Roxy Theatre
153 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
153 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
83 people
favorited this theater
Showing 676 - 700 of 1,209 comments
Does anyone have any color interior photos of the theater that can be posted?
So was this the Ray McDonald of Til the Clouds Roll By and Good News?
The whole town was burning up with talent.
Another wonderous job on those Roxy bookings. Looking forward to each year until its laast day. Espcially interested in 1958-1959 bookings.
The New York Phil with Mitropolous at the Roxy in the 50’s?!! Whaa?!!!
So Furtwangler and Berlin were at the Paramount?
With Grummer and Dermota sharing the bill with Steve Condos?
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Warren—
Thanks for another superb listing of the Roxy’s shows. A quick glance at the dates suggests that this was a successful year for the Roxy. Most shows played for three weeks and none for less than two. The longest (four weeks!) was, surprisingly, “Anne of the Indies†with the relatively low star-wattage of the stage acts (Sammy Davis, Jr. was just starting out at the time and couldn’t have been that big of a draw). Though the film was a B-level Fox offering with Jean Peters as a pirate girl (I’ll bet it played as second-feature when it hit the RKO nabes), its director was Jacques Tourneur: were there enough film cultists in those days to fill the Roxy? The show I would like to have seen was the preceding one, with Josephine Baker heading the stage portion: sensational. Leonard Maltin rates the film (which I have no memory trace of at all) as funny and winning.
The only show I saw there that year was “On the Riviera,†which a neighbor had tipped off my parents about as being hilarious. Irving Fields was an oddity, a concert pianist who had taken to playing at cocktail lounges accompanied by bass, drums, guitar, and bongos. He mixed Jewish melodies with Latin rhythms, most famously in “Mazeltov Merengue.†Corinne and Tito Vellez were a husband-and-wife Latin singing team (“Besame muchoâ€), and Peggy Ryan and Ray McDonald were a husband-and-wife tap-dancing team. All four had appeared in B-movies. Mimi Benzell was a second-level Met Opera soprano in the late ‘40s-early ‘50s (Musetta; Queen of the Night, with Ezio Pinza as Sarastro; Gilda, with Leonard Warren as Rigoletto) who also took to cocktail lounges singing Cole Porter and the like. Up the block, RCMH was showing “The Great Caruso,†so the Roxy’s answer to it appears to have been this opera-house/concert-hall stage equivalent.
Well when you lighten and enlarge the photo you start to see that the sign looks like it’s on the building at 51st. and Broadway were the Stardust Diner is located. Because when you lighten the picture you see the Capitol neon dome sign which would place it across from the Capitol Theatre at 51st Street.
It looks to me as if that Roxy sign might be a bit more in the foreground than the Rivoli Theater, Warren, thought it’s hard to tell for sure. It looks too high to have been on the roof of the Winter Garden Theater, so perhaps it was on the roof of the office building that stood on 51st along with the old Roseland ball room. That looks about right to me. And the Roxy itself was just a block to the east.
That sign looks like it was on the building that once housed the Roseland. That building was around seven stories tall plus the roof area. In the picture the Rivoli is a few blocks away.
Mr. Ralph…As I’ve seen almost all of the Ed Sullivan shows and quite a few of Mickey Mouse Clubs, I must have seen you. A real treat indeed.
Warren—
That wonderful picture must date from 1935. The show opened on Oct. 13 that year. If only it were in color. What must the chromatic range have been like?
Ron: the movies were: ANASTASIA with Yul Brynner, THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT with Jane Mansfield and HEAVEN KNOWS MR. ALLISON with Robert Mitchum.
Maybe you hae seen me on TV? I also appeared on the ED SULLIVAN SHOW, BIG TOP CIRCUS and MICKEY MOUSE CLUB. You can look into my webside: http://www.heid.net maybe you remember then.
Regards.
I have never been to the Roxy, but what a thrill it must have been to have seen a movie and stage show and an extra thrill to have been involved in the stage show itself. What were the movies that played there when you (Mr. Ralph) were in the show?
Hello
Would you believe, that I appeared in the ROXY 1957?
