants his money back for two movies” and, after pausing to listen to the manager, said to me, “Why?”
“Because there’s a big rat running around the popcorn stand downstairs,” I said.
The ticket taker said into the phone, “He said we have rats.” Without another word, he hung up the phone and nodded at me to go out to the box office. The young lady in the box office immediately answered her phone (presumably a call from the manager) and issued me my refunds without delay.
So I did get my money back, but I never returned.
When I told a New York friend about the experience, she responded, “And that’s why I won’t go to the Quad, either.” – Ed Blank
I’m sure you’re right, Ken, but I hadn’t considered that. The folks waiting to board planes and the folks waiting to pick up passengers from arriving planes are now divided in half, which in turn would splinter in two any potential audience for a commercially run moviehouse.
The theater was built in an airport that opened in the early 1950s when families could still drive to the airport to watch planes land and take off and maybe take in a movie as part of the experience of being in a then-ultra-modern facility. This building even housed one of the Pittsburgh area’s (temporarily)leading nightclubs, the Horizon Room. – Ed Blank
From the time this theater opened Nov. 20, 1920, through 1929, it was called the American Theatre. From 1930 through its closing in 1958, it was the Paramount. I never attended the theater, but like John Schmude, I was intrigued in the 1970s to be able to stand behind the former theater when the giant garage door was open and to look into the auto body shop and to see how much the nearly empty shell betrayed its roots as a moviehouse. – Ed Blank
Thanks, Dodger. Your memories of the Astor are invaluable. Since rediscovering this website a couple of weeks ago I’ve been reading it compulsively, usually well into the night. I’ve been checking the blogs for every theater in every city I’ve ever visited. Best page-turner I’ve ever read.
If I can ever tear myself away from the many dozens of Manhattan theater blogs, I want to make contributions to nearly 100 Pittsburgh area theaters listed. Most of those blogs are very spare; some have no entries at all.
The downside of the Manhattan blogs is that can take hours to wade through. The one for Radio City Music Hall must be the “War and Peace” of movie blogs.
I’m grateful we have this gift – this forum in which to exchange tidbits.
Aside: One of the neatest coincidences when the Astor and the Victoria were grinding profitably was when each had a new big hit starring Bill Holden. He was side by side starring in “Stalag 17” at the Astor and “The Moon Is Blue” at the Victoria. — Ed Blank
What a weird buzz I got wandering into the Astor’s former shell after it had become that flea market. The place was abuzz but junky. You can’t get that buzz, I think, unless the shell of the old structure is the same and you can remember clearly how it had been when it was a moviehouse (the ticket-taker was just about here, the screen was against that wall over there, etc.).
Our memories are valueless to just about anyone who didn’t experience these grand old movie emporiums firsthand, but Cinema Treasures is a treasure trove of shared recollections by people who can revivify and amplify one’s own fading memories. Thank you, one and all. — Ed Blank
Just checked my records. We had the 10 classics on the night of Wednesday, Oct. 9, 1974 (starting late Tuesday night). Admission $1. I erred on this point: Exactly 600 people bought a ticket at some time during the 20-hour marathon. Then, because the previous regular attraction (“A Very Natural Thing”) wasn’t strong enough to continue, and “The Odessa File” could not open until a week later, the Squirrel Hill filled in with an eight-day reissue combo of “The Parallax View” and “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.” – Ed Blank
The Pittsburgh one definitely started late on a Wednesday or a Thursday evening. And ours was midnight, too, now that I think it through because I remember adding up all the screening times in advance because I doubted that they could all be finished by 8 p.m. Fortunately the breaks between them were very brief if not nonexistent. The theater was a 793-seater back then (later to be chopped up). I was pleasantly surprised that maybe 100-140 people were there at the start and most stayed for the 20 hours. “The Odessa File” screening that followed around 9 p.m. drew several hundred.
By the way, Al, I’m enjoying finding your contributions to many of the NYC theater blogs. You and Warren and Dave-Bronx have made many invaluable contributions in terms of information and observations. – Ed Blank
One more memory: It was a revelation to me, in my 20s and 30s, visiting a land of Oz called Manhattan for two or three weeks per year, that you folks not only had upwards of a dozen great (if sometimes dilapidated) revival houses but that the audiences embraced old movies with such passion that they sometimes applauded opening credits. That was especially true at Theatre 80 St. Marks.
