“Friendly Persuasion†came to us with a lot of misleading advertising: Tony Perkins, America’s latest heartthrob; Pat Boone singing the hit theme, “Thee I Love.†Who could have the stomach for Pat Boone? Somehow, friends persuaded me to go, and I found it hugely entertaining. I’m not sure that I knew what “A Wyler Film†meant in those days, but its quality surely touched me. The same could be said for “The George Stevens’ Production†then playing down the block at the Roxy. And as with “Giant†at that theater, the extended length of “Friendly Persuasion†(two hours and twenty minutes) at RCMH made for an abbreviated stage show. I recall nothing specific from it, but the title of the Rockettes’ musical number is undeniably evocative.
Right—but I bet the rear of the third mezzanine is at least as good as and possibly better than the rear of the second. In the first and second mezzanines, as well as in the rear orchestra, the overhanging upper structures would muffle the sound, whereas in the third mezzanine the sound rolls gently off the curved ceiling. I sat in the third balcony several times, but never in the first or second; rear orchestra seats under the first mezzanine are terrible.
Right—but I bet the rear of the third mezzanine is at least as good as and possibly better than the rear of the second. In the first and second mezzanines, as well as in the rear orchestra, the overhanging upper structures would muffle the sound, whereas in the third mezzanine the sound rolls gently off the curved ceiling. I sat in the third balcony several times, but never in the first or second; rear orchestra seats under the first mezzanine are terrible.
For live performances, front-row seats are never the best in the house (too close to the musicians who drown out the performers; to close to the stage to get a full view of the set; often they are used for company comps). The choice seats are usually center rows E to G in a large house or D to F in a smaller one. At RCMH, the mamouth scale likely dictates a somewhat wider span for choice seats. But I’m astonished that the front center mezzanine also commands the highest price, since the balconies are set so far back. The worst seats I ever had for any performance anywhere were for “Riverdance” at RCMH in the mid-‘90s. The cost hit mid-range on the price-scale, but the seats turned up in the rear orchestra and the sound was muffled while the performers looked like peanuts. Ever seen a peanut dance an Irish reel?
Warren— a great pic. “All the show on the screen”! What a way of directing attention from the vacant stage. Since the film opened on 25 Oct. ‘35, the shot would have been taken around that time.
There’s a terrific split-second shot of that billboard in “On the Town” as the boys exit from the IRT subway, but it passes so quickly that I’ve never been able to catch the titles advertised. When production of “Town” began on 28 March ‘49, the Capitol was featuring George Raft in “Outpost in Morocco” with Gordon Jenkins and a “Company of 52” on stage. Two weeks later the Capitol’s Easter show brought in those great B'klyn icons, Thelma Ritter and young Tony Curtis in “City Across the River” with Art Mooney and Orchestra on stage. Next time you see it, keep an eye peeled to catch whether it’s either. Meanwhile, Gene and Frank were holding down Loew’s State with Esther Williams in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” for eight weeks beginning March 10. Nice timing for Kelly.
This Christmas show marked a year since the Roxy had resumed stage shows (with “The Rains of Ranchipur†and “Happy Holiday†on 15 Dec. ’55) after having suspended them when CinemaScope took over in Sept. ’53. To promote the new policy, this souvenir program offered a snapshot from each of the productions that had preceded the current one. “Sonja Hennie’s Ice Review†double-lutzed with “The Lieutenant Wore Skirts†(11 Jan.). The “Rock ‘n’ Roll Ice Review†topped “Bottom of the Bottle†(16 Feb.). “Springtime†(Roxy decreed it a month-and-a-half early that snowy winter) rode in on the CinemaScope55 “Carousel†(16 Feb., the first of a string of long-running hits that year). “Gala Paree†provided haute-couture for the adult-themed Easter offering, “Man in the Grey Flannel Suit†(12 April). “Circus,†led by the famed clown Emmet Kelley, joined the flotilla of “D-Day, the Sixth of June†(29 May). “Manhattan Moods†brought us back home after “The King and I†(28 Juneâ€"Kate Cameron of the NY Daily News deliriously awarded the film a fifth starâ€"my, my!). “Magic of the Stage†double-parked with “Bus Stop†(31 August). A very short “Fall Fantasy†trailed after the long and lanky “Giant†(10 October).
On January 5 2005 above, I’ve already described what I remember from “Wide Wide World Holiday,†which was paired with “Anastasia.†The combo ran for seven weeks (13 Dec.-8 Feb.), no doubt drawing crowds away from RCMH and possibly accounting for the dismal box-office returns of the latter’s only flop in that era, “The Barretts of Wimpole Street.†Certainly the stage show’s finale marrying Love is a Many Splendored Thing to Geisha Gaiety in front of Mt. Matsumoto cast a competitive glance at “Teahouse of the August Moon,†RCMH’s Christmas film that year.
“Teahouse of the August Moon†and the Christmas stage show was another package that I saw twice at RCMH, but for the inverse reason that made me repeat the following year’s offering. This time I went first with my parents early in the run (“Marlon Brando is such a great actor: let’s see what he can do with comedy!â€). The film’s opening music knocked me over: I had never heard such exotic sounds and rhythms, such tempo, high pitch, and syncopation. The sanshin and samisen strings, taiko drums, and bamboo flutes sent shivers down my spine. The following Monday on my way home after school, I swerved uncontrollably towards Sam Goody’s on W. 48 (then Gotham’s biggest and only discount record store) to find the best approximation I could, a recording of Kabuki music (“Sir, do you sell any Japanese music?†“Yes, young man; I think you might like this one: it’s called Kabuki.â€) My friends thought I was crazy to spend money I’d saved for Christmas shopping, but after hearing it, they too went wild over the sound. The following Saturday, we headed to RCMH to see the film before the holiday lines grew too long. I never told my parents, because they would have thought it a waste of time to see a film you’d already seen.
The circus-themed stage numbers included what must have been an acrobatic or highwire act (is that what Melitta and Wicons did?), an act with chimpanzees, and the Rockettes as lions and tigers tamed by the rhythm of their tap shoes. On the program’s final page is an invitation to visit the US Rubber’s Exhibit Hall on the site of the former Center Theater. The space constitutes what had been the theater’s grand lobby, which had closed early in ’54. Its auditorium became a parking garage. What a loss.