Yes I did! Ich was a chlid prodigy, playing the xylophone. (I’m not a child prodigy anymore, but I still play the xylophone).
What a great theatre that was.
I wonder if anyone remembers those days? and maybe even remembers me?
Please let me know.
Best regards from Switzerland
Ralph Heid
(Mister Ralph)
There is an order form here for Cinemiracle, but the main reason I posted it is for the one for Gigi at the Royale. That house is not on here.
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Not a very important point, in your photobucket above I see that the first level above the orchestra in the fire exits floor plan is called the Mezzanine. In all the years I can remember, and those when I was an usher there, it was called “The Rocking Chair Loge” which was posted directly below the orchestra and balcony price. The Roxy hoped for a big hit with “A Farewell to Arms” and instituted reserved seating (a la Music Hall) in the loge only. The film flopped and the loge went back to general seating after the first week.
Here’s a program from August, 1957:
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“The Sun Also Rises†was the first of a trio of films based on Hemingway’s novels that would hit the screen in rapid succession. “A Farewell to Arms†with Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones opened at the Roxy the following January, and nine months after that “The Old Man and the Sea†with Spenser Tracy opened at the Criterion with reserved seats outrageously inflated in price for a one-set, one-character movie that lasted less than an hour-and-a-half. Meanwhile, a revival of “For Whom the Bell Tolls†took over the Normandie on E 57 Street for a few weeks. The overdose of Papa H alienated me from ever reading the Master again.
The stage show offered typical Roxy fare at the height of delirious fabrication. Pan Am collaborated with the management to produce this show about air travel. It opened on 23 August that year, just five weeks after RCMH had mounted its elaborate stage salute to the USAF accompanying “Silk Stockings.†All those planes occupying the two stages of East 50 Street exemplified the not-so-subtle rivalry waged between the theatrical titans at the time. I’m not sure that the singing career of the Sensational Elena Giusti went very far after her Dramatic And Climactic finale with the entire ensemble. Google offers no further information, though it does lead to a web site with pictures of the star modeling clothes ca. 1955.
On the rear page, Robert C. Rothafel writes himself speechless as he proclaims the presentation “in essence, containing perhaps more showmanship than many show business ventures,†etc. etc. etc. The fractured prose is truly one-of-a-kind. But though it promises more “Showplanes†to come, I don’t recall seeing any others. The sketch of the floor plan at the bottom suggests the theater’s unusual width. The auditorium was set at an angle between 50th and 51st Streets so as to permit an expanse greater than a city block. When you sat in the balcony for a bird’s-eye view of the ice stage, you found the amplitude staggeringly unreal.
Thanks Gerald, neither Scorsese or Scorcese saw Vertigo projected in VistaVision at the Capital. :)
Vito, it’s Martin Scorsese.
Veyoung, it’s Martin Scorsese.
veyoung, I recall Scorcese speaking about seeing “Vertgo” in VistaVision, he said he saw it in New York and since the Capital did not offer VistaVision projection he may have seen it at the Paramount screening room. He would have seen true VistaVision there although the screen was not all that big. As far as I can recall the only way to see horizontal VistaVision projection in New York was at the Paramount theatre or the Paramount screening room. Radio City installed the projectors but used them only once for “White Christmas”.
Thankyou Warren and Gerald A DeLuca for the thrilling (to me) info about the Monogram AA releases and The Quiet Man info. I am a devoted student of those films and studio(s)…I just can’t help myself and have to know everything about them. I find it incredible Monogram and Republic operated as businesses and am magnetized to the periods of change they went through. To find first release info and to hear they played as major circuit successes when they were mostly sneered at is gratifying to me. I am thrilled these films played enormous luxury cinemas because the research books never never ever reveal that particular priceless and dignified information.. To an author all monogram AA and most Rep films are written off as B feature groaners playing 3rd rate suburban and country dives. BLACK GOLD in particular is a very good film, as is late Rep films like LISBON or COME NEXT SPRING. I write alot of reviews on the IMDb for these films if you also want to entertain yourselves.