I certainly had my own favorite stars, but I was surprised that some stars were in especially great favor (Judy Garland, Ann Miller, Roz Russell – mainly in “His Girl Friday”) and even more surprised that other stars might be booed. The main one I can remember that happening to once was June Allyson. I knew that girls next door had gone out of favor, but to this day I like her a lot – a lifelong crush – and was dismayed by the reaction her name drew.
Can anyone think of other stars who received an especially strong response one way or the other? – Ed Blank
I have innumerable happy memories of this theater. And since I first ventured down there to see a live show, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” with its original cast, I have to admit mixed feelings that it’s a legitimate theater again. It certainly never was ideal for movies.
I’d seen dozens of double bills of classics there over the years before I arrived early enough once – and with no other patrons behind me in line – to get the gentleman in the box office (presumably Howard Otway) – to explain about the peculiar rear-screen projection process.
I was introduced to countless old movies there, always in imaginatively designed double bills.
My single fondest memory: I had seen “Sudden Fear” when it was new in 1952 and about eight years later on Pittsburgh TV. Then the picture disappeared – totally – even though it was never on those lists of films that had vanished from Planet Earth for decades back then (“Porgy & Bess,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” “The Manchurian Candidate,” the 1956 version of “1984,” etc.)
Anyway, I phoned either Howard Otway or his son once to ask if he could send the next schedule a few days early to me in Pittsburgh because I feared missing it in transit as I headed for NYC. Somehow the subject of “Sudden Fear” came up (I no doubt was cataloging movies aloud), and Mr. Otway said, “But we’ve got it! We’re about to play it for the first time. It’s on the next schedule.” Turned out it was to play the day before I arrived with 100-some theatergoers I was shepherding to Broadway. I could not change my arrival date. Damned if he didn’t say, “Look, the schedules don’t go to the printer for a day or two. If you promise you’ll come to `Sudden Fear,‘ I’ll postpone it a couple of days for you.” He kept his word, and I got to see it for the first time in 30-some years. Not too long later, the film became available on laser disc and then DVD, both of which I bought. But what a kick that he made so kind a gesture for an out-of-towner. – Ed Blank
Was only in this theater three times, I think – two of them after the twinning. Can’t remember what I saw, but I do remember going back to the lobby during one visit to tell them it was so cold in the auditorium that I could see my own breath. I was already wearing a suit coat, overcoat, scarf and gloves. As I recall, they never did correct the problem. – Ed Blank
Thank you very much, Al. It’s unlikely I would have thought of “The Professionals.” I wonder how many cities had that festival and if we all had it the same night. I’ve gotta think there were only one or two usable prints of most of those films and that they moved around daily for a couple of weeks. I do remember they were shown in precise chronological sequence in Pittsburgh and that I helplessly dozed during the second and third ones, “Mr. Deeds” and “Mr. Smith.” Never imagined that a few years later I’d be able to buy all of them, and so many more, on VHS. – Ed Blank
SethLewis mentioned above, in 2004, that the Columbia I & II hosted a retrospective of Columbia classics to celebrate the studio’s 50th anniversary in 1974. We had that all-night show in Pittsburgh, too, at Squirrel Hill Theater. It consisted of 10 outstanding Columbia films, shown from oldest to newest. Do you New Yorkers have the same 10? Can you identify them, using my partial list as a starting point: From memory, they were “It Happened One Night,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “His Girl Friday” (not positive about that one), “From Here to Eternity,” “On the Waterfront,” “Bridge on the River Kwai” and “Funny Girl” (I think). And I’m missing at least one. (I don’t think “Oliver” or “Gilda” were part of it, but I’m tempted to say “Born Yesterday” or “A Man for All Seasons” were in there.) The program started at either 8 p.m. or midnight, and the 10th film ended at about 7 p.m. the next evening. The theater emptied for a two-hour (or less) dinner break. We all headed for nearby eateries and then returned for the 11th feature, which was a premiere of Columbia’s latest, “The Odessa File.” Does this marathon sound familiar to Seth and others who might have caught it in Manhattan? – Ed Blank
