My wife and I saw “Wicked” this weekend on a getaway trip to Chicago. Great play, and it was really good to be back in the Oriental after 25 years. I played a social for CATOE there in 1982, while the front was converted into the electronic junk store. The CATOE bunch had to enter through a strange door in the front, around the back of the store and into the theatre. They only hosted one other event at the theatre after that, with the great Barbara Sellers playing. Her parents, Preston and Edna played at the Oriental during the “golden age”. Knowing this was to be the last tie the organ was used before it was removed, the last chord was played by Edna, who despite her very advanced age could be there and was brought up to the console to play that last ceremonial chord. I saw the console downstairs, looks wonderful, can’t wait to play it again. The Oriental organ was a hottie! literally a fire-breathing dragon. The theatre looked wonderful. I had a similar emotion as when I stood in the Fox theatre here in Detroit in ‘88 and saw it gloriously restored, doing the right kind of entertainment (not Kung-Fu and exploitation films for an indifferent audience). Wicked was wonderful, made even better by the fact that we won the drawing at Borders for the $25 front row seats that night!
The Dead Zone was the last picture to play at the Madison, its letters stayed on the marquee for a long time and became a running joke here in Detroit.
……..And I was one of those who took them there and installed them. I worked at the Summit in the summer of 1977 showing a retro showing of “2001” for a young-ish guy who sublet the theatre for these 2001 screenings. We were able to get the projectors and other booth equipment for the Redford theatre, and spent the six months between removing the machines at the Summit and when we started the classic movie series that is still running in March of 1978 with “The sound of music” in 70mm.
We always refer to the machines as “AAIIs”, the older marketing name for these terrific projectors.
I saw “Close Encounters” at the Mai Kai in my hometown of Livonia. It was one of the houses that opened this film in 70mm, an important thing with me at the time as I had just run a retor showing of “2001” at the Summit Cinerama downtown and my cohorts and I from the Redford theatre had gotten the Norelco AAII projectors from the Summit donated to the Redford and we were in the midst of remodeling the booth for the 70mm projectors. Back to “Encounters”—the film went off screen at the Mai Kai about ¾ of the way through the film, they couldn’t get it back on and had to issue “admit ones” to the entire opening night audience. I did come back and see it in its entirety, liked the first cut much better than the later director’s cut. I really miss the Mai Kai, the poor girl was too good for the bedroom community of Livonia, the city was offered the building by the Nicholas George family as a civic auditorium but the turned it down. They paid a consultant firm to “tell us we’ll lose tons of money running this auditorium” and that’s exactly what the report read. It was something special to go see a BIG film there. The Mai kai was about the same age that the NY Roxy and Paramount, SF Fox, Toledo Paramount and other great palaces were demolished.
Sonnyboy—the war ended in 1945, some men like my uncle stayed in Germany as occupation troops, but my Father came back home in 1945, his tour of duty having been satisfied as the war had ended. He was in the service from 1942-1945, and that was about the normal duration of service. Was your father a career man?
Are all photo links on this website dead ends? I have tried to look at several over the past few days and they are all dead ends. The only useful entries in Michigan and Detroit are the links to Winterwaterwonderland.com, a site I support with pictures. At least on that site you can post pictures!
Lost memory—I was part of a crew that removed the remains of the Hillgreen-Lane at the madison in 1979. It had already been picked over, and was an early “churchy” type instrument. There was a nice echo division under the balcony that was intact—we took all of that. we left the enormous manual chests, there was still organ junk in the chambers when she came down.
There was an Idle hour theatre on W.Vernor (4435 W.Vernor) that opened in 1909 as Smith’s theatre, was renamed the Idle hour in 1911 and closed in 1912.