Thanks for another superb listing of the Roxy’s shows. A quick glance at the dates suggests that this was a successful year for the Roxy. Most shows played for three weeks and none for less than two. The longest (four weeks!) was, surprisingly, “Anne of the Indies†with the relatively low star-wattage of the stage acts (Sammy Davis, Jr. was just starting out at the time and couldn’t have been that big of a draw). Though the film was a B-level Fox offering with Jean Peters as a pirate girl (I’ll bet it played as second-feature when it hit the RKO nabes), its director was Jacques Tourneur: were there enough film cultists in those days to fill the Roxy? The show I would like to have seen was the preceding one, with Josephine Baker heading the stage portion: sensational. Leonard Maltin rates the film (which I have no memory trace of at all) as funny and winning.
The only show I saw there that year was “On the Riviera,†which a neighbor had tipped off my parents about as being hilarious. Irving Fields was an oddity, a concert pianist who had taken to playing at cocktail lounges accompanied by bass, drums, guitar, and bongos. He mixed Jewish melodies with Latin rhythms, most famously in “Mazeltov Merengue.†Corinne and Tito Vellez were a husband-and-wife Latin singing team (“Besame muchoâ€), and Peggy Ryan and Ray McDonald were a husband-and-wife tap-dancing team. All four had appeared in B-movies. Mimi Benzell was a second-level Met Opera soprano in the late ‘40s-early ‘50s (Musetta; Queen of the Night, with Ezio Pinza as Sarastro; Gilda, with Leonard Warren as Rigoletto) who also took to cocktail lounges singing Cole Porter and the like. Up the block, RCMH was showing “The Great Caruso,†so the Roxy’s answer to it appears to have been this opera-house/concert-hall stage equivalent.
Vincent— I’d bet my last dollar that the Criterion did not change the size or shape of its screen (except for appropriate masking)between 1956 and 1966, the era that encompassed its most remembered road shows. Except for “The Mille Commandments,” I saw none of them there. But I did see a few conventional films that played there in the intervals. “Sleeping Beauty” (‘59), “Anatomy of a Murder” ('59), and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” ('66) spring to mind. In each case, the screen was exactly the same as it was when Charlton climbed Mount Sinai.
Despite the adjectives I used above, the screen was, in fact, not all that impressive, not nearly as wide or curved as the Rivoli’s nor as massive as the Paramount’s. Its curvature has the conventional ratio of those as most theaters of the day (12:1, I believe), and its entire compass sat behind the theater’s original red traveler curtain (the curtain’s fabric was replaced in ‘56, I recall, but not its tracking). Since the theater’s proscenium was wider than most, but not exceptionally so, the screen seemed big alright, but not uncommonly stupendous. “Commandments” used up its entire surface in the classic VistaVision ratio. Masking reduced its height for the SuperTechnirama70 Disney cartoon. And some top and side masking slightly reduced its overall size for both Judge Welch’s movie debut and the Taylor-Burton debauch.
I can’t imagine that the management installed and re-installed a deeply-curved Rivoli-style ToddAO screen for “South Pacific,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” and “My Fair Lady,” removing it each time between those engagements. It surely replaced the screen’s fabric periodically, but without altering its shape as far as I could see. Thanks, Warren, for the names of those useful trade magazines.
This must be a rare document, because in a post on 14 July 2004 above, SimonL pointed out that “The Barretts of Wimpole Street†garnered the smallest attendance of any film in the glory days of RCMH. The opening week earned $85,000, at a time when the theater’s standard receipts usually hit $140,000 or higher. The show stayed on for an equally dismal second week, and then folded. I can only wonder what prospective audiences might have thought. “Just who were the Barretts of Wimpole Street?†“I think they lived in England.†“O.†“And I think one of them was sick, took morphine, and wrote poetry.†“O.†“And I think she married a guy who was younger than she was and who also wrote poetry.†“O.†“And I think they eloped to Tuscany.†“O. What’s playing at the Roxy?â€
If I remember correctly, the movie stopped short of depicting the birth of the Barrett-Brownings’ son in Italy when Elizabeth was forty-three years old and still hypochondriac. They named the boy “Pennini†(I am not joking). The film’s major nod to poetry came in its first frames with an off-screen Jennifer Jones reciting “How Shall I Love Thee?â€over images of trees. But the great contour curtain rose slowly and the Grand Organ’s final strains muffled out the sound of the words till they got lost in the high arches. It’s a shame that MGM made these poets’ lives seem so shallow. Besides “Shakespeare in Love,†what good movies are there about poets? Rudolf Friml’s “Vagabond Kingâ€? Someone should film Goethe’s “Tasso†or Pierre Louys’s “Sappho†and give it a midnight screening at RCMH. For the record, “Anastasia†was playing as a Christmas hold-over at the Roxy, to be followed by Frank Tashlin’s “The Girl Can’t Help It†with Jayne Mansfield, Tom Ewell, Fats Domino, The Platters, Little Richard, and a dozen other Rock’n’Roll stars.
For all that, I remember the stage show as being quite good. The newspaper theme opened with the Choral Ensemble singing about frantic nights at the daily press and moved to the Rockettes who boogied on the thirty-six keys of a giant typewriter. The entertainment and metro pages were filled by Richiardi, a magician who in the ‘70s mounted his own show on B’way, and by Janik and Arnaut, exotic dancers (in the old sense of the words) who executed a snake charmer number. The conclusion took us to a front-page report on President Eisenhower’s Inaugural Ball that year, with the Corps de Ballet garbed in red, white, and blue for a gambol along the Potomac. There was no Jenna to contend with.
Besides Scripture, the program incorporated De Mille’s inspirational statement (scanned here last) and a few pages about the major actors. It didn’t take Michael Moore to remind us of Charlton Heston’s addiction to the NRA: this photo reveals a lot. I wonder whether anyone ever mistook Anne Baxter for Nefertiti? And I don’t believe that Yul ever got to direct a feature film, though I know that he did direct a lot of TV spots (that’s how he got the role opposite Gertrude Lawrence as The King).
I saw the film at a 9:30 am Saturday showing at reduced prices. One of my first posts on this site recorded my experience at the theater. To save you the trouble of scrolling back to 7 August ‘04, I’ll repeat it here with modifications:
My visit to “The Ten Commandments†in ’57 left me with wounds still borne today: To accommodate an extra reserved-seat showing, they ran an early-bird 9:30am Saturday screening that suited my teen-age wallet. I purchased the ticket a few days in advance, and then went to see Tyrone Guthrie’s “Oedipus Rex†at the 55th Street Playhouse, which oddly enough I remember today better than the movie in question. On the appointed Saturday, I arrived at 9:29:59 and sprinted past the usher-women to find my seat (knowing where it was, thanks to Stubs). The lights were already down and Mr. DeMille’s prologue had begun. I crashed loudly into an industrial-size trash-can left in the far aisle after the previous night’s showing. A thousand eyes turned to me in the darkness, lit only by light shining from the screen. The can rolled toward the proscenium. Usher-women fanned out down the aisle on a witch-hunt. I darted into my seat, terror-stricken that I’d be ejected for causing a ruckus (not the least for being an unaccompanied 14-y.o.). I survived ejection, but limped for several weeks with what might have been a fractured shin. Shoudda sued ‘em. O, and I thought “The Ten Commandments” looked great on the Criterion’s giant curved VistaVision screen. Who could ever forget the theater’s bright red traveler curtain?
