Loews Festival Theatre
6 W. 57th Street,
New York,
NY
10019
6 W. 57th Street,
New York,
NY
10019
8 people
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Showing 51 - 59 of 59 comments
In it’s day the Festival was one of the worst places to see a film,there were no such places as the Quad or the Film Forum or the Angelika at that time.
Not only was the floor flat, but the Austrian drapery LOWERED to beneath the small screen accompanied by a loud grinding noise when the film began. Remember that?
The floor in the Festival was flat – the back 3 or four rows were built up only slightly, like 2 or 3 inches max. It was an adapted space. Before it was the theatre, the entire building had been Milgrim Dept. Store. The only major structural work done for the theatre was removal of the columns from the middle of the auditorium.
I remember the floor sloping up towards the screen at the Festival rather than down towards the screen as in most theatres. Do I remember this correctly?
The Festival was part of the Walter Reade chain in the 60’s and 70’s. It did have a horrible sight line and was always kind of dingy. I saw the Pasolini film “ Salo” there in 1977.
In late 1991 the proprietors of the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts were close to finalizing a deal that would have allowed them to program the Festival Theatre on 57th Street as a repertory house. This plan, though reported in a Boston Globe article as imminent, would fall through.
A location of the Club Monaco apparel chain currently occupies the former Festival Cinema space.
The Festival was known only as the Festival after opening in the early 60’s. It was where Fellini’s 8 ½ premiered in New York. I remember seeing Vittorio Gassman in THE EASY LIFE (IL SORPASSO) there in 1962 at a matinee. $1.50!
The Festival was the Festival…Joe Levine’s theatre was the Lincoln Art near 7th Avenue…This was a Walter Reade theatre as far as I can remember back into the mid 60s until Loews took it in the 80s…Always tought to program I remember a mix of art, 1st and 2nd run stuff here including James Bond double bills, La Grande Vadrouille my favourite French comedy ever and Ten From Your Show of Shows…In the 80s I saw Au Revoir Les Enfants and The Navigator here
Wasn’t this also called the 57th Street Playhouse for a while. It functioned as a move over theater for the Cinema 1 – ‘The Last Emperor’ in 70mm and they also showed Stop Making Sense and Laurie Anderson’s Home of the Brave. I remember that this theater had one of the first digital sound sysytem in NYC.