Thanks for the photo of the proscenium. It supplements the wonderful photos from ‘36 that you posted over a year ago, on your entry for July 20 2004 above. In my memory, the '56 renovation spruced up the lighting and bright red color design, but made no substantial changes upon the Criterion I knew in the '40s. And so it remained until the last film I saw there, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff,” a decade later in '66.
Thanks for the post in response to my comments about “Laffzapoppin” on the NYC Strand page.
This film opened at the Rivoli on Christmas Day, 1941, with special showing for Servicemen-and-women that cheerless holiday season. At the time I was in the oven, so to speak. But seven or so years later, the RKO circuit offered a revival of “Hellzapoppin” with an on-stage appearances of Olsen and Johnson which my folks took me to at the Dyker. It must have been a repeat of the “Stage Party” mentioned in your ad. The date might have coincided with publicity for O&J’s “Laffzapoppin,” which opened on 30 June ‘49 at Madison Sq Garden with “twenty horses, seventy-five dead ducks, a gorilla, a stork, and a polar bear” and which played in a truncated version at the Strand the following November.
We sat close to the front for the “Party” and I remember it as a silly affair in which O&J invited audience members on to the stage and challenged them to do crazy things such as chase screeching chickens and swallow live goldfish (I recall that distinctly, I think). Advance word assured my parents that children could take part in the shenanagans, too, but when we got there, management invoked a state law prohibiting children below a certain age from stepping on stage.
My dad joined a long line of adults willing to submit to the clowning (he was always game for that sort of thing), but after a few rounds of participation by others, the show ended and he returned to his seat without a chance to perform. The “Party” was a big disappointment. And I don’t remember the film being as funny as my folks had said it would be.
Golly. An RCMH Easter show that sort of vaporized in its arty pretension. And another instance of an RCMH stage show mimicking the trope of the film. In the credits you’ll see that the live cast wore “Junior Fashions inspired by ‘Green Mansions.’†Whether this meant the Rockettes, the Schola Cantorum, the Corps de Ballet, or all of them is more than I remember. But I can barely imagine any of them dashing around in the spidery shift that the film’s star wore on screen. Not the Rockettes kicking, nor the Schola chanting from “Prince Igor,†nor the Ballet dancing to Offenbach. Whew.
Warren reports the inventor of Panavision’s crediting the film for the success of that process, which MGM introduced because Hepburn thought that CinemaScope made her look like a balloon in close-ups. The Program gets it wrong and lists the process as “Metrocolor and CinemaScope.†I can only hope that the Program also got it wrong about the stage show’s use of “Radium effects by Stroblite Co. and Black Light Eastern Corp.†If not, we all might have glowed in the dark after leaving the theater. Perhaps we did? What I most remember about the stage show, again mimicking the film, was the jungle scent of “Perfume, ‘Antilope’ by Parfums Weil, Paris,†blown in under the seats during the finale. Folks with serious allergies might have had trouble staying on for the picture that followed.
Rockettes, the Schola Cantorum, the Corps de Ballet, or all of them is more than I remember. But I can barely imagine any of them dashing around in the spidery shift that the film’s star wore on screen. Not the Rockettes kicking, nor the Schola chanting from “Prince Igor,†nor the Ballet dancing to Offenbach. Whew.
Warren reports the inventor of Panavision’s crediting the film for the success of that process, which MGM introduced because Hepburn thought that CinemaScope made her look like a balloon in close-ups. The Program gets it wrong and lists the process as “Metrocolor and CinemaScope.†I can only hope that the Program also got it wrong about the stage show’s use of “Radium effects by Stroblite Co. and Black Light Eastern Corp.†If not, we all might have glowed in the dark after leaving the theater. Perhaps we did? What I most remember about the stage show, again mimicking the film, was the jungle scent of “Perfume, ‘Antilope’ by Parfums Weil, Paris,†blown in under the seats during the finale. Folks with serious allergies might have had trouble staying on for the picture that followed.