The story has grown out of proportion as a great American urban legend, read Pete Hamill’s great book “Why Sinatra matters”. The much-discussed and embellished story of a contract Sinatra had to get out of was his contract with Tommy Dorsey, the band he sang with after leaving Harry James. Harry basically just let Frank go and wished him well, realized what an opportunity Dorsey was offering. Dorsey was not so easy going, signed hungry young talent to iron-clad contracts giving himself a healthy cut of that performer’s pay should they elect to leave (in Frank’s case, almost 55% of all future earnings) Frank signed to just get free and start pursuing the opportunities that were being offered. The contract was re-negotiated by his agents at MCA (the Music Corporation of America) joined by an army of lawyers. The proceedings were a matter of public record in the courts. Frank ended
up paying Dorsey $60,000 lump-sum to get out of the contract. I’m sorry if that’s not as romantic, but them’s the facts.
Frank was Italian, which for decades before he reached his initial popularity meant they weren’t even considered WHITE by wasps, it took the massive numbers of Americans of Italian descent fighting in WWII to begin the change of opinion against such prejudice. There were many figures in organized crime Frank knew, he sang in nightclubs for a living, and such establishments aren’t owned by conservative wasp businessmen, they were owned by gangsters. No credible researcher or author (including the notorious Kitty Kelley) could find any concrete link to this urban legend.
As an aside, Frank was quoted as being very sad when the Paramount was gutted, and wished that he had a souvenir from the building, even if just a knob from a dressing room door.
GWaterman—there is no evidence that the DETROIT Hollywood theatre ever became a burlesque house. It was a movie palace, its days in the sun were very brief due to the misfortune of its location, and it settled into life as a movie house quicker than its downtown rivals. We had Burley-Q theaters in Detroit, the Gayety being the most notable, but not the Hollywood.
This theatre was built and opened as the State theatre in 1925, In 1937 it was renemed the Palms-State, as it is located in the Francis Palms building. In 1949 it was again renamed the Palms, dropping the “State” portion. Local real estate investor Chuck Forbes bought the buiding in the early 80s and renamed it the State (again). Now, with the affilation of an all-powerful media conglomerate it has been renamed “the Fillmore” in a mistaken sense that anything California will make a bigger impression here. The theatre is dingy and needs a large bath, as the Fox next door received in ‘88 and the place reeks of stale spilled beer. On any given sub-frigid winter night there are loads of underage girls lined up out front without coats “folding their arms around their charms” waiting to get in.
Lost memory: the Barton organ in the Avalon was built on subcontract by the Wangerin company in nearby Milwaukee. The instrument remained in the theatre after it closed. A local Detroit theatre organ aficionado attempted to purchase it at a more than fair price, but the theatre owner Sarah Davidson would not sell it—she had delusions of greater financial gain by donating it to a church, which never happened. Scrappers got inside the building and took everything made of metal from the organ, including the pipes. The same individual purchased the remains of the organ from the shuttered theatre in 1970, and just the parts that remained live on in other instruments today.
I do not understand how anyone could legally own a 35mm print of a feature film. They are the property of the studio/distributor.I have called trying to book retro showings of known “classic” films only to be told by the distributor that no print exsists, or booked and received the available print only to discover that it was hacked to death and should have been destroyed. Then I have heard and read of “collectors” who claim to have mint copies of the same films. Those prints can only come from one place, and there is a name for how they are obtained.
Has something changed in the last 10 years?
do the studios/distributors sell prints now?
re: the list above in Howard B. Haas' post—I would add the Masonic auditorium to the Detroit list, it seats nearly 5,000 (although not well, it was designed for Masonic assembly, not theater) and has recently been restored. Masonic has been in constant use since it opened in 1926.
I would not count the Indiana theatre in Indianapolis as a large venue, as the amateur theater group that owns it decimated the interior to make two small black-box venues, not so much a big place now.
The organ is not going into a church, it is going into a college auditorium in Arizona. The organ was not in the New York Paramount theatre (auditorium) but was designed and built for the broadcast studio in the NY Paramount building. It was broadcast and recorded by legendary organists Jessie Crawford, Ann Leaf, Don Baker and George Wright in that building. It was sold to Long island glue maven Dick Loderhose in the 1950’s, he built a studio on to his LI home for the organ. It was recorded there by Ed Gress, Tom Sheen, Johnny Seng and Loderhose, under the non-de-console of “Don DeWitt"
Loderhose moved west in the 70’s and took the organ with him, buying the Bay theatre as it’s new west coast home. He has been in frail health of late.