Another rousing show that year, “The Spirit of St. Louis†and its stage presentation marked a couple of departures. For one, the film bore none of Billy Wilder’s trademark cynicism or irony; or, if it did, those qualities worked so subtly against the film’s celebratory grain that they provided just enough grit to form a pearl. I found it amazing how one actor and a buzzing fly could sustain such attention for so long in a film whose outcome we knew from the start. I shall never forget the ending with the actor and the plane alone in the hanger at Le Bourget as French crowds intoned Lindbergh’s name, the actor naively intoning “There were 200,000 people there that night. And when we came back home, there were 4 million people waiting,†and finally the cut to actual footage of Lindy’s ticker-tape parade in NYC, with “Stars and Stripes Forever†on the soundtrack, now synchronized with the Grand Organ as the great contour curtain fell.
A second departure, as I’ve already remarked on this page (23 July 2004) is that the organ interludes before and after the movie and stage show were framed in a way I’d never experienced before or after at RCMH. Instead of using the golden houselights on the contour curtain and arches, the tech crew lit the entire auditorium in sky blue to match the movie’s theme. And instead of using organ #1 on the left as usual, they used organ #2 on the right. I remember thinking, jees, all these tourists here for the first and maybe last time will never see the famous “sunset” effect of the golden curtain. Some might recall that the newsreels and next-attraction announcement always took place under dimly blue-lit arches to enable arriving and departing patrons to navigate the aisles. For the interludes at this show, the intensity was ratcheted up several levels to bathe the house in Lindy blue. Odd.
A third, but expected, departure was a very brief stage show to make up for the extreme length of the film. I remember its prevailing color scheme figured as blue, too. The opening classical ballet gave way to 1920s-ish Gershwinesque tunes sung by the Foursome (who would reappear later that year in the stage show with “The Pajama Gameâ€). That in turn gave way to a stage set of enormous magazine covers, from which the Rockettes stepped out to perform their routine. Then came the finale and that was it for the show. The program provides credits for umbrellas used in one of the acts, but for the life of me, I can’t remember how they played out in the scenario.
Yes, the Mark Hellinger is still an eye-popper. Last month on a Sunday afternoon at 2:30 pm my car ride from upstate dropped me off just outside the theater as it was filling up with church-goers. I went inside and marveled at the wonderfully bright preservation of the lobby. Ushers were not letting visitors into the auditorium, but I peered through one of the sheer-curtained glass doors and saw that the interior is as splendid as the lobby. It’s very close to what I remember from the days between “My Fair Lady” (‘56) and “Coco” ('69), right down to the sheer-curtained doors. Warren has mentioned an article on the City Section of the NYTimes on 4 December 2005. The color picture of the rear balcony looks wonderful. Bravo!
Right— For some reason I can’t fathom, my parents too preferred to sit in the Paramount’s balcony when they brought me there in the late ‘40s and early '50s. They didn’t smoke, so it couldn’t have been for cigarettes. And they never took to the balcony at any other theaters (except for Ice Colorama shows at the Roxy in 1953). Perhaps they liked the sense of vertigo at the Paramount?
One possible motivation might have been to view the orchestra pit head-on as it rose to stage level with the performers. The last stage show I saw there (and I believe it was the final regular program in the old format) accompanied Doris Day’s “Calamity Jane” in November ‘53, and it featured the four Ames Brothers (“You, You, You” was the sensation at the time)who came on after the Peiro Brothers juggling act and the British ventriloquist Clifford Guest opened the presentation; the band was Pupi Campo’s Latin orchestra, which had become a big hit as the in-house music on Jack Paar’s TV show. The Ames Brothers’ pianist was Burt Bacharach.
After that show, my parents stopped going to the Paramount. My next visit was with teen-age friends to see “The Man Who Knew Too Much” on the giant VistaVision screen. We sat in the orchestra’s third row to make the picture seem as big as possible.
These diagrams show wonderfully how enormous the Paramount’s balcony was. But they barely suggest how steep it was, too. Covering much of the orchestra, it then swept back to the 43 Street wall and over the tall lobby and grand staircase. As it descended from near-ceiling height at the rear projection booth, it brought on a giddy sense of vertigo and ampitheatric expanse. When you stood up, you felt you might tumble down into the orchestra pit.
You got none of this feeling on the ground level. I never saw a show from the mezzanine set-back (here called “entresol”: my, how Louis XIVieme), but from the main floor it looked quite comfortable with its attractive low lighting. After a visit to the Paramount, a trip to Versailles would seem anticlimactic.
I never knew that the Paramount had suspended its stage shows during the deep, dark days of the Depression. The Strand and the Capitol and Loew’s State, yes. But the Paramount? That’s a jolt. For how long?
That wonderful picture must date from 1935. The show opened on Oct. 13 that year. If only it were in color. What must the chromatic range have been like?
Grace, elegance, and pizzazz. “Funny Face†with an exceptional Easter stage show evokes sublime memories. To this day in NYC, I still expect to find that terrific bookstore off the Washington Mews with Audrey inside, and to this day I still see Paris through the eyes of Fred’s mythical camera. And whenever I step inside a publishing house, I get a hunch that Kay Thompson lurks just on the other side of the wall. I’m crushed to learn from Warren’s wonderful book on AH that the movie failed to recoup its cost.
The stage extravaganza developed a shipboard-cruise scenario and began with a trained dog act in which a frantic passenger-couple tried to keep their hounds under sendoff control while boarding at Pier 52. Next, the Corps de Ballet swaned around a fog-bound set. Then the ship docked at Port of Spain for a Trinidadian steel-band lime. As the vessel moved on through the Panama Canal, the orchestra mounted the stage (suggesting the action of canal locks, I guess) to arrive at a Panamanian fiesta where the Rockettes kicked to a Latin beat. At the end, the ballet and the choral ensemble joined the kick-line and the now-vacant orchestra-pit elevator rose to stage level filled with tropical flowers. I’ve never been on a Caribbean cruise, but I can’t imagine it getting any better than that.
Many, many thanks to Patrick Crowley and his staff for technical improvements over the long weekend. We’re all deeply grateful for the pleasures that this site provides. Bravo for your hard work.