I’d bet that one change must have widened the proscenium to acommodate CinemaScope in ‘53. That’s one of the narrowest (but handsomest) prosceniums I’ve ever seen. Widening it would have been difficult, because the exit doors close in so tightly upon it. Does anyone know what they did to widen the screen?
“A bout de souffle†was one of the defining films of the 1960s, but you wouldn’t know it from me. A friend whose judgment I respected had seen it and raved about it. I naturally rushed to see it, and left feeling it fairly hollow. It seemed so jerky, quirky, and amateurish at the time. Years passed before I began to find great things that I had overlooked in the director’s work. It was around the time of “Weekend†and “One Plus One,†I think, but by then it was too late to expect more. I find it hugely ironic that the ad opposite the credit page promotes Mike Nichols and Elaine May’s B’way anthology. Five years later Nichols could come to personify the kind of slick, prestige H’wood film direction that Godard alternately reacted against and critiqued.
Yes. I read that ad differently to imply that O and J actually performed in it. Caveat lector emptorque! I wonder how many were fooled by the wording. The next time I’ve got access to Variety in the library, I’ll check the house review for that stage show to see just what it offered.
Last 26 March above, I commented on the Strand’s presentation of recently-closed B'way musicals in abridged versions during that Fall of ‘49. On 30 September '49, with Gary Cooper in “Task Force” on screen, it staged “with a cast of forty” a version of “High Button Shoes,” which Phil Silvers had starred in at the Winter Garden the previous season. On 20 October '49, with Bette Davis in “Beyond the Forest” on screen, it brought in the just-closed review “Make Mine Manhattan,” with another “cast of forty.” I wonder how many of these forty cast-members were in-house Strand performers and how many were veterans of the original productions? And how many of the sets were hold-overs from the legits?
Yes. I read that ad differently to imply that O and J actually performed in it. Caveat lector emptorque! I wonder how many were fooled by the wording. The next time I’ve got access to Variety in the library, I’ll check the house review for that stage show to see just what it offered.
Last 26 March above, I commented on the Strand’s presentation of recently-closed B'way musicals in abridged versions during that Fall of ‘49. On 30 September '49, with Gary Cooper in “Task Force” on screen, it staged “with a cast of forty” a version of “High Button Shoes,” which Phil Silvers had starred in at the Winter Garden the previous season. On 20 October '49, with Bette Davis in “Beyond the Forest” on screen, it brought in the just-closed review “Make Mine Manhattan,” with another “cast of forty.” I wonder how many of these forty cast-members were in-house Strand performers and how many were veterans of the original productions? And how many of the sets were hold-overs from the legits?
With Shirley Temple, Barry Fitzgerald, and Lon McAllister holding the screen in “The Story of Seabiscuit,†the Strand’s stage show was Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson’s “Laffz-a-poppin of 1949,†a review that had toured nationally with “Forty Mad Merrymakers … and a Glamour Chorus of Dancing De-Lovelys.†Its young male singer was Bill Hayes, who went on to strike several hit singles in the ‘50s (notably Disney’s “Song of Davy Crockettâ€) and then to act for thirty-four years as “Doug Williams†on TV’s “Days of Our Lives.†His songs in “Laffz-a-poppin†included “It’s a Big, Wide, Wonderful World†and “Brazil.â€
Here, from Hayes’s website, is the singer-actor’s description of Olsen and Johnson’s “old-fashioned vaudeville/burlesque-style showâ€: “All the very broad comedy centered around Chic and Ole, using endless props and funny costumes, stooges, outrageous puns, crossovers and hilarious sight gags. No profanity or smut, just silly, home-spun Midwestern humor. The female lead was Chic’s daughter June Johnson. The craziest stooge was Ole’s son J. C. Olsen. Marty May, husband of June Johnson, did his Palace Theatre act and worked in all the sketches. Stooges included six Eastern European little people (adult midgets, former acrobats), Nina Varela (former opera singer turned baggy-pants comic), Billy Kaye and Barone Hopper (musical hall performers from Australia), Maurice Millard (female impersonator from South Africa), two second-bananas from burlesque, and six stuntmen from Hollywood doing the big fight sequence in the Western Sketch. Also there were several circus clowns, vaudeville acts (Mata & Hari, Nirska, Gloria Gilbert, one-legged tap-dancer Jack Robbins), “flash acts†(Step Brothers, Clark Brothers). Mayhem! But all planned and timed to perfection.â€
Yum. Around this time, the RKO nabe circuit ran a revival of Olsen and Johnson’s “Hellzapoppin†(1941, with Martha Raye), and the team made a personal live appearance at my local RKO Dyker. My folks couldn’t resist bringing me to see it.
