Comments from vindanpar

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vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Apr 15, 2016 at 4:54 pm

The Music Hall’s last Thanksgiving film which did not make it to Thanksgiving.

Love these ads. Remember looking at the photos of the stage show outside the front entrance. Wish I had gone in to see it.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Theatre Royal interior after secoind make-over on Apr 1, 2016 at 1:57 am

From the photo it looks like a great place to see 70mm.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Mar 30, 2016 at 7:19 pm

Keep posting these great ads CC.

Saw this on a sunday afternoon. Waited on line for about an hour.

First Easter show for me. And of course loved the movie. Audience did to.

I was totally blown away by Glory of Easter.

Included an act the kind of which might have been popular once in Vaudeville but I assume no longer exists. A lady on a horse in a kind of circus costume. Some guy on the choral stairs released birds and they landed on her. Don’t remember what she exactly did with them but even as a child I thought it a bit strange. The finale included the Rockettes dancing in a set of the RC Plaza.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Mar 28, 2016 at 1:27 pm

The Music Hall I believe had somewhere around 3 move overs from roadshow at the beginning of its history. It should have continued the policy in preference to some of the poor first run films they showed. Do you know what year the first Glory of Easter was produced?

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about NYC Radio City Music Hall Rockettes - 1937 on Mar 21, 2016 at 8:55 pm

Thank you. So this could then have been a publicity photo with all the Rockettes including the substitutes. I do know there were always an additional 10 beyond the 36 one saw on stage until the line was cut to 30 in the 70s.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about NYC Radio City Music Hall Rockettes - 1937 on Feb 26, 2016 at 5:30 pm

Not sure if this is ‘37 or even the Rockettes.

The Music Hall opened with 46 Roxyettes which is the number here.

Not sure when the number was cut by 10 and the name change took place.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Good lord on Feb 10, 2016 at 8:50 pm

Even I think this is a very sad picture.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Feb 6, 2016 at 8:51 pm

One of the strangest most distasteful films to ever play Radio City at Easter.

Despite its good reviews word of mouth traveled fast and it did poorly and this during a time when holiday shows at the Hall always did well. George Roy Hill said he never wanted another of his films to play there.

Its incongruity at the Hall as a holiday movie was surpassed the following year at Easter with the bleak gritty violent Operation Crossbow. I’m not sure what the programmers there were thinking.

Still its a great ad and made you think you were going to see a bright and funny Peter Sellers' comedy which you definitely did not.

You would have to wait a number of weeks for that. And it would be a classic.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Ziegfeld Theatre on Feb 2, 2016 at 12:15 pm

I remember reading once that Spielberg was not happy that Close Encounters had an initial exclusive engagement in markets.

From the beginning he wanted a huge roll out for block buster grosses.

It is amazing the Ziegfeld lasted this this long. It was a white elephant a long time ago.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Palace Theatre on Jan 28, 2016 at 4:37 pm

This makes so much sense when the retail space can go above it instead. Even if this succeeds what are the long term consequences for such an old building? Nobody has any idea. For God’s sake why can’t they leave the theater as it is?

Miserable wretched Ed Koch who did everything he could to destroy the Morosco and Helen Hayes(not to mention the Gaiety, Astor and Bijou)must be dancing a jig in hell.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Dominion Theatre on Jan 27, 2016 at 7:35 am

Interesting that a theater of this enormous size could show South Pacific for 4 years and Sound of Music for 3(maybe longer if 20th Century didn’t want it for Star. It was pulled from NY’s Rivoli despite management’s objections because the studio wanted it for Sand Pebbles.)

I too would love to see interior photos from its roadshow days.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Jan 26, 2016 at 4:02 pm

For the Music Hall to show classic films it would need an endowment.

And if I were a David Koch I would be the one to give it.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about MARY POPPINS in it's 7th WEEK! at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Jan 21, 2016 at 8:35 pm

I’m sure Disney was more than pleased when he saw Mary Poppins being advertised with Tonight For Sure! and Scanty Panties with the amazing Virginia Bell.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about It’s Fade to Black for Midtown’s Iconic Ziegfeld Movie Theater on Jan 21, 2016 at 8:26 pm

The last of the New York road show houses. Though I believe it only showed one film with reserved seats: the opening film Marooned. Unless the interior is retained why would they salvage the building? The exterior looks like it was poured from a cement mixer. And I have to admit when you were familiar with the Criterion, Rivoli and Warner Cinerama you always rued this was the one saved and not any of the others.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Jan 20, 2016 at 6:07 pm

Please keep posting these ads from the Music Hall’s glory days.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Jan 20, 2016 at 6:05 pm

Please keep post these ads from the Music Hall’s glory days.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Saban Theatre on Jan 6, 2016 at 8:55 pm

Wow from the original photos to the ones in 2002 it looks like someone repainted their basement. One thick coat of ugly colors slapped on with a big brush.