Here’s one post that I wanted to make last Saturday, 26 November. As the Warner ticket stubs will show, it’s for a Saturday matinee screening of the second Cinerama feature, “Cinerama Holiday,†exactly fifty years ago to the prime. The weekdays that Thanksgiving weekend occupied the same calendar dates. Here’s the program:
Few things electrified moviegoers more than “This Is Cinerama†in ‘52-’53. It seemed like an eternity before this tepid follow-up appeared in ’55. Did anyone care? Those boys at pre-co-ed Dartmouth look awfully sullen. Those priests at pre-Vatican-II Notre Dame look awfully caged. Copy for the scenario is all thumbs. Yet it was Cinerama, and we sent away for reserved seats months in advance. I wonder what fashionable NYC hotel our deputy gadabouts dined at? The table displays no sign of palatable food or drink. Were the ‘50s really like that?
The water stains on this program were incurred by a flood in my basement last April. Until then, along with others in my collection, it had sat boxed up since a late ‘70s house-move. If not for that flood, I wouldn’t have opened these cartons.
During the run of “Joan of Arc,” the Victoria displayed the left half of the same illuminated sign in its customary space above the marquee. The colors were amazing, from the iron mesh and gleaming metal of Ingrid/Joan’s armor to the blue and white medieval French flag and the amber flames of military destruction, fifteenth-century style. The sign was the most spectacular one I remember from the Victoria (the Astor’s signs usually topped those of its Times Square’s mate).
Fall Creek Pictures represents a triumph of imagination, good taste, and dedicated showmanship. It occupies the site of an abandoned supermarket building in a non-commercial neighborhood a couple of blocks away from the photogenic Ithaca Falls whose picture graces many a NYS travel brochure. As far as I know, no supermarket ever materialized in the structure that was raised for it in the 1960s (it was considered too small and outmoded for the mega-marts that were beginning to sprout up at the time). In the winter of ‘85-’86, the operators of Cinemapolis on the Ithaca Commons Richard Szanyi and Lynne Cohen joined the arts and ecology entrepreneur Tsvi Bokaer in taking out a lease on the building. Within a few months they partitioned the interior into two theaters with comfortably-sized screens, deep-cushioned and well-staggered seats, and powder-blue fabric-covered walls with modern lighting.
At first Fall Creek Pictures dedicated one screen to classic revivals and move-over foreign films from his recently opened Cinemapolis on the Ithaca Commons, and the second screen to sub-runs of H’wood product from Hoyt’s (now Regal) Pyramid Mall megaplex. But business proved so successful that the theater soon eliminated sub-runs and began booking prestige openers from North America and around the world. Today the hallway leading from the box-office and refreshment stand (home-baked brownies, chocolate-chip cookies, herbal teas, and dark roast coffees, as at Cinemapolis) to the auditoriums is lined with posters from wonderful films shown there over the past two decades. They’re a wonderful reminder of the great stuff we’ve seen at this theater.
The Fall Creek Picture’s most distinctive touch came in 1989-90 with the addition of a third screen in a small room carved out from the side of the building. Here, in a space the size of a generous home living-room, and with about eighteen theater seats and (at first) a few upholstered easy chairs with large throw-pillows, one could see on a large wall-sized screen the very last sub-runs of the best films from Fall Creek, Cinemapolis, and even the Mall megaplex. I often wait until films played in that room, valuing it for its intimacy and sheer comfort. It’s like viewing the best of the best at home.
Cinemapolis is one-of-a-kind in Ithaca, and that’s saying something in a town where there’s many ones-of-a-kind. When the block-size Center Ithaca complex opened in the early ‘80s on State Street at Ithaca Commons, it accommodated various street-level stores, a food court, some second-level office space, and two floors of luxury apartments. But its vast basement space went unused (except for utility areas) until Richard Szanyi and Lynne Cohen got the idea of nesting a small art theater into a corner of it.
Cinemapolis proved so critically successful that a year or so later, adjoining space was carved into a second, smaller theater. In both, comfortably proportioned screens occupy a single-level space with nicely staggered, deeply cushioned seats (new sets were installed recently). The projection in each is focus-perfect, with proper masking (well, usually, anyway), and excellent sound. An ever-obliging staff goes out of its way to please, and responds promptly to requests for focus or volume adjustment. And a youthful collegiate crowd greets the performances with respectful attention, savvy good humor, andâ€"when appropriate—enthusiastic cheers.
Ex-pat New Yorkers wax nostalgic about the ambiance as it recalls NYC art houses of the ‘50s and ‘60s. For me, it’s a mutant version of the Thalia, the Regency, the 55th Street Playhouse, and the Art, with a touch of the Baronet, the Fine Arts, and the Plaza thrown into the mix. In its main auditorium, rear-lit stained-glass panels decorate attractively draped walls, and expansive rows of seats give the impression of creating a much larger space than it actually is. In the smaller auditorium, a center aisle lends an intimacy to the side-row seating. Oh, and the refreshment stand offers home-baked brownies and chocolate-chip cookies with herbal teas and dark-roast coffees, along with old movie posters and stills from earlier attractions. The lobby can get packed between screenings, and the buzz in the air when a film lets out is terrifically energizing as patrons trade wise-cracks, critical comments, and neighborly glances. Now at the beginning of its third decade, it’s a gift to the community.
If you can get your hands on a trade journal named “Theatre Catalog” (note precise spelling: It’s a USA publication, despite the orthography), you’ll find lots of advertisements with pictures for theater equipment, uniforms, concession stands, poster displays, et al. Volumes appeared annually between 1944-55, precisely the years you designate. It should likely be available through interlibrary loan from the Ann Arbor campus.
Here’s a Program from November, 1956:
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“Friendly Persuasion†came to us with a lot of misleading advertising: Tony Perkins, America’s latest heartthrob; Pat Boone singing the hit theme, “Thee I Love.†Who could have the stomach for Pat Boone? Somehow, friends persuaded me to go, and I found it hugely entertaining. I’m not sure that I knew what “A Wyler Film†meant in those days, but its quality surely touched me. The same could be said for “The George Stevens’ Production†then playing down the block at the Roxy. And as with “Giant†at that theater, the extended length of “Friendly Persuasion†(two hours and twenty minutes) at RCMH made for an abbreviated stage show. I recall nothing specific from it, but the title of the Rockettes’ musical number is undeniably evocative.