But “Mildred†and “The Three Stoogesâ€: now that’s an inspired pairing. The show opened on 28 Sept. 1945. I truly wish I had been there.
What an intriguing name for a theater! Is it Greek νοÏσ ‘mind’ or French “nous†‘we, us’ or an acronym for ? or just a whimsical invention that sounds good to the ear? The owner’s philosophical background might suggest the Greek meaning?
Ποτή τιν ΚυÏιάκι was a huge hit because it made prostitution and sex seem funny and political at the same time. Melina Mercouri supplied the fun on screen with her energetic performance, which she later repeated on the B’way stage in a musical version of the film, I believe one of the first live musicals to derive from a film rather than vice versa. Appropriately too, Mercouri was intensely political in her off-screen activities; it flowed in her blood as the daughter of a Greek Minister of Parliament and granddaughter of the Mayor of Athens. Off-screen, Jules Dassin supplied yet more politics as a resister to McCarthyism in H’wood and an ex-pat who found open-mindedness abroad. On screen, he was hardly funny at all. Mercouri worked in overdrive to give the film the bounce it had.
The article mentioned on the cover, “Can We Take It?†by Robert Hughes, a filmmaker who worked with the United Nations Film Unit, argues that foreign films such as “Hiroshima mon amour” and “Generale della Rovere” have made better anti-war statements than the American-made “Paths of Glory” and “On the Beach.” It ends with a plea for the theatrical showing of John Huston’s unreleased (read: censored) “Let There Be Light,” a 1945 short about combat neurosis. In this year of Our Lord 2005, what could be more relevant?
Warren— right; my post on that one last week (18 Aug.) concurs with your estimate. The leads had paired earlier in “Around the World in Eighty Days” with equally gaseous results; but that pic had Todd-AO to look at.
The theater is up and open for special events from time to time, in tandem with the long-range restoration project that continues to make improvements and solicit monies for further improvements. My last visit was two years ago for a concert by Joan Baez. Both Cornell and Ithaca College have several excellent concert and theatrical facilities and have used the State only rarely—Cornell notably did so when its classical concert hall was being renovated a few years ago.
As for art movie houses, Ithaca has two fine ones with five screens between them: Cinemapolis on the Commons, a few yards away from the State; and Fall Creek Cinema in a residential neighborhood some ten blocks away. I’ve contributed listings for CT on Ithaca’s “dead” theaters, and will prepare ones for Cinemapolis and Fall Creek when I get my data collected. These theaters consistently play the best fare in town.
You can’t win ‘em all. Despite its great cast (with Chevalier direct from “Gigiâ€) and ads that promised a “really riotous romantic comedy,†I found the film a huge dud and completely forgettable. About a year ago, I tuned into TCM while it was being shown and asked myself in disbelief, “I saw that at RCMH?†The scene I watched exposed Kerr in a shower scene full-length nude behind an opaque tub enclosure, totally gratuitously and without any relevance to the plot. Gasp.
In his admirable, lucid, cranky New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson writes of the director and the late ‘50s that they represent “the worst of cinema, when production schedules had not shrunk to the new, smaller audience or begun to aspire to its higher standards. For a few years, major studios still churned out a pale version of their blithe past†(p. 627). We all have our prejudices, and I for one find many films from that era simply wonderful; but as a description of “Count Your Blessings,†I think Thomson’s estimate is right on target.
