Loew's Capitol Theatre

The release date for “Duel in the Sun” was 7 May ‘47 (not June as I had reported from faulty memory—I remembered it as a fine, warm Spring day), so you can check it in back issues of the NYT or Herald Tribune as I once did. Off hand, I believe that one other such saturated booking before Premier Showcase might have been for John Huston’s “Beat the Devil.” It opened at the Palace, Albee, and across the RKO neighborhood circuit on 12 March '54. I recall having seen coming attractions for it at the RKO Dyker (advertised to follow, I think, “Beneath the Twelve-Mile Reef” in then-novel CinemaScope) and thinking, “Gee, that movie hasn’t opened in NYC yet!” Did off-beat films with Jennifer Jones in starring roles invite that sort of distribution?

BoxOfficeBill

Thats very interesting about the wide release of Duel in the Sun. Am I correct that for a major movie that was almost unheard of back then? What about “B” films, did they ever open saturated like would become the norm in the 60’s with Premiere Showcase?

Among stage shows at the Capitol, one that I most remember featured Skitch Henderson. The film was “Every Girl Should Be Married” with Cary Grant, so it must have been in January ‘49. It came to mind the other day when I heard an NPR interview with Henderson commemorating Johnny Carson. (I had no idea that the young Henderson had studied with Arnold Schoenberg and played Mahler with Toscanini!) His performance at the Capitol combined jazzy piano playing and big-band conducting. I also recall being bored by a male commedian who told off-color jokes that I didn’t understand, but which the grown-ups laughed wickedly at. Perhaps the Capitol tried to court a mature audience.

A yet earlier memory of Capitol sophistication was the opening of “Duel in the Sun” there, a much bally-hooed event for which the theater had suspended its stage show policy. We waited on a long line, and upon reaching the box office were denied admission because I was deemed under-age for the adult presentation (June ‘47, I was five). My mom complained loudly, waving her friend’s employee pass and claiming to be part of management (she wasn’t), and then faulted the theater for dropping its stage show when we could have seen the same film at the Alpine in Brooklyn with much less trouble. From scouring old newspapers, I later learned that “Duel in the Sun” had indeed opened in NYC in a saturated booking, playing simultaneously at the Capitol, Metropolitan, and Loew’s nabes (including the Alpine), no doubt because Selznick had concluded that the film might flop and that it would be best to rush it out quick and greedy. Was it worth dropping the live stage show for a celluloid Jennifer Jones?

Warren Im surprised that “Quo Vadis” didn’t do as well as expected at the Capitol becuase this was a huge hit for MGM.“Quo Vadis” was MGM’s biggest hit since “Gone With The Wind” up to that point in time.brucec

Actually I find the entries for these lesser known classic films fascinating. “Westward the Women” in particular sounds very interesting. Here’s the entry from imdb:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044205/

It happens to be directed by one of the best of the Hollywood directors, William Wellman.

I’m 38 and I cannot stand the latest movies. Generally speaking, they’re pure garbage. I appreciate the input from people who remember when movies were made to truly please an audience not just to make a quick buck.

Warren- Thanks for the terrific account of the Capitol’s last days of stage shows. I remember them (those days and some of the shows) well. A family friend worked in the Loew’s office (at Loew’s State) and provided my parents with full passes for the Capitol. I would have thought that seven week of “Quo Vadis” had met b.o. expectations. I remember seeing it there early in its run, at a packed house. I also remember that it left without much warning— the newspapers suddenly announced that “Westward the Women” would open the next day, New Year’s Eve, and that the Astor would shift its policy from two-a-day Reserved Seats to continuous showings — I imagined that the decision had as much to do with the Astor looking to fill seats as much as it had to do with the Capitol wanting to feature a new show on the lucrative New Year’s holiday.

But what about the stage show in 39 with Wizard of Oz? Was this a one time only before 43?

As a kid I saw “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “How the West Was Won” at the Loews Cinerama (Capitol). The effect was good but the 3 projectors weren’t properly aligned and the color shifted so I often got eye-strain, but the the river raft scene and buffalo stampede in “How The West Was Won” was fantastic. Somebody posted that “Ben-Hur” was shown at the Loew’s Capitol, but I remember seeing it at the Loew’s State.

Robert R: The theater in that picture isn’t the Capitol or the RKO/Warner Cinerama. It looks like the Warner Cinerama theater on Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles, also known as the Hollywood Pacific and the Pacific 1-2-3.

Check out this picture of South Sea’s Adventure. Was this the Capitol when it was renamed the Cinerama or is it the RKO Cinerama?

View link

I don’t believe very few went to the Capitol in New York City before or while the theatre came up with a new gimic. While showing Cinerema, they, for a short time came up with smellavision. They actually put pipes under the seats and I remember in one scene some people were walking on the grass and the smell of grass came out of the pipes. They had numerous smells all thru the movie, but it never caught on.

RobertR— In June ‘53, the Bard-of-Avon’s “Julius Caesar” (with Gielgud and Brando! and Mason and Calhern! and Garson and Kerr!) opened at the Booth on a cuirved wide screen with sterophonic sound (the prelude was the MGM orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio italien”)with two-a-day reserved-seat policy at a price scale of 90 cents to $1.50. My grandmother, who hadn’t seen a film in years, wanted to get box seats, until I advised her that the curved screen would invite distortion. We settled for the cheapest seats, which were in the first three orchestra rows per my eleven-year-older’s trick to get as close to the giant screen as possible. (On this site’s page for the Criterion, Vincent remarks that the latter charged its cheapest prices for the front row seats—so it was and should be for the misshapen images from that perspective.) In the early '60s, Fellini’s “La dolce vita” opened at the Henry Miller (now recently toppled after “Utinetown”) with the same policy. It was followed by Vadim’s “Les liaaisons dangereuses” (with Gerard Philippe!). Both these sub-titled European films then went into mass distribution on the RKO neighborhood circuit. Yes, as you imply, “Gigi” should have played at the Capitol. After its run at the Royale, it went to the Sutton with continuous performances, where I saw it on a chilly November evening. My biggest disappointment with “Julius Caesar” at the Booth was that it was filmed in black and white—I had expected a Technicolor spectacular. That the script was Gentle Will’s struck me as terrific: Classics Illustrated Comics had already introduced me to its sonorous verse.