The starting times for movies here always seemed to be inordinately spaced out, with breaks of maybe an hour with nothing on the screen. And attendance never was good in my experience. — Ed Blank
This theater, under its various identities, has yielded an eclectic variety of bookings over the years. I saw Disney’s “The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit” on one visit and “I Am Curious (Yellow)” on another – both first-runs. My fondest memory is of a period when the theater was running double features of great contemporary films at midnight on weekends. I caught a bill consisting of “A Thousand Clowns” and a great personal favorite, “Lord Love a Duck.” – Ed Blank
Have many of you noted that many/most of the photos and newspaper pages entered into Cinema Treasures under Photobucket.com expire, or for whatever reason become inaccessible, after a year or two? I’ve found that’s true in a hundred different moviehouse blogs on the Cinema Treasures site. – Ed Blank
Ken, Sure would appreciate it if you’d take a photo of what’s left of Steel Pier and open the blog on Steel Pier with it. I’m sure many of us would like to contribute to that link. It had three moviehouses within it(though only two were used for films during the second part of the 20th Century), so it should be eligible. – Ed Blank
Am I correct in remembering that this was the nicest theater in Ocean City, NJ, in the mid-1950s? If so, it’s where I saw “To Catch a Thief” in the summer of 1955. – Ed Blank
I liked the Roxy a lot. I remember seeing “A Hole in the Head” there in the summer of 1959. Can’t remember any other specific films I saw there, and I don’t know when it closed. – Ed Blank
Saw “The Goodbye Girl” here in December 1977.
I can’t think of any other theater that one enters from the top of the balcony – a true balcony, that is. – Ed Blank
One final, memorable Palace experience:
I was scheduled to attend a Wednesday matinee of “Woman of the Year” for review purposes and to interview Lauren Bacall’s co-star, the very affable Harry Guardino, immediately after the matinee. This would be time taken out of his dinner break before the evening performance.
After the matinee, I made my way to the stage door, but the press agent intercepted me with the news that Rock Hudson (Bacall’s co-star in “Written on the Wind”) and film producer Ross Hunter had attended that matinee, too, and had come backstage to pay courtesy calls on Bacall (first) and then Guardino.
I cooled my heels backstage, dressed in a suit and tie and holding my pocket-size tape recorder, waiting for the “all clear” sign.
I had hoped to see Hudson and Hunter leaving, but from the area backstage where I was sequestered, I did not.
Eventually the press agent reappeared and told me to take the backstage phone-booth-size elevator up to Guardino’s dressing room, which was on the third or fourth floor.
I hadn’t really minded the delay. The news about Hudson and Hunter being there was a little extra column fodder for me.
So I entered to the mini-elevator and pressed the appropriate button, and at the last minute a woman appeared unexpectedly, entered the elevator with me and, without a word, pressed another button.
There we were, chest to chest, and in a flash I realized it was Bacall. I spontaneously and cheerfully said, “Oh, hi.” She did not make eye contact, and she did not respond. Hey – her privilege. But how much effort does it take? Guardino, on the other hand, apologized for the delay and could not have been friendlier.
Both before and later, I heard Miss Bacall could be, well, unapproachable.
Sixteen years later, almost to the day, when she was a shoo-in to win the supporting actress Oscar for “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” and I don’t think there was an Oscar forecast anywhere that didn’t pick her, she lost the Oscar to an astonished Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”).
I’ve always wondered if, over the years, enough non-celebrity members of the Motion Picture Academy had had cool close encounters with the actress and if experiences mirroring my awkward elevator ride in the Palace had possibly – just possibly – caught up to her and canceled out a sure Oscar win.
But that Palace memory trumps the many more pleasant ones. – Ed Blank
I’ve covered many Broadway shows at the Palace since it went legit and once had a cordial dressing-room interview with George Hearn during the run of “La Cage aux Folles.”
Was there for a final preview of “Break a Leg,” which promptly folded opening night. I had taken an elderly friend named Tom Bate to the Saturday matinee of the comedy starring Julie Harris and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly.
