Loew's Capitol Theatre
1645 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
1645 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
47 people
favorited this theater
Showing 701 - 725 of 1,086 comments
Thanks to you too, Rory. What sort of “Apes” stuff did you have?
Yeah, I’m the one that found that on YouTube and forwarded to Cinema Retro. He’s never used stuff I sent him on APES though.
Wow – what a great clip for us Kubrick fans, especially on the 40th annniversary. That may have been the last time Kubrick visited his old home town, NYC.
Thanks, Ken!
Here is a clip of Kubrick arriving at the 2001 premiere at the Capitol, posted on the cinemaretro.com site:
http://tinyurl.com/39ktcm
Bob: It certainly did! I just count myself lucky that I got to see “2001” there before the wrecking ball did its dirty work. I saw it on June 15, 1968 and I believe the demolition started in September.
Boy, the Capitol sure went out on top!
40 years ago tonight: “2001: A Space Odyssey” had its big New York premiere at the Capitol, which a lot of people walked out of before it was over. That movie was truly ahead of its time. Here is Kathleen Carroll’s ** ½ review in the New York Daily News:
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“Planet of the Apes” (currently playing at the Ziegfeld for one more day) and “2001” were the last two movies to play the Capitol before it was torn down.
You’re absolutely right. IMDB is convenient, but it should not be relied on for accurate information. For instance, I’ve found loads of mistakes relating to aspect ratios of early widescreen movies.
Unfortunately, too many lazy researchers are turning to IMDB as their gospel.
Lost Memory: Where did “A Night at the Opera” originally premiere, and what is your source for that November release date?
Here is a December 1935 ad from the NYT:
http://tinyurl.com/3ahpv9
Warren: were you at the Valencia at the time of their widescreen installation? If so, I would be interested in talking with you for our article. We’ve got lots of paperwork, but it would be nice to get some firsthand anecdotes from someone that was there at the time.
The first stereophonic film to play on the new Capitol widescreen was MELBA, released by United Artists on June 24, 1953. Altec installed a 3 channel 35mm magnetic playback unit which was interlocked with the regular 35mm projector.
The standard 35mm composite print had the usual mono optical track which could be switched to in case the magnetic dubber lost sync with the projector.
I’m not sure of the production dates for the 3 Gable films, but MGM switched to widescreen cinematography in late March/early April of 1953.
The Capitol 25x60 screen was curved according to an article in Film Daily. I’m trying to find a photograph to confirm.
It’s a long-held myth that (after Cinerama) widescreen began with CinemaScope. All the facts of this period of transition will be documented with original source materials in our article – or series of articles as it’s developing!
Anyone here know what the first “CinemaScope” film was to play the Capitol Theatre, and if the screen was curved or not? I think the Capitol was a premiere theatre for MGM films, so I’ll bet it was one of their’s instead of Fox.
Hmmm, that’s odd. I’ve got it marked to accept private e-mail.
If you go to the bottom of this page, you can send me a note via that address:
http://www.3dfilmpf.org/info-hondo.html
Thanks!
Bob
BobFurmanek: Alas I can’t find contact information in your profile (or perhaps I just don’t know how to access it). I didn’t want to be rude by not responding, and this is the only way I know how.
Bob
Mr. Endres: I’ve got quite a bit of information about the Music Hall’s initial widescreen installation for SHANE in April of 1953. I would be very interested in interviewing you for our article. If you’re available, can you please send me contact information through my profile on this site?
Thank you!
Bob
That’s very true, and this gray area has come into play when these films are now transferred and mastered for widescreen TV’s. Some feel that if the image is on the 35mm element, than it was meant to be seen. THIS ISLAND EARTH is a good example. The film element is 1.37 and all previous video versions have been in that ratio. However, the film was intended to be shown theatrically in the 2.1 ratio. I’ve seen it that way, and it looks fine.
I’m currently doing research into FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. They are in the process of doing a digital restoration from the original 35mm elements, which were shot 1.37. The movie was in production for one month when Columbia switched to 1.85 as their adopted studio ratio. Therefore, some of the film appears composed for 1.37 and some for 1.85.