Right—but I bet the rear of the third mezzanine is at least as good as and possibly better than the rear of the second. In the first and second mezzanines, as well as in the rear orchestra, the overhanging upper structures would muffle the sound, whereas in the third mezzanine the sound rolls gently off the curved ceiling. I sat in the third balcony several times, but never in the first or second; rear orchestra seats under the first mezzanine are terrible.
Right—but I bet the rear of the third mezzanine is at least as good as and possibly better than the rear of the second. In the first and second mezzanines, as well as in the rear orchestra, the overhanging upper structures would muffle the sound, whereas in the third mezzanine the sound rolls gently off the curved ceiling. I sat in the third balcony several times, but never in the first or second; rear orchestra seats under the first mezzanine are terrible.
For live performances, front-row seats are never the best in the house (too close to the musicians who drown out the performers; to close to the stage to get a full view of the set; often they are used for company comps). The choice seats are usually center rows E to G in a large house or D to F in a smaller one. At RCMH, the mamouth scale likely dictates a somewhat wider span for choice seats. But I’m astonished that the front center mezzanine also commands the highest price, since the balconies are set so far back. The worst seats I ever had for any performance anywhere were for “Riverdance” at RCMH in the mid-‘90s. The cost hit mid-range on the price-scale, but the seats turned up in the rear orchestra and the sound was muffled while the performers looked like peanuts. Ever seen a peanut dance an Irish reel?
The wall was on W 50, at the rear of the stage.
Warren— a great pic. “All the show on the screen”! What a way of directing attention from the vacant stage. Since the film opened on 25 Oct. ‘35, the shot would have been taken around that time.
There’s a terrific split-second shot of that billboard in “On the Town” as the boys exit from the IRT subway, but it passes so quickly that I’ve never been able to catch the titles advertised. When production of “Town” began on 28 March ‘49, the Capitol was featuring George Raft in “Outpost in Morocco” with Gordon Jenkins and a “Company of 52” on stage. Two weeks later the Capitol’s Easter show brought in those great B'klyn icons, Thelma Ritter and young Tony Curtis in “City Across the River” with Art Mooney and Orchestra on stage. Next time you see it, keep an eye peeled to catch whether it’s either. Meanwhile, Gene and Frank were holding down Loew’s State with Esther Williams in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” for eight weeks beginning March 10. Nice timing for Kelly.
Here’s a program from December, 1956:
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This Christmas show marked a year since the Roxy had resumed stage shows (with “The Rains of Ranchipur†and “Happy Holiday†on 15 Dec. ’55) after having suspended them when CinemaScope took over in Sept. ’53. To promote the new policy, this souvenir program offered a snapshot from each of the productions that had preceded the current one. “Sonja Hennie’s Ice Review†double-lutzed with “The Lieutenant Wore Skirts†(11 Jan.). The “Rock ‘n’ Roll Ice Review†topped “Bottom of the Bottle†(16 Feb.). “Springtime†(Roxy decreed it a month-and-a-half early that snowy winter) rode in on the CinemaScope55 “Carousel†(16 Feb., the first of a string of long-running hits that year). “Gala Paree†provided haute-couture for the adult-themed Easter offering, “Man in the Grey Flannel Suit†(12 April). “Circus,†led by the famed clown Emmet Kelley, joined the flotilla of “D-Day, the Sixth of June†(29 May). “Manhattan Moods†brought us back home after “The King and I†(28 Juneâ€"Kate Cameron of the NY Daily News deliriously awarded the film a fifth starâ€"my, my!). “Magic of the Stage†double-parked with “Bus Stop†(31 August). A very short “Fall Fantasy†trailed after the long and lanky “Giant†(10 October).
On January 5 2005 above, I’ve already described what I remember from “Wide Wide World Holiday,†which was paired with “Anastasia.†The combo ran for seven weeks (13 Dec.-8 Feb.), no doubt drawing crowds away from RCMH and possibly accounting for the dismal box-office returns of the latter’s only flop in that era, “The Barretts of Wimpole Street.†Certainly the stage show’s finale marrying Love is a Many Splendored Thing to Geisha Gaiety in front of Mt. Matsumoto cast a competitive glance at “Teahouse of the August Moon,†RCMH’s Christmas film that year.
Here’s a Program from December 1956:
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“Teahouse of the August Moon†and the Christmas stage show was another package that I saw twice at RCMH, but for the inverse reason that made me repeat the following year’s offering. This time I went first with my parents early in the run (“Marlon Brando is such a great actor: let’s see what he can do with comedy!â€). The film’s opening music knocked me over: I had never heard such exotic sounds and rhythms, such tempo, high pitch, and syncopation. The sanshin and samisen strings, taiko drums, and bamboo flutes sent shivers down my spine. The following Monday on my way home after school, I swerved uncontrollably towards Sam Goody’s on W. 48 (then Gotham’s biggest and only discount record store) to find the best approximation I could, a recording of Kabuki music (“Sir, do you sell any Japanese music?†“Yes, young man; I think you might like this one: it’s called Kabuki.â€) My friends thought I was crazy to spend money I’d saved for Christmas shopping, but after hearing it, they too went wild over the sound. The following Saturday, we headed to RCMH to see the film before the holiday lines grew too long. I never told my parents, because they would have thought it a waste of time to see a film you’d already seen.
The circus-themed stage numbers included what must have been an acrobatic or highwire act (is that what Melitta and Wicons did?), an act with chimpanzees, and the Rockettes as lions and tigers tamed by the rhythm of their tap shoes. On the program’s final page is an invitation to visit the US Rubber’s Exhibit Hall on the site of the former Center Theater. The space constitutes what had been the theater’s grand lobby, which had closed early in ’54. Its auditorium became a parking garage. What a loss.
Warren—
Thanks for another superb listing of the Roxy’s shows. A quick glance at the dates suggests that this was a successful year for the Roxy. Most shows played for three weeks and none for less than two. The longest (four weeks!) was, surprisingly, “Anne of the Indies†with the relatively low star-wattage of the stage acts (Sammy Davis, Jr. was just starting out at the time and couldn’t have been that big of a draw). Though the film was a B-level Fox offering with Jean Peters as a pirate girl (I’ll bet it played as second-feature when it hit the RKO nabes), its director was Jacques Tourneur: were there enough film cultists in those days to fill the Roxy? The show I would like to have seen was the preceding one, with Josephine Baker heading the stage portion: sensational. Leonard Maltin rates the film (which I have no memory trace of at all) as funny and winning.
