Roxy Theatre

The big five combo/film palaces in New York City were Radio City Music Hall,Roxy,Capitol,Paramount and Strand. This truly was the golden era. The glory days from the late 1920'a to the mid 1950’s.I thank all the veterans in describing what the theatres were like, you bring them back to life for me. Based on the photos I have seen the Roxy,Paramount and Capitol would have been my favorites.brucec

I started collecting Variety in 70 and loved looking at the Times Square and Music Hall grosses. As well as looking at the seating capacities of all the downtown movie palaces in the great American cities other than New York and imagining what they looked like.
My parents having no idea what treasures lay within eventually threw them out.
I’ll never forget the horror I experienced one day finding my father painting a room with an issue being used to cover the floor. What in the world was he thinking?

Sure would like to get Varietys grosses on the Music Hall in years past. To think I subscribed in the 50-60’s when the grosses were actually publised, and threw the issues out as soon as I read them. What a treasure they would be now. As well as all the Time Square grosses. Who knew that would become Nostalgia of another era. SAY GOODBYE TO YESTERDAY.

There’s a link to “Next Page” at the bottom of RCMH, but it doesn’t go anywhere (yet).

Maybe the original web designers had no idea Cinema Treasures would ever be THIS popular?

Bill,
Yes, the Radio City page appears to have blown a fuse. I did like your 1996 film festival post. I was also there. I wish they would do it again! I keep emailing them for one, but never get a response.

So does this mean that for most of its existence the great boxes and proscenium were covered and that the auditorium as presented in The Best Remaining Seats was only visible from ‘27 to the mid 30’s?

Did anyone see it in person or see a color photo? I’m curious of the color

My sentiments exactly.

The first film ever shown at the Roxy was “The Love of Sunya,” starring Gloria Swanson. Has anyone ever seen this film and is it worth purchasing? It seems available in dvd and thought it would be interesting to actually see the film Roxy opened with. The opening night story in “Last Remaining Seats” got me interested in both the Roxy and this film.

Warren: That’s a highly stylized trade ad from Dazian’s!

Compare the photo that I posted above last 18 April (from “Marquee” 2.3 [1979]: 16, depicting the Fred Waring stage show with “Wilson” in ‘44): the frame for the valance is inverted, the valance swags differ in number (three vs. two) and drape, and the choral stairways remain yet uncovered.

My memory of the Roxy from the late ‘40s is hazy, but the photo bears out most of it. Did Dazan keep adding and adjusting drapery until it swathed the entire proscenium? It’s hard to imagine the theater would have kept the same dusty drapes in place from '39 to '52. A visit to the Roxy would have brought on an allergy attack.

How’s that awful drape treatment! INfamous advertising really….. and…..recent posts about inventive cramming of marquee letters remind me of my Australian teenage ladder level exploits managing these two double features: ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE + ALLTHE PRESIDENT’S MEN. or try this one when 20 ft up: IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES + THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION OF GRACE QUIGLEY. A friend told me he had the thrill of placing THE HAUNTED AND THE HUNTED + THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. Hilarious! Imagine answering the phone 700 times and repeating that! My favourite is from the Randwick Ritz when Tony the illiterate kid we employed liked to place ‘the shapes’ as he called them, up on the marquee: LISA MINOOLI and REBORT DE BIRO in NEW WORK NEW WORK. …..I kid you not.

wow—if Gae’s girls weren’t balancing themselves on bouncing balls, they were perched on precarious pinnacles. RCMH’s Rockettes led a comparatively risk-free existence.

Thanks Vito, for pumping up the volume on “Journey”. Those lucky theater patrons (and the ghost of Bernard Herrmann) are grateful to you.