Aahhhh………….saps, that was the whole idea, and it was a lot less than a dollar. The palaces were very elaborate grind houses that entertained huge numbers of people every day, not just concert events as most of the survivors today are used.
I saw Star Wars at the Americana theatre in Southfield, MI in June of 1977. The Americana was a 60’s modern, large (1700 or so seats on one floor) theatre that had most of the BIG showings in the area. I saw “Star Wars” during the time I was working as a projectionist downtown at the Summit Cinerama, running a retro-release of “2001 a space odyssey” in 70mm ultra-Cinerama, and there was some cause for comparison, but at the age of 18 (in ‘77) Star Wars just blew me away. I don’t really like sci-fi and would rather go to a vegetarian acoustical feminist concert while getting a root canal than watch anything “Star trek”, but I realized that Star Wars was part Saturday morning (western) serial and part WWI dogfight movie.
John Williams’ brilliant score was of keen interest to me, as I had just reciently discovered the work of Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold (to whom Williams owes a LOT) and the other Hollywood “great era” composers. There had been a 10 year period, probably starting with films like “Easy Rider” and “The Graduate” where Hollywood discovered you can get away without a custom-composed score, just spin contemporary records (at a considerable $$$$ savings) and call it good, and the people will love it. That worked for those films, and other “small” films, but after the 20th Century Fanfare (with Cinemascope tag) died down and the that Sfortzando opening chord followed by the cleanest, most glorious brass started into this 19th century fanfare I was hooked.
A few years later I wound up playing theatre organ in one of the many pizza parlors that had transplanted theatre instruments, and we (I) played Star Wars several times a night. I still get shivers down my spine when I hear the Throne room sequence, its as though Williams was channeling William Walton or Edward Elgar
My wife and I saw “Wicked” this weekend on a getaway trip to Chicago. Great play, and it was really good to be back in the Oriental after 25 years. I played a social for CATOE there in 1982, while the front was converted into the electronic junk store. The CATOE bunch had to enter through a strange door in the front, around the back of the store and into the theatre. They only hosted one other event at the theatre after that, with the great Barbara Sellers playing. Her parents, Preston and Edna played at the Oriental during the “golden age”. Knowing this was to be the last tie the organ was used before it was removed, the last chord was played by Edna, who despite her very advanced age could be there and was brought up to the console to play that last ceremonial chord. I saw the console downstairs, looks wonderful, can’t wait to play it again. The Oriental organ was a hottie! literally a fire-breathing dragon. The theatre looked wonderful. I had a similar emotion as when I stood in the Fox theatre here in Detroit in ‘88 and saw it gloriously restored, doing the right kind of entertainment (not Kung-Fu and exploitation films for an indifferent audience). Wicked was wonderful, made even better by the fact that we won the drawing at Borders for the $25 front row seats that night!
The Dead Zone was the last picture to play at the Madison, its letters stayed on the marquee for a long time and became a running joke here in Detroit.
…..and was played by Doris Goutow
……..And I was one of those who took them there and installed them. I worked at the Summit in the summer of 1977 showing a retro showing of “2001” for a young-ish guy who sublet the theatre for these 2001 screenings. We were able to get the projectors and other booth equipment for the Redford theatre, and spent the six months between removing the machines at the Summit and when we started the classic movie series that is still running in March of 1978 with “The sound of music” in 70mm.
We always refer to the machines as “AAIIs”, the older marketing name for these terrific projectors.