The only show I saw there that year was “On the Riviera,†which a neighbor had tipped off my parents about as being hilarious. Irving Fields was an oddity, a concert pianist who had taken to playing at cocktail lounges accompanied by bass, drums, guitar, and bongos. He mixed Jewish melodies with Latin rhythms, most famously in “Mazeltov Merengue.†Corinne and Tito Vellez were a husband-and-wife Latin singing team (“Besame muchoâ€), and Peggy Ryan and Ray McDonald were a husband-and-wife tap-dancing team. All four had appeared in B-movies. Mimi Benzell was a second-level Met Opera soprano in the late ‘40s-early ‘50s (Musetta; Queen of the Night, with Ezio Pinza as Sarastro; Gilda, with Leonard Warren as Rigoletto) who also took to cocktail lounges singing Cole Porter and the like. Up the block, RCMH was showing “The Great Caruso,†so the Roxy’s answer to it appears to have been this opera-house/concert-hall stage equivalent.
Vincent— I’d bet my last dollar that the Criterion did not change the size or shape of its screen (except for appropriate masking)between 1956 and 1966, the era that encompassed its most remembered road shows. Except for “The Mille Commandments,” I saw none of them there. But I did see a few conventional films that played there in the intervals. “Sleeping Beauty” (‘59), “Anatomy of a Murder” ('59), and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” ('66) spring to mind. In each case, the screen was exactly the same as it was when Charlton climbed Mount Sinai.
Despite the adjectives I used above, the screen was, in fact, not all that impressive, not nearly as wide or curved as the Rivoli’s nor as massive as the Paramount’s. Its curvature has the conventional ratio of those as most theaters of the day (12:1, I believe), and its entire compass sat behind the theater’s original red traveler curtain (the curtain’s fabric was replaced in ‘56, I recall, but not its tracking). Since the theater’s proscenium was wider than most, but not exceptionally so, the screen seemed big alright, but not uncommonly stupendous. “Commandments” used up its entire surface in the classic VistaVision ratio. Masking reduced its height for the SuperTechnirama70 Disney cartoon. And some top and side masking slightly reduced its overall size for both Judge Welch’s movie debut and the Taylor-Burton debauch.
I can’t imagine that the management installed and re-installed a deeply-curved Rivoli-style ToddAO screen for “South Pacific,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” and “My Fair Lady,” removing it each time between those engagements. It surely replaced the screen’s fabric periodically, but without altering its shape as far as I could see. Thanks, Warren, for the names of those useful trade magazines.
Vincent—
Thanks for your kind comments on my reviews of 1957. I have one more before moving on to 1956. Here’s a Program from January 1957:
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This must be a rare document, because in a post on 14 July 2004 above, SimonL pointed out that “The Barretts of Wimpole Street†garnered the smallest attendance of any film in the glory days of RCMH. The opening week earned $85,000, at a time when the theater’s standard receipts usually hit $140,000 or higher. The show stayed on for an equally dismal second week, and then folded. I can only wonder what prospective audiences might have thought. “Just who were the Barretts of Wimpole Street?†“I think they lived in England.†“O.†“And I think one of them was sick, took morphine, and wrote poetry.†“O.†“And I think she married a guy who was younger than she was and who also wrote poetry.†“O.†“And I think they eloped to Tuscany.†“O. What’s playing at the Roxy?â€
If I remember correctly, the movie stopped short of depicting the birth of the Barrett-Brownings’ son in Italy when Elizabeth was forty-three years old and still hypochondriac. They named the boy “Pennini†(I am not joking). The film’s major nod to poetry came in its first frames with an off-screen Jennifer Jones reciting “How Shall I Love Thee?â€over images of trees. But the great contour curtain rose slowly and the Grand Organ’s final strains muffled out the sound of the words till they got lost in the high arches. It’s a shame that MGM made these poets’ lives seem so shallow. Besides “Shakespeare in Love,†what good movies are there about poets? Rudolf Friml’s “Vagabond Kingâ€? Someone should film Goethe’s “Tasso†or Pierre Louys’s “Sappho†and give it a midnight screening at RCMH. For the record, “Anastasia†was playing as a Christmas hold-over at the Roxy, to be followed by Frank Tashlin’s “The Girl Can’t Help It†with Jayne Mansfield, Tom Ewell, Fats Domino, The Platters, Little Richard, and a dozen other Rock’n’Roll stars.
For all that, I remember the stage show as being quite good. The newspaper theme opened with the Choral Ensemble singing about frantic nights at the daily press and moved to the Rockettes who boogied on the thirty-six keys of a giant typewriter. The entertainment and metro pages were filled by Richiardi, a magician who in the ‘70s mounted his own show on B’way, and by Janik and Arnaut, exotic dancers (in the old sense of the words) who executed a snake charmer number. The conclusion took us to a front-page report on President Eisenhower’s Inaugural Ball that year, with the Corps de Ballet garbed in red, white, and blue for a gambol along the Potomac. There was no Jenna to contend with.
Here’s a Souvenir Program from January 1957 at the Criterion:
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Unlike other souvenir programs from the period, this one for “The Ten Commandments†offered no behind-the-scenes views of production details or film-making logistics. Nor did it present stills from the film. Instead, it offered painterly renderings by an Artiste Détaché depicting key scenes from the movie, with captions drawn from the Books of Books. No matter that the script itself had flagrantly debased that Good Book. De Mille’s intentions were sincere. If he could have filmed “The Thousand Commandments,†he would have. He nearly did.
Besides Scripture, the program incorporated De Mille’s inspirational statement (scanned here last) and a few pages about the major actors. It didn’t take Michael Moore to remind us of Charlton Heston’s addiction to the NRA: this photo reveals a lot. I wonder whether anyone ever mistook Anne Baxter for Nefertiti? And I don’t believe that Yul ever got to direct a feature film, though I know that he did direct a lot of TV spots (that’s how he got the role opposite Gertrude Lawrence as The King).
I saw the film at a 9:30 am Saturday showing at reduced prices. One of my first posts on this site recorded my experience at the theater. To save you the trouble of scrolling back to 7 August ‘04, I’ll repeat it here with modifications:
My visit to “The Ten Commandments†in ’57 left me with wounds still borne today: To accommodate an extra reserved-seat showing, they ran an early-bird 9:30am Saturday screening that suited my teen-age wallet. I purchased the ticket a few days in advance, and then went to see Tyrone Guthrie’s “Oedipus Rex†at the 55th Street Playhouse, which oddly enough I remember today better than the movie in question. On the appointed Saturday, I arrived at 9:29:59 and sprinted past the usher-women to find my seat (knowing where it was, thanks to Stubs). The lights were already down and Mr. DeMille’s prologue had begun. I crashed loudly into an industrial-size trash-can left in the far aisle after the previous night’s showing. A thousand eyes turned to me in the darkness, lit only by light shining from the screen. The can rolled toward the proscenium. Usher-women fanned out down the aisle on a witch-hunt. I darted into my seat, terror-stricken that I’d be ejected for causing a ruckus (not the least for being an unaccompanied 14-y.o.). I survived ejection, but limped for several weeks with what might have been a fractured shin. Shoudda sued ‘em. O, and I thought “The Ten Commandments” looked great on the Criterion’s giant curved VistaVision screen. Who could ever forget the theater’s bright red traveler curtain?
