Comments from vindanpar

Showing 76 - 100 of 904 comments

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Mar 31, 2023 at 12:03 pm

Sadly the original negative was destroyed in a fire in the late 70s. If you were lucky enough to see the film at the Music Hall in ‘75 it looked so dazzling like it was printed from that negative. The recently released 4k is worth having if you’re a big fan of the film. It’s very good.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Regal Union Square Stadium 17 on Feb 18, 2023 at 3:50 pm

Since when is a multi-plex a treasure? As once was famously said in another context it should be a buried treasure.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Loew's State Theatre on Feb 13, 2023 at 10:39 am

Didn’t know this opened at Loew’s State. Thought it was probably the Criterion.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Bellevue Cinema 4 on Feb 6, 2023 at 3:16 pm

It’s strange that in Montclair which was the roadshow center of North Jersey neither the Bellevue nor the Clairidge which had played the big roadshow hits up until that point neither played Oliver or Funny Girl two of the last big roadshow hits. Maybe not even Zhivago.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about The Cowsills American Dairy Association campaign, believed to be beneath the Loew's State marquee. on Jan 24, 2023 at 3:08 pm

It’s not Loew’s State or the Palace.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Ad on Jan 23, 2023 at 8:41 pm

Interesting considering The Blue Max wasn’t even roadshowed in New York.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Cineplex Odeon Route 17 Triplex on Jan 13, 2023 at 7:09 pm

Maybe not a cinema treasure? It most definitely was during its brief period as a single screen theater. Very elegant with a large screen and spacious auditorium nicely designed. As soon as it was spit in half it felt like a dump. Small screens that you had to look at at an angle. Too sad. 70MM here would have been a joke. Totally pointless. Even as a single screen it never showed a genuine 70mm film at all as far as I know. Had it been built sooner it would have been a great hard ticket house. Even in the second half of the 60s it could have shown reserved seat films. NJ suburbanites wouldn’t have had to drive up to NY State to see films like Zhivago, Lion in Winter, Oliver and Funny Girl. Strangely they didn’t play in Bellevue, North Jersey’s big reserved seat center.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Jan 1, 2023 at 2:22 pm

Yes 100k in ‘70 was pretty disastrous for such a large operation as the Hall’s. 145k was a very poor opening week. And as the Christmas show was already in rehearsal at the end of Oct and it used sets from previous shows especially The Nativity(what a loss that is! The Leonidoff pageant was a beauty) it would not have been difficult to get it in place in three weeks of rehearsal. Just from the first week’s poor showing the Music Hall audience had no interest in the film. If only the Music Hall had chosen one of Mel Brooks’ very best films The Twelve Chairs. A family friendly film perfect for the Music Hall audiences. Scrooge was a big success opening week and as previously the Christmas season didn’t start until early December it was shortly after that I noticed the season started earlier and earlier. Now it was acceptable to start making money off of Christmas mid Nov when before it would have been considered absurdly early. Manhattan merchants would have noticed this. And from there…

TNYT OCT 30 ‘70 Vincent Canby The real subject of the film, however, is one much closer to Mr. Wilder’s other movie fantasies (“Some Like It Hot,” “Kiss Me Stupid”). That is, sex. To put it bluntly, and profanely, were Holmes and Dr. Watson—Holmes’s biographer, his most earnest admirer and the sharer of his secrets and of his flat— lovers? I suspect that only Billy Wilder would have the nerve to raise such a question, and then to dispatch it in a movie that is gentle enough to become the Thanksgiving holiday attraction at the Music Hall.

TNYT NOV 20 ‘70 Vincent Canby “Scrooge” opened yesterday at the Radio City Music Hall as the Christmas attraction, approximately five weeks early. The last “A Christmas Carol” to play the Hall, a version produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz in 1938, was unveiled three days before Christmas. When the next version opens—I estimate in 2001—it may be on the Fourth of July.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Jan 1, 2023 at 12:18 pm

Two very popular Music Hall stars in one movie.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Pantages Theatre on Dec 16, 2022 at 10:16 am

OK here’s the question. What did they cut in The Owl to make it PG?