I saw “Close Encounters” at the Mai Kai in my hometown of Livonia. It was one of the houses that opened this film in 70mm, an important thing with me at the time as I had just run a retor showing of “2001” at the Summit Cinerama downtown and my cohorts and I from the Redford theatre had gotten the Norelco AAII projectors from the Summit donated to the Redford and we were in the midst of remodeling the booth for the 70mm projectors. Back to “Encounters”—the film went off screen at the Mai Kai about ¾ of the way through the film, they couldn’t get it back on and had to issue “admit ones” to the entire opening night audience. I did come back and see it in its entirety, liked the first cut much better than the later director’s cut. I really miss the Mai Kai, the poor girl was too good for the bedroom community of Livonia, the city was offered the building by the Nicholas George family as a civic auditorium but the turned it down. They paid a consultant firm to “tell us we’ll lose tons of money running this auditorium” and that’s exactly what the report read. It was something special to go see a BIG film there. The Mai kai was about the same age that the NY Roxy and Paramount, SF Fox, Toledo Paramount and other great palaces were demolished.
Sonnyboy—the war ended in 1945, some men like my uncle stayed in Germany as occupation troops, but my Father came back home in 1945, his tour of duty having been satisfied as the war had ended. He was in the service from 1942-1945, and that was about the normal duration of service. Was your father a career man?
Are all photo links on this website dead ends? I have tried to look at several over the past few days and they are all dead ends. The only useful entries in Michigan and Detroit are the links to Winterwaterwonderland.com, a site I support with pictures. At least on that site you can post pictures!
Lost memory—I was part of a crew that removed the remains of the Hillgreen-Lane at the madison in 1979. It had already been picked over, and was an early “churchy” type instrument. There was a nice echo division under the balcony that was intact—we took all of that. we left the enormous manual chests, there was still organ junk in the chambers when she came down.
There was an Idle hour theatre on W.Vernor (4435 W.Vernor) that opened in 1909 as Smith’s theatre, was renamed the Idle hour in 1911 and closed in 1912.
The story has grown out of proportion as a great American urban legend, read Pete Hamill’s great book “Why Sinatra matters”. The much-discussed and embellished story of a contract Sinatra had to get out of was his contract with Tommy Dorsey, the band he sang with after leaving Harry James. Harry basically just let Frank go and wished him well, realized what an opportunity Dorsey was offering. Dorsey was not so easy going, signed hungry young talent to iron-clad contracts giving himself a healthy cut of that performer’s pay should they elect to leave (in Frank’s case, almost 55% of all future earnings) Frank signed to just get free and start pursuing the opportunities that were being offered. The contract was re-negotiated by his agents at MCA (the Music Corporation of America) joined by an army of lawyers. The proceedings were a matter of public record in the courts. Frank ended
up paying Dorsey $60,000 lump-sum to get out of the contract. I’m sorry if that’s not as romantic, but them’s the facts.
Frank was Italian, which for decades before he reached his initial popularity meant they weren’t even considered WHITE by wasps, it took the massive numbers of Americans of Italian descent fighting in WWII to begin the change of opinion against such prejudice. There were many figures in organized crime Frank knew, he sang in nightclubs for a living, and such establishments aren’t owned by conservative wasp businessmen, they were owned by gangsters. No credible researcher or author (including the notorious Kitty Kelley) could find any concrete link to this urban legend.
As an aside, Frank was quoted as being very sad when the Paramount was gutted, and wished that he had a souvenir from the building, even if just a knob from a dressing room door.
GWaterman—there is no evidence that the DETROIT Hollywood theatre ever became a burlesque house. It was a movie palace, its days in the sun were very brief due to the misfortune of its location, and it settled into life as a movie house quicker than its downtown rivals. We had Burley-Q theaters in Detroit, the Gayety being the most notable, but not the Hollywood.
This theatre was built and opened as the State theatre in 1925, In 1937 it was renemed the Palms-State, as it is located in the Francis Palms building. In 1949 it was again renamed the Palms, dropping the “State” portion. Local real estate investor Chuck Forbes bought the buiding in the early 80s and renamed it the State (again). Now, with the affilation of an all-powerful media conglomerate it has been renamed “the Fillmore” in a mistaken sense that anything California will make a bigger impression here. The theatre is dingy and needs a large bath, as the Fox next door received in ‘88 and the place reeks of stale spilled beer. On any given sub-frigid winter night there are loads of underage girls lined up out front without coats “folding their arms around their charms” waiting to get in.