I hope the Saban restoration was able to bring it back to its former beauty. What a great place it probably was to see SOM.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Dec 28, 2015 at 12:05 pm

Just would like to clarify the fact that the score to Scaramouche was recorded in 3 track stereo and the film opened here in the summer of ‘52. Recording of the film started in October of '51. As I said would be interesting to know how it was presented.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about RKO Warner Twin Theatre on Dec 28, 2015 at 11:40 am

Boy how we remember things differently.

I saw OK at the Penthouse as well. I had never seen it in Todd AO and thought it was great. Don’t remember it as totally pink at all.

Saw a number of the 70mm prints in the main Cinerama theater. My Fair Lady, South Pacific and Paint Your Wagon were spectacular on that 80 foot curved screen.

And that sound system!

6 track analogue surround sound and not to be believed. They will never be heard like that again.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about RKO National Twin on Dec 25, 2015 at 7:14 am

I only saw The Black Hole here. Was disappointed in the screen size for such a large theater.

When SOM made its big return in 73 it played here and I was hoping it would return to the Rivoli as it had such a long initial engagement there and held the world premiere. I was too young to see it there its first go round. And as it was one of my favorite movie theaters it would have been great.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Sutton Theater on Dec 24, 2015 at 10:59 pm

Was in this theater in its latter days and found it hard to believe movies like The Blue Max and Gigi(after moving from the Royale reserved seat engagement) had prestigious runs here rather than in more spacious theaters in Times Square. Not only dumpy but too small for these kinds of films

The one movie I remember seeing here was a very strange little Isabelle Huppert number. She was in love with a too young hockey player and did unmentionable things to her body with a razorblade. Bad in the way only a French film can be bad.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Baronet and Coronet Theatre on Dec 24, 2015 at 10:40 pm

Perhaps then I saw at Cinema 1 a preview of Bullets over Broadway and did see MMM at the Beekman. I was only in the Coronet once and I believe I saw either Gallipoli or Breaker Morant there. I’d go with Cinema 1 for Days of Heaven but at this point I wouldn’t bet on it.

I did see Interiors at the Baronet at a first showing on the first Sat of the run. A line outside and the place was packed. I remember I liked it enormously when everyone from the critics to the audience hated it. Went again a short while later and found it just as good.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Tivoli Theatre on Dec 24, 2015 at 10:17 pm

This looks like one of the great roadshow houses with a truly wide screen that enveloped the audience head on.

I wish more of the photos under the individual theaters had such great photos of the interior and the size of the screen in relation to the audience.

Funny that this even opened as a roadshow house when so many theaters had to be converted to being one. At least in New York.

Yeah SOM would have looked great here.

I have a friend who has seen this Scaramouche at MOMA and while not especially a silent movie buff(he’s a big Sabatini buff) he claims it is much better than the ‘52 remake.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Dec 23, 2015 at 5:01 am

When I first started going to the Hall in ‘70 it was $1.75 before 12 weekday mornings and this was when they still had a ballet company, full symphony orchestra and 36 Rockettes. I believe a few months before it had been $1.50.

Of course the films at that point were very weak, things like Sunflower and Private Life of Sherlock Holmes which was so disastrous they had to pull it early and for the first time in Music Hall history and opened the Christmas show before Thanksgiving which at the time was considered too early.

The films only got worse but every once in a while though rarely they got a What’s Up Doc or Play It Again Sam.

Sill I got to see the spectacles Rhapsody in Blue and the Undersea Ballet which were great. Literally missed Bolero by days and though it had been done frequently in the past it was never done again much to my eternal chagrin. It was done again as part of a Encores spectacle but it was a completely new staging and new sets and costumes like the current Nativity. A completely different thing without the Leonidoff imprimatur and therefore not really the Music Hall at all.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Dec 22, 2015 at 6:46 am

And maybe Mr Endres is to modest to say but the presentation of SITR was so spectacular that Vincent Canby in that Sunday Times did a big piece on it(gilt edged he called it.) And you must understand this was in 75 when all the NY critics were droning on endlessly about the American New Wave in all their long essays. Very surprising.

I was there on a Saturday and had never seen the film before not even on TV. I was in shock(you know how us movie fans can be) and sat through it twice. I had never seen such colors before and there seemed to be enough inventiveness for 10 films.

It was one of my 3 greatest movie going experiences.

Also I don’t know if the sound had been put through some fake stereo or what but I have not heard since then Conrad Salinger’s orchestrations with such clarity. Especially in the sound stage sequence when Kelly starts turning on the effects for Reynolds. Listen to what Salinger is doing and imagine it in stereo. Magical. Who knows maybe it was stereo originally! The great score of Scaramouche was recorded in stereo(alas the tracks are lost) and that played at the Hall shortly after Rain the same year. Doubt though if it was presented that way. At this point who knows?

The Music Hall had a great stereo system and this was before Dolby. The analogue stereo was better. Warmer, richer and with greater depth. Not so hard and glassy. And there were no visible speakers!

The memory of the sound in the final musical sequence of Scrooge when all the groups converge still gives me chills. It made the final moments of Finney all the more moving. I was a boy but I was practically lifted out of my seat in exhilaration.