After the show, Mr. Bate, who was 80-something, asked if I’d mind waiting while he made a quick trip downstairs to the men’s room. After an inordinately long wait, during which the theater had finished emptying and the staff was closing the theater until the evening performance, someone came up to the lobby and asked if I was Mr. Blank.
Mr. Bate, it turns out, has been pistol-whipped by someone who was hiding in one of the stalls after the performance. My friend bled profusely. While Mr. Bate and I waiting for an ambulance to take him to a nearby hospital, director Reilly stopped for a few minutes, and Julie Harris stayed with us until the ambulance arrived. Both were so kind to en elderly man who, though a member of the actors' union, they did not know. – Ed Blank
The first movie and possibly the only movie I saw at the Palace was “Bedtime Story,” with Marlon Brando, Shirley Jones and David Niven, in late July 1964. I still think it’s a funnier movie than it was given credit for being. – Ed Blank
From the time Angelika opened in 1989, I attended many times on twice-annual trips to New York. Like Lincoln Plaza and other art houses, it was a place to see foreign and independent movies before they reached my hometown of Pittsburgh PA.
That said, I never enjoyed my trips Downtown to the Angelika because those six subterranean dungeons were dreary and uncomfortable. Once while in the nicest one, beneath the lobby, I found the ceiling was leaking into buckets.
After an experience in the mid to late 1990s, though, I resolved never to return and never did:
I had arrived late in the morning and purchased two tickets immediately – one for the first show in one auditorium and the other for the second performance in a different auditorium.
The food in the lobby had become so pricey I resolved to make do with the popcorn downstairs. I took the long escalator ride down and became the first customer of the morning at the popcorn stand.
While I waited for a bucket from the morning’s first batch, the attendant carried a large bucket of unpopped kernels toward the popcorn machine to pour the kernels into the top.
Just at that moment something knocked him in the feet, and the bucket of unpopped kernels was launched at least a foot into the air. The attendant looked down immediately, even as the kernels were ascending, and gasped, “What a big rat!”
I was stunned, as if someone had punched me, and I involuntarily took a step or two backwards from the concession stand. All of a sudden a rat the size of a tomcat darted out from behind the concession satand and made two sharp left turns. The attendant, who now had a ton of kernels to sweep up, and I looked at each other as if to say, “Did you see what I just saw?”
I got right back on the escalator, went to the ticket taker at the top and said I wanted my money back for both movies.
He phoned the manager’s offioce and said, “Some guy out here wants his money back for two movies” and, after pausing to listen to the manager, said to me, “Why?”
“Because there’s a big rat running around the popcorn stand downstairs,” I said.
The ticket taker said into the phone, “He said we have rats.” Without another word, he hung up the phone and nodded at me to go out to the box office. The young lady in the box office immediately answered her phone (presumably a call from the manager) and issued me my refunds without delay.
So I did get my money back, but I never returned.
When I told a New York friend about the experience, she responded, “And that’s why I won’t go to the Quad, either.” – Ed Blank
I’m sure you’re right, Ken, but I hadn’t considered that. The folks waiting to board planes and the folks waiting to pick up passengers from arriving planes are now divided in half, which in turn would splinter in two any potential audience for a commercially run moviehouse.
The theater was built in an airport that opened in the early 1950s when families could still drive to the airport to watch planes land and take off and maybe take in a movie as part of the experience of being in a then-ultra-modern facility. This building even housed one of the Pittsburgh area’s (temporarily)leading nightclubs, the Horizon Room. – Ed Blank
From the time this theater opened Nov. 20, 1920, through 1929, it was called the American Theatre. From 1930 through its closing in 1958, it was the Paramount. I never attended the theater, but like John Schmude, I was intrigued in the 1970s to be able to stand behind the former theater when the giant garage door was open and to look into the auto body shop and to see how much the nearly empty shell betrayed its roots as a moviehouse. – Ed Blank
Have any other airports in the United States ever had commercial moviehouses within them? Has any airport today such a theater? – Ed Blank
The theater was open from 1916-28. – Ed Blank
Thanks, Dodger. Your memories of the Astor are invaluable. Since rediscovering this website a couple of weeks ago I’ve been reading it compulsively, usually well into the night. I’ve been checking the blogs for every theater in every city I’ve ever visited. Best page-turner I’ve ever read.