Lost memory: the Barton organ in the Avalon was built on subcontract by the Wangerin company in nearby Milwaukee. The instrument remained in the theatre after it closed. A local Detroit theatre organ aficionado attempted to purchase it at a more than fair price, but the theatre owner Sarah Davidson would not sell it—she had delusions of greater financial gain by donating it to a church, which never happened. Scrappers got inside the building and took everything made of metal from the organ, including the pipes. The same individual purchased the remains of the organ from the shuttered theatre in 1970, and just the parts that remained live on in other instruments today.
randini—I played a concert at the paramount in 1990 for the Rocky mountian chapter of the ATOS on that great Wurlitzer.
I do not understand how anyone could legally own a 35mm print of a feature film. They are the property of the studio/distributor.I have called trying to book retro showings of known “classic” films only to be told by the distributor that no print exsists, or booked and received the available print only to discover that it was hacked to death and should have been destroyed. Then I have heard and read of “collectors” who claim to have mint copies of the same films. Those prints can only come from one place, and there is a name for how they are obtained.
Has something changed in the last 10 years?
do the studios/distributors sell prints now?
re: the list above in Howard B. Haas' post—I would add the Masonic auditorium to the Detroit list, it seats nearly 5,000 (although not well, it was designed for Masonic assembly, not theater) and has recently been restored. Masonic has been in constant use since it opened in 1926.
I would not count the Indiana theatre in Indianapolis as a large venue, as the amateur theater group that owns it decimated the interior to make two small black-box venues, not so much a big place now.
why is it that most, if not all photo links on this site are dead ends?
The organ is not going into a church, it is going into a college auditorium in Arizona. The organ was not in the New York Paramount theatre (auditorium) but was designed and built for the broadcast studio in the NY Paramount building. It was broadcast and recorded by legendary organists Jessie Crawford, Ann Leaf, Don Baker and George Wright in that building. It was sold to Long island glue maven Dick Loderhose in the 1950’s, he built a studio on to his LI home for the organ. It was recorded there by Ed Gress, Tom Sheen, Johnny Seng and Loderhose, under the non-de-console of “Don DeWitt"
Loderhose moved west in the 70’s and took the organ with him, buying the Bay theatre as it’s new west coast home. He has been in frail health of late.
Aahhhh………….saps, that was the whole idea, and it was a lot less than a dollar. The palaces were very elaborate grind houses that entertained huge numbers of people every day, not just concert events as most of the survivors today are used.
I saw Star Wars at the Americana theatre in Southfield, MI in June of 1977. The Americana was a 60’s modern, large (1700 or so seats on one floor) theatre that had most of the BIG showings in the area. I saw “Star Wars” during the time I was working as a projectionist downtown at the Summit Cinerama, running a retro-release of “2001 a space odyssey” in 70mm ultra-Cinerama, and there was some cause for comparison, but at the age of 18 (in ‘77) Star Wars just blew me away. I don’t really like sci-fi and would rather go to a vegetarian acoustical feminist concert while getting a root canal than watch anything “Star trek”, but I realized that Star Wars was part Saturday morning (western) serial and part WWI dogfight movie.
John Williams’ brilliant score was of keen interest to me, as I had just reciently discovered the work of Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold (to whom Williams owes a LOT) and the other Hollywood “great era” composers. There had been a 10 year period, probably starting with films like “Easy Rider” and “The Graduate” where Hollywood discovered you can get away without a custom-composed score, just spin contemporary records (at a considerable $$$$ savings) and call it good, and the people will love it. That worked for those films, and other “small” films, but after the 20th Century Fanfare (with Cinemascope tag) died down and the that Sfortzando opening chord followed by the cleanest, most glorious brass started into this 19th century fanfare I was hooked.
A few years later I wound up playing theatre organ in one of the many pizza parlors that had transplanted theatre instruments, and we (I) played Star Wars several times a night. I still get shivers down my spine when I hear the Throne room sequence, its as though Williams was channeling William Walton or Edward Elgar