In Oz, we didn’t get Tv until 1957 (three stations Nationwide) and in 1965 a fourth Tv network opened. It re-ran everything …and I mean every film Monogram and Republic ever made…which had aired in the late 50s. which is how I first saw them. Each Sat and Sun there would be six in a row from noon! But in 1967 the film storage unit went up in flames and so did about 3000 titles…all lost to flames or water.
To Boxoffice Bill: I used to run a cinema and often we showed a doco called MARILYN made in 1963, narrated by Rock Hudson, a Fox compilation created as a (mop up) tribute. The whole print was in Cinemascope and the finale was the c/s version of DIamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend you mention above. I remember thinking how good that sequence looked given I knew it was from a 1.33 film originally….thanks to you now I know there were two versions filmed.. and now you know where you can find where that c/s version finally turned up. It may be on dvd, I don’t know: maybe check the IMDb like I am about to. If anyone wants to email me: you can at .au and tell me anyting and everything about Monogram AA Republic releases, and I can share my Australian info rather than clog this Roxy site further. Thanks! Paul Brennan.
Yes, sorry, I misquoted Scorcese. He did say Capitol, not Paramount.
But why wouldn’t someone who may have been vastly interested in wide-
screen, regardless of his/her youth, not be able to recognize the
difference between horizontal VV and normal 4-perf 35mm. I’m older than
Scorcese and I sure as heck could tell the difference at the Philadelphia Stanley. The difference wasn’t minor. It was awesome! Of course it would help – and this was my case and maybe Scorcese’s – being familiar with the size and shape of the pre-VV images.
In 1959 “Rio Bravo” opened here with a stage show called “Spring Fever"
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Warrenâ€"
That’s a swell picture of the Roxy’s early-50’s interior. If I might venture a date, I’d fix it between late April-late August 1953. A few months ago I posted a shot of the Roxy’s interior after its renovation in Dec. ’52.
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In it, you’ll note an angled horizontal-teaser curtain with ghastly scalloped side-tormentors framing the screen. In Spring, 20C-Fox announced its development of CinemaScope and in late April at the theater (“Call Me Madam†was its film attraction, a hold-over Easter show) the studio offered a press demonstration of the new process (one demo-scene compared “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend†from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes†shot in conventional 1x1.33 with the same number reshot in CinemaScopeâ€"I’d love to see that one!). Clearly, the teaser and tormentors had to be removed to accommodate the enlarged screen, and your picture shows that they no longer hung in place. The following September, the CinemaScope screen permanently dislodged the conventional one and changed the proscenium yet again.
Your picture shows nicely how the Roxy projected its pre-CinemaScope films on a picture sheet suspended in front of a pale blue curtain, the latter dimly lit throughout the presentation, without the usual frames of black masking. The management claimed that this presentation was easier on the eyes. When Ice Colorama converted the entire stage to a skating ring in Dec. ’52, the glare from the ice shot up to the screen’s surface, and to remedy it, a rubber runner was placed over the permafrost in front of the screen: you can see that in the picture, too. It’s a wonderfully crisp shot, and greatly superior to the one I posted. Thanks.
Besides, in NYC “Vertigo” opened at the Capitol, not the Paramount. If Sorcese had shown up at the correct theater, I might have rubbed elbows with him when I saw that film on 51st and B'way in May ‘58. We were the same age, and though I probably couldn’t pass a blindfold test (an unusually cruel test to take for movies, in any event), I read the papers, knew the technology (or thought I did), and would look for clues to judge the presentation.
In my memory, the Capitol took the unusual turn of reducing the size of its screen from the nearly full-proscenium curved screen of Summer ‘53 (“From Here to Eternity”) to a flatter, more modestly sized one by Summer '56 (“War and Peace”). On the page for the Capitol, Warren has noted Bosley Crowther’s criticism of the screen’s dizzying dimensions when it debuted with “Never Let Me Go” in Spring '53; perhaps that’s why the theater eventually settled for diminished proportions.
In the late ‘50s, even though the Capitol never offered horizontal VistaVision, its projection was flawless—better, I’d argue, than the Roxy’s whose page I’m using. 'Scuse me, Roxy.