If I can ever tear myself away from the many dozens of Manhattan theater blogs, I want to make contributions to nearly 100 Pittsburgh area theaters listed. Most of those blogs are very spare; some have no entries at all.
The downside of the Manhattan blogs is that can take hours to wade through. The one for Radio City Music Hall must be the “War and Peace” of movie blogs.
I’m grateful we have this gift – this forum in which to exchange tidbits.
Aside: One of the neatest coincidences when the Astor and the Victoria were grinding profitably was when each had a new big hit starring Bill Holden. He was side by side starring in “Stalag 17” at the Astor and “The Moon Is Blue” at the Victoria. — Ed Blank
What a weird buzz I got wandering into the Astor’s former shell after it had become that flea market. The place was abuzz but junky. You can’t get that buzz, I think, unless the shell of the old structure is the same and you can remember clearly how it had been when it was a moviehouse (the ticket-taker was just about here, the screen was against that wall over there, etc.).
Our memories are valueless to just about anyone who didn’t experience these grand old movie emporiums firsthand, but Cinema Treasures is a treasure trove of shared recollections by people who can revivify and amplify one’s own fading memories. Thank you, one and all. — Ed Blank
Just checked my records. We had the 10 classics on the night of Wednesday, Oct. 9, 1974 (starting late Tuesday night). Admission $1. I erred on this point: Exactly 600 people bought a ticket at some time during the 20-hour marathon. Then, because the previous regular attraction (“A Very Natural Thing”) wasn’t strong enough to continue, and “The Odessa File” could not open until a week later, the Squirrel Hill filled in with an eight-day reissue combo of “The Parallax View” and “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.” – Ed Blank
The Pittsburgh one definitely started late on a Wednesday or a Thursday evening. And ours was midnight, too, now that I think it through because I remember adding up all the screening times in advance because I doubted that they could all be finished by 8 p.m. Fortunately the breaks between them were very brief if not nonexistent. The theater was a 793-seater back then (later to be chopped up). I was pleasantly surprised that maybe 100-140 people were there at the start and most stayed for the 20 hours. “The Odessa File” screening that followed around 9 p.m. drew several hundred.
By the way, Al, I’m enjoying finding your contributions to many of the NYC theater blogs. You and Warren and Dave-Bronx have made many invaluable contributions in terms of information and observations. – Ed Blank
One more memory: It was a revelation to me, in my 20s and 30s, visiting a land of Oz called Manhattan for two or three weeks per year, that you folks not only had upwards of a dozen great (if sometimes dilapidated) revival houses but that the audiences embraced old movies with such passion that they sometimes applauded opening credits. That was especially true at Theatre 80 St. Marks.
I certainly had my own favorite stars, but I was surprised that some stars were in especially great favor (Judy Garland, Ann Miller, Roz Russell – mainly in “His Girl Friday”) and even more surprised that other stars might be booed. The main one I can remember that happening to once was June Allyson. I knew that girls next door had gone out of favor, but to this day I like her a lot – a lifelong crush – and was dismayed by the reaction her name drew.
Can anyone think of other stars who received an especially strong response one way or the other? – Ed Blank
I have innumerable happy memories of this theater. And since I first ventured down there to see a live show, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” with its original cast, I have to admit mixed feelings that it’s a legitimate theater again. It certainly never was ideal for movies.
I’d seen dozens of double bills of classics there over the years before I arrived early enough once – and with no other patrons behind me in line – to get the gentleman in the box office (presumably Howard Otway) – to explain about the peculiar rear-screen projection process.
I was introduced to countless old movies there, always in imaginatively designed double bills.
My single fondest memory: I had seen “Sudden Fear” when it was new in 1952 and about eight years later on Pittsburgh TV. Then the picture disappeared – totally – even though it was never on those lists of films that had vanished from Planet Earth for decades back then (“Porgy & Bess,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” “The Manchurian Candidate,” the 1956 version of “1984,” etc.)