Here’s a Program from March, 1957:
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Another rousing show that year, “The Spirit of St. Louis†and its stage presentation marked a couple of departures. For one, the film bore none of Billy Wilder’s trademark cynicism or irony; or, if it did, those qualities worked so subtly against the film’s celebratory grain that they provided just enough grit to form a pearl. I found it amazing how one actor and a buzzing fly could sustain such attention for so long in a film whose outcome we knew from the start. I shall never forget the ending with the actor and the plane alone in the hanger at Le Bourget as French crowds intoned Lindbergh’s name, the actor naively intoning “There were 200,000 people there that night. And when we came back home, there were 4 million people waiting,†and finally the cut to actual footage of Lindy’s ticker-tape parade in NYC, with “Stars and Stripes Forever†on the soundtrack, now synchronized with the Grand Organ as the great contour curtain fell.
A second departure, as I’ve already remarked on this page (23 July 2004) is that the organ interludes before and after the movie and stage show were framed in a way I’d never experienced before or after at RCMH. Instead of using the golden houselights on the contour curtain and arches, the tech crew lit the entire auditorium in sky blue to match the movie’s theme. And instead of using organ #1 on the left as usual, they used organ #2 on the right. I remember thinking, jees, all these tourists here for the first and maybe last time will never see the famous “sunset” effect of the golden curtain. Some might recall that the newsreels and next-attraction announcement always took place under dimly blue-lit arches to enable arriving and departing patrons to navigate the aisles. For the interludes at this show, the intensity was ratcheted up several levels to bathe the house in Lindy blue. Odd.
A third, but expected, departure was a very brief stage show to make up for the extreme length of the film. I remember its prevailing color scheme figured as blue, too. The opening classical ballet gave way to 1920s-ish Gershwinesque tunes sung by the Foursome (who would reappear later that year in the stage show with “The Pajama Gameâ€). That in turn gave way to a stage set of enormous magazine covers, from which the Rockettes stepped out to perform their routine. Then came the finale and that was it for the show. The program provides credits for umbrellas used in one of the acts, but for the life of me, I can’t remember how they played out in the scenario.
Yes, the Mark Hellinger is still an eye-popper. Last month on a Sunday afternoon at 2:30 pm my car ride from upstate dropped me off just outside the theater as it was filling up with church-goers. I went inside and marveled at the wonderfully bright preservation of the lobby. Ushers were not letting visitors into the auditorium, but I peered through one of the sheer-curtained glass doors and saw that the interior is as splendid as the lobby. It’s very close to what I remember from the days between “My Fair Lady” (‘56) and “Coco” ('69), right down to the sheer-curtained doors. Warren has mentioned an article on the City Section of the NYTimes on 4 December 2005. The color picture of the rear balcony looks wonderful. Bravo!
And Hitchcock missed out on that extra dollop of vertigo when distributors opened his movie of that name at the Capitol instead of the Paramount.
Right— For some reason I can’t fathom, my parents too preferred to sit in the Paramount’s balcony when they brought me there in the late ‘40s and early '50s. They didn’t smoke, so it couldn’t have been for cigarettes. And they never took to the balcony at any other theaters (except for Ice Colorama shows at the Roxy in 1953). Perhaps they liked the sense of vertigo at the Paramount?
One possible motivation might have been to view the orchestra pit head-on as it rose to stage level with the performers. The last stage show I saw there (and I believe it was the final regular program in the old format) accompanied Doris Day’s “Calamity Jane” in November ‘53, and it featured the four Ames Brothers (“You, You, You” was the sensation at the time)who came on after the Peiro Brothers juggling act and the British ventriloquist Clifford Guest opened the presentation; the band was Pupi Campo’s Latin orchestra, which had become a big hit as the in-house music on Jack Paar’s TV show. The Ames Brothers’ pianist was Burt Bacharach.
After that show, my parents stopped going to the Paramount. My next visit was with teen-age friends to see “The Man Who Knew Too Much” on the giant VistaVision screen. We sat in the orchestra’s third row to make the picture seem as big as possible.
These diagrams show wonderfully how enormous the Paramount’s balcony was. But they barely suggest how steep it was, too. Covering much of the orchestra, it then swept back to the 43 Street wall and over the tall lobby and grand staircase. As it descended from near-ceiling height at the rear projection booth, it brought on a giddy sense of vertigo and ampitheatric expanse. When you stood up, you felt you might tumble down into the orchestra pit.
You got none of this feeling on the ground level. I never saw a show from the mezzanine set-back (here called “entresol”: my, how Louis XIVieme), but from the main floor it looked quite comfortable with its attractive low lighting. After a visit to the Paramount, a trip to Versailles would seem anticlimactic.
I never knew that the Paramount had suspended its stage shows during the deep, dark days of the Depression. The Strand and the Capitol and Loew’s State, yes. But the Paramount? That’s a jolt. For how long?
Warren—
That wonderful picture must date from 1935. The show opened on Oct. 13 that year. If only it were in color. What must the chromatic range have been like?
Here’s a Program from April, 1957:
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Grace, elegance, and pizzazz. “Funny Face†with an exceptional Easter stage show evokes sublime memories. To this day in NYC, I still expect to find that terrific bookstore off the Washington Mews with Audrey inside, and to this day I still see Paris through the eyes of Fred’s mythical camera. And whenever I step inside a publishing house, I get a hunch that Kay Thompson lurks just on the other side of the wall. I’m crushed to learn from Warren’s wonderful book on AH that the movie failed to recoup its cost.
The stage extravaganza developed a shipboard-cruise scenario and began with a trained dog act in which a frantic passenger-couple tried to keep their hounds under sendoff control while boarding at Pier 52. Next, the Corps de Ballet swaned around a fog-bound set. Then the ship docked at Port of Spain for a Trinidadian steel-band lime. As the vessel moved on through the Panama Canal, the orchestra mounted the stage (suggesting the action of canal locks, I guess) to arrive at a Panamanian fiesta where the Rockettes kicked to a Latin beat. At the end, the ballet and the choral ensemble joined the kick-line and the now-vacant orchestra-pit elevator rose to stage level filled with tropical flowers. I’ve never been on a Caribbean cruise, but I can’t imagine it getting any better than that.