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about United Palace of Cultural Arts on Dec 14, 2022 at 11:22 pm

What happened to Radio City?

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Dec 8, 2022 at 5:57 am

Boy look at all that junk.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Dec 7, 2022 at 2:43 pm

One of the Music Hall’s stranger choices for a Christmas film. Up there with Sayonara. I guess the star power of the leads made them major film events worthy of a holiday booking.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Loew's State Theatre on Dec 6, 2022 at 1:26 am

bigjoe as I have no interest in most of the box I bought the Oliver 4k on ebay. I’ve read no complaints from others about the tuba sound(I’ll have to watch it. Was saving it for Christmas. It opened at Christmas in ‘68 and I saw it a year later at Christmas when it came to the suburbs. So it’s a Christmas movie to me.) and I wonder why they couldn’t have used music from the overture or entr'acte as all films do for their menu.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Loew's State Theatre on Dec 4, 2022 at 10:09 am

I was not in this theater when it was a single screen however I was not impressed by the size of the wide screen in Loew’s State 1. Canby in his review of Oliver! remarks that the screen size is the same as in the old theater. For such a large roadshow theater it was a disappointment. And going through the photo section I see a trade paper saying in ‘59 that the 70mm screen was 50’. Small to my way of thinking.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about 1962/`63 photo credit Hiveminer on Flickr. on Nov 30, 2022 at 4:20 pm

How great is this Lawrence of Arabia and Mutiny on the Bounty right next to each other in great movie theaters in 70MM? I only wish I had been around then. I would have gone multiple times to both movies. You can keep your 70s new wave films. Unfortunately that’s what I got. But there was great theater on the side streets that’s for sure.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Clairidge on Nov 26, 2022 at 11:20 am

As I’ve said before what’s the point? They’re now nothing but shoe box multi-plexes. Now if you were going to restore them to what they once were…

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Cadillac Palace Theatre on Nov 12, 2022 at 8:48 am

There had to have been curtains in front of the screen as that was an important part not only of a Cinerama screening but movie going in general. Yet there is no hint of one in the illustration.

A good thing they put the screen in front of the proscenium instead of destroying it.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Deutsches Schauspielhaus on Oct 30, 2022 at 10:19 am

Wow. This survived the devastating bombing of Hamburg in WW II but such a beautiful house as this never survived the greed of NY politicians and developers.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Roxy Theatre on Oct 10, 2022 at 4:06 pm

Giant has just come out on 4k. From reviews some of it looks great and some of it not so great. The movie is 3 hours and 20 minutes. And it played the Roxy with a stage show which is amazing. A very long running time for a show that had continuous performances.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Loew's Capitol Theatre on Oct 8, 2022 at 2:26 pm

To be honest I’ve never seen it but Burton was supposed to have been embarrassed by it. Like The Silver Chalice for Paul Newman. Now I love sword and sandal epics and if it comes out on bluray I’ll get it. That is quite a cast.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Loew's Capitol Theatre on Oct 8, 2022 at 7:42 am

I’m not sure if it is forgotten. It’s kind of notorious.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about UA Lynbrook 6 on Oct 4, 2022 at 3:38 pm

No photos of interior as a roadshow house?

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Beach Theatre on Sep 18, 2022 at 12:27 pm

Did Once is Not Enough play at this theater? I remember walking by the theater where it was playing as a boy.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Providence Opera House on Sep 3, 2022 at 7:03 am

Eddie Dowling produced the original production of The Glass Menagerie in Chicago and created the character of Tom. Laurette Taylor who created Amanda gave one of the most famous performances of the American stage in the 20th century in this play. As she was only 6 years older than he she told him repeatedly “You’re too old to be my son.” At 55 he was pretty old to be playing Tom.