Anyway, I phoned either Howard Otway or his son once to ask if he could send the next schedule a few days early to me in Pittsburgh because I feared missing it in transit as I headed for NYC. Somehow the subject of “Sudden Fear” came up (I no doubt was cataloging movies aloud), and Mr. Otway said, “But we’ve got it! We’re about to play it for the first time. It’s on the next schedule.” Turned out it was to play the day before I arrived with 100-some theatergoers I was shepherding to Broadway. I could not change my arrival date. Damned if he didn’t say, “Look, the schedules don’t go to the printer for a day or two. If you promise you’ll come to `Sudden Fear,‘ I’ll postpone it a couple of days for you.” He kept his word, and I got to see it for the first time in 30-some years. Not too long later, the film became available on laser disc and then DVD, both of which I bought. But what a kick that he made so kind a gesture for an out-of-towner. – Ed Blank
Was only in this theater three times, I think – two of them after the twinning. Can’t remember what I saw, but I do remember going back to the lobby during one visit to tell them it was so cold in the auditorium that I could see my own breath. I was already wearing a suit coat, overcoat, scarf and gloves. As I recall, they never did correct the problem. – Ed Blank
Thank you very much, Al. It’s unlikely I would have thought of “The Professionals.” I wonder how many cities had that festival and if we all had it the same night. I’ve gotta think there were only one or two usable prints of most of those films and that they moved around daily for a couple of weeks. I do remember they were shown in precise chronological sequence in Pittsburgh and that I helplessly dozed during the second and third ones, “Mr. Deeds” and “Mr. Smith.” Never imagined that a few years later I’d be able to buy all of them, and so many more, on VHS. – Ed Blank
SethLewis mentioned above, in 2004, that the Columbia I & II hosted a retrospective of Columbia classics to celebrate the studio’s 50th anniversary in 1974. We had that all-night show in Pittsburgh, too, at Squirrel Hill Theater. It consisted of 10 outstanding Columbia films, shown from oldest to newest. Do you New Yorkers have the same 10? Can you identify them, using my partial list as a starting point: From memory, they were “It Happened One Night,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “His Girl Friday” (not positive about that one), “From Here to Eternity,” “On the Waterfront,” “Bridge on the River Kwai” and “Funny Girl” (I think). And I’m missing at least one. (I don’t think “Oliver” or “Gilda” were part of it, but I’m tempted to say “Born Yesterday” or “A Man for All Seasons” were in there.) The program started at either 8 p.m. or midnight, and the 10th film ended at about 7 p.m. the next evening. The theater emptied for a two-hour (or less) dinner break. We all headed for nearby eateries and then returned for the 11th feature, which was a premiere of Columbia’s latest, “The Odessa File.” Does this marathon sound familiar to Seth and others who might have caught it in Manhattan? – Ed Blank
The starting times for movies here always seemed to be inordinately spaced out, with breaks of maybe an hour with nothing on the screen. And attendance never was good in my experience. — Ed Blank
This theater, under its various identities, has yielded an eclectic variety of bookings over the years. I saw Disney’s “The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit” on one visit and “I Am Curious (Yellow)” on another – both first-runs. My fondest memory is of a period when the theater was running double features of great contemporary films at midnight on weekends. I caught a bill consisting of “A Thousand Clowns” and a great personal favorite, “Lord Love a Duck.” – Ed Blank
Have many of you noted that many/most of the photos and newspaper pages entered into Cinema Treasures under Photobucket.com expire, or for whatever reason become inaccessible, after a year or two? I’ve found that’s true in a hundred different moviehouse blogs on the Cinema Treasures site. – Ed Blank
Ken, Sure would appreciate it if you’d take a photo of what’s left of Steel Pier and open the blog on Steel Pier with it. I’m sure many of us would like to contribute to that link. It had three moviehouses within it(though only two were used for films during the second part of the 20th Century), so it should be eligible. – Ed Blank
Saw “White Witch Doctor” here in the summer of 1953. A memorably beautiful theater. – Ed Blank
Am I correct in remembering that this was the nicest theater in Ocean City, NJ, in the mid-1950s? If so, it’s where I saw “To Catch a Thief” in the summer of 1955. – Ed Blank
I liked the Roxy a lot. I remember seeing “A Hole in the Head” there in the summer of 1959. Can’t remember any other specific films I saw there, and I don’t know when it closed. – Ed Blank