Many, many thanks to Patrick Crowley and his staff for technical improvements over the long weekend. We’re all deeply grateful for the pleasures that this site provides. Bravo for your hard work.
Here’s one post that I wanted to make last Saturday, 26 November. As the Warner ticket stubs will show, it’s for a Saturday matinee screening of the second Cinerama feature, “Cinerama Holiday,†exactly fifty years ago to the prime. The weekdays that Thanksgiving weekend occupied the same calendar dates. Here’s the program:
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Few things electrified moviegoers more than “This Is Cinerama†in ‘52-’53. It seemed like an eternity before this tepid follow-up appeared in ’55. Did anyone care? Those boys at pre-co-ed Dartmouth look awfully sullen. Those priests at pre-Vatican-II Notre Dame look awfully caged. Copy for the scenario is all thumbs. Yet it was Cinerama, and we sent away for reserved seats months in advance. I wonder what fashionable NYC hotel our deputy gadabouts dined at? The table displays no sign of palatable food or drink. Were the ‘50s really like that?
The water stains on this program were incurred by a flood in my basement last April. Until then, along with others in my collection, it had sat boxed up since a late ‘70s house-move. If not for that flood, I wouldn’t have opened these cartons.
During the run of “Joan of Arc,” the Victoria displayed the left half of the same illuminated sign in its customary space above the marquee. The colors were amazing, from the iron mesh and gleaming metal of Ingrid/Joan’s armor to the blue and white medieval French flag and the amber flames of military destruction, fifteenth-century style. The sign was the most spectacular one I remember from the Victoria (the Astor’s signs usually topped those of its Times Square’s mate).
Fall Creek Pictures represents a triumph of imagination, good taste, and dedicated showmanship. It occupies the site of an abandoned supermarket building in a non-commercial neighborhood a couple of blocks away from the photogenic Ithaca Falls whose picture graces many a NYS travel brochure. As far as I know, no supermarket ever materialized in the structure that was raised for it in the 1960s (it was considered too small and outmoded for the mega-marts that were beginning to sprout up at the time). In the winter of ‘85-’86, the operators of Cinemapolis on the Ithaca Commons Richard Szanyi and Lynne Cohen joined the arts and ecology entrepreneur Tsvi Bokaer in taking out a lease on the building. Within a few months they partitioned the interior into two theaters with comfortably-sized screens, deep-cushioned and well-staggered seats, and powder-blue fabric-covered walls with modern lighting.
At first Fall Creek Pictures dedicated one screen to classic revivals and move-over foreign films from his recently opened Cinemapolis on the Ithaca Commons, and the second screen to sub-runs of H’wood product from Hoyt’s (now Regal) Pyramid Mall megaplex. But business proved so successful that the theater soon eliminated sub-runs and began booking prestige openers from North America and around the world. Today the hallway leading from the box-office and refreshment stand (home-baked brownies, chocolate-chip cookies, herbal teas, and dark roast coffees, as at Cinemapolis) to the auditoriums is lined with posters from wonderful films shown there over the past two decades. They’re a wonderful reminder of the great stuff we’ve seen at this theater.
The Fall Creek Picture’s most distinctive touch came in 1989-90 with the addition of a third screen in a small room carved out from the side of the building. Here, in a space the size of a generous home living-room, and with about eighteen theater seats and (at first) a few upholstered easy chairs with large throw-pillows, one could see on a large wall-sized screen the very last sub-runs of the best films from Fall Creek, Cinemapolis, and even the Mall megaplex. I often wait until films played in that room, valuing it for its intimacy and sheer comfort. It’s like viewing the best of the best at home.
Cinemapolis is one-of-a-kind in Ithaca, and that’s saying something in a town where there’s many ones-of-a-kind. When the block-size Center Ithaca complex opened in the early ‘80s on State Street at Ithaca Commons, it accommodated various street-level stores, a food court, some second-level office space, and two floors of luxury apartments. But its vast basement space went unused (except for utility areas) until Richard Szanyi and Lynne Cohen got the idea of nesting a small art theater into a corner of it.
The theater, owned and operated by Szanyi and Cohen and devoted chiefly to foreign imports and North American independents, proved an immediate hit, though newcomers usually need to spend time figuring out how to find it. Its main access is on a side alley through a metal fire-exit door marked only by a toy-sized marquee and mini-display case. It’s more or less like entering an exclusive club. After descending narrow stairs, you proceed through a long cinder-block-walled basement hallway where, if you walk too fast, you’ll overshoot the theater’s single doorway. Its major marker is a cluster of stills from Lumière’s “Voltige,†Méliès’s “Trip to the Moon,†and the like. If you arrive before this door opens, you’d never know there’s a theater inside. But once you’ve been there, you’ll never forget it, and you’ll keep coming back again and again.
Cinemapolis proved so critically successful that a year or so later, adjoining space was carved into a second, smaller theater. In both, comfortably proportioned screens occupy a single-level space with nicely staggered, deeply cushioned seats (new sets were installed recently). The projection in each is focus-perfect, with proper masking (well, usually, anyway), and excellent sound. An ever-obliging staff goes out of its way to please, and responds promptly to requests for focus or volume adjustment. And a youthful collegiate crowd greets the performances with respectful attention, savvy good humor, andâ€"when appropriate—enthusiastic cheers.
Ex-pat New Yorkers wax nostalgic about the ambiance as it recalls NYC art houses of the ‘50s and ‘60s. For me, it’s a mutant version of the Thalia, the Regency, the 55th Street Playhouse, and the Art, with a touch of the Baronet, the Fine Arts, and the Plaza thrown into the mix. In its main auditorium, rear-lit stained-glass panels decorate attractively draped walls, and expansive rows of seats give the impression of creating a much larger space than it actually is. In the smaller auditorium, a center aisle lends an intimacy to the side-row seating. Oh, and the refreshment stand offers home-baked brownies and chocolate-chip cookies with herbal teas and dark-roast coffees, along with old movie posters and stills from earlier attractions. The lobby can get packed between screenings, and the buzz in the air when a film lets out is terrifically energizing as patrons trade wise-cracks, critical comments, and neighborly glances. Now at the beginning of its third decade, it’s a gift to the community.
CarolK—
If you can get your hands on a trade journal named “Theatre Catalog” (note precise spelling: It’s a USA publication, despite the orthography), you’ll find lots of advertisements with pictures for theater equipment, uniforms, concession stands, poster displays, et al. Volumes appeared annually between 1944-55, precisely the years you designate. It should likely be available through interlibrary loan from the Ann Arbor campus.