When the film was released in August of 1953, it had it’s World Premiere and played widescreen for 5 months at the Capitol, and then opened on December 30 in widescreen at 31 Loew’s houses throughout New York. This pattern continued throughout the country. So most people who saw the film when it was first released saw it in 1.85. However, since then, it’s only been seen in 1.37 on TV and home video.
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Rory — CinemaScope was indeed supposed to be projected on a curved screen. If you check out Martin Hart’s American Widescreen Museum site he may still have the original 20th Century Fox Exhibitor’s Handbook in the CinemaScope section. That book spelled out exactly the degree of curvature required for CinemaScope presentation. Fox used high-gain Miracle Mirror screens and apart from other considerations such as mimicing Cinerama’s curve (although to a much lesser degree of course) the curved screen distributed the light more evenly across the theatre.
Fox was so adamant about having a curved screen that Radio Cty, which couldn’t install a curved screen due to the stage show requirements, didn’t show a CinemaScope picture until “Knights of the Roundtable” almost a year later when MGM said they didn’t care if it was shown on a curved screen.
By the way, the 1.85 aspect ratio was never exactly approved by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. The early attempts at widescreen presentation after Cinerama triggered the idea were achieved by cutting various amounts of the 1.37 picture off with apeture plates in the projectors. The ratios varied from theatre to theatre (Radio City had l.5:1 plates which were still in use when I started there). The theatres in the U.S. gradually “standardized” at 1.85:1 with Europe using a less extreme 1.66:1 for “flat” 35mm projection. SMPTE had listings for “Standards”, “Recommended Practices” and “Accepted Practices”, the latter designation for areas they couldn’t control such as what was being done in individual theatres. The 1.85 aspect ratio fell into the latter category. As Bob Furmanek points out, the ratios varied from theatre to theatre in the early days, with some horrible situations where the flat image was cropped to 2.1 and the “Scope” image also cropped by cutting off the sides to the same ratio.
The camera negative in many cases remains full frame to this day, with the wide screen matte applied in the printer to mask out any mike booms that may intrude into the top of the frame, and in many cases the image was composed in the viewfinder to protect both the 1.33 and 1.85 ratios so the same negative could be used for TV.
In his June 11 review, the New York Times reviewer stated: “As for the widescreen projection, outside of doing such things as cutting off the feet of the ballet dancers (because of cropping of the standard frame at the bottom and top) and causing some blurring to the pan shots, it is no different from standard projection as seen from up close. What in the world it must look like from down in the front orchestra seats, heaven knows! It must be horrifying. We got as close as we could, then balked in dread.”
I’m still doing research on the filming of NEVER LET ME GO. It’s quite possible it was filmed for 1.37 presentation. MGM didn’t change to widescreen photography until sometime in early April.
Howard: Most of the 1953/1954 aspect ratios on IMDB are wrong.
Some of the early widescreen movies (1.66, 1.75, 1.85) were photographed before the studio’s switched to widescreen cinematography, but not all.
After the debut of Cinerama, it’s a common myth that widescreen movies began with CinemaScope. That’s not true.
For the record, Universal-International’s THUNDER BAY opened on May 21, 1953 at Loew’s State. It was shown in 1.85 and had a 3 channel stereophonic soundtrack.
I’m in the process of researching this overlooked aspect of motion picture exhibition, and an article will be published soon. All of the information presented will be documented with original source materials, pulled from industry trade journals, newspapers and studio production files.
Bob, are you sure because that’s listed as a 1.37 ratio film?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046124/
The Capitol’s 25x60 screen was installed for the June 1953 engagement of NEVER LET ME GO.
The Capitol, and several other Times Square theaters (Loew’s State, Criterion, Victoria) were playing movies in various widescreen ratios starting in May of that year. (All the studios had begun photographing films for widescreen in March and April.) CinemaScope did not premiere at the Roxy until September 16.
“I found out the screen was on a curve and measured 25x60, the full widith of the Capitol’s proscenium opening.”
25x60 certainly would have been OK for displaying early “CinemaScope,” but the curved part intrigues me. I know that “Cinerama” required a curved screen, and Fox promoted CinemaScope as being a curved screen attraction, but wasn’t CinemaScope, like today’s “Panavision,” actually meant to be projected on a flat screen? I also have read that early CinemaScope had distortion problems, which can be noticed if you watch letterboxed DVDs of such films as “The Robe.” I wonder if a slightly curved screen helped with those?