The Helvetian stage show provided its own whiff of decadence. Advertised as a “gigantic spectacle … featuring singers, dancers, native musicians, folk entertainers, especially brought from Switzerland for this extravaganza,†it has left no trace in my memory. Not even of the “Rock ‘n Yodel†by the Smeed Trio. It seems symptomatic that the Showplace Program abandoned its usual end-page announcement of the next attraction to offer instead a promotional raffle sponsored by laundry and dish detergent. The ad revenues likely offered some subvention for the stage extravaganza.
Thanks for those terrific posts from local newspapers— the News? Journal Amer? Telegram & Sun? B'klyn Eagle? Great stuff. Not the least is the edges of the posts: “Silver Chalice” at the Paramount with “Phhft” at the State; “Baby Doll” at the Victoria with “H'wd or Bust” at the State; “Moon Is Blue” at the Elm and Farragut with “How to Marry” at the State; “Lady Wants Mink” as co-feature with “Shane” and “Column South” with “Young Bess” at the nabes. Ummmm good.
That’s an excellent guess for the date. The election of NYS Democrat Senator Herbert Lehman and NYC Democrat Mayor John O'Dwyer on 8 Nov. ‘49 was widely viewed as a bellweather for the future of both parties after the Dems’ dominance during the war years. The Republican candidates conceded defeat by 10:45 pm on Election Night, headline-flashed at Times Square.
I’m intrigued that the NY Times supported both Republicans, John Foster Dulles for Senator on grounds of his expertise in foreign affairs, and Newbold Morris for Mayor on grounds of his opposition to Tammany Hall.
All that seems so remote now, but Bette Davis’s signature line from “Beyond the Forest” at the Strand that night remains fresh as a daisy, and not just through its transmogrification by Edward Albee: “What a dump!”
Yes, the new marquee went up in the early ‘50s. From visiting my grandparents in the neighborhood, I remember its predecessor, an very old-fashioned but quite elegant one. Despite its elegance, everyone still called the theater “The Tub o’ Blood,” as I noted in my post of 7 Aug. ‘04 above.
Whew— that’s quite a statement about “The Spanish Earth.” When did the office of Police Censor shut down? In the early ‘60s? Or did it still chug along until the late 60’s, when most of that stuff melted away?
I’m glad to hear that the Avon is thriving, as I should imagine it would in the neighborhood of Brown and RISD. In the early ‘60s I saw here a few European films—I can’t recall which specific ones—upon visiting my college friend who hailed from RI, and I remember it as a terrific theater. The mid-century problems with censorship take our breath away. I don’t at all know “Professor Mamlock,” but you can imagine how reverse discrimination might stain the day. Some viewers could well have resented the chutzpah of “der Jude” who dared to resist the Brown Shirts.
For the life of me, however, I can’t imagine why the NCD (or CLOD, as Theaterat called it on this site) condemned “Daybreak.” In the ‘60s, some of my Roman-collared friends rated films for NCD; most of them were progressive-minded, evidently in reaction against their predecessors. Still, the very institution of an NCD as a further corrective to the secular policing of Lieut. Blessing and the like was outrageous.
This plan, reproduced in each Showplace Program up through the early ‘60s, projects an optical illusion, or at least a misleading ratio since the mezzanine sketches do not share the same scale as the orchestra sketch. If you measure the width of the mezzanines as compared with that of the orchestra, or the opening of the mezzanine promenades as compared with that of the Grand Foyer, you’ll find that the scale of the upper levels is magnified by comparison with that of the ground floor.
This disproportion vexed me as a kid who studied such architectural plans compulsively. I’d never set foot in the first mezzanine, which held only reserved seating during the film years, but when as a teenager I eventually climbed to the second and third mezzanines with cartons of Philip Morris to puff on, I recognized the difference immediately.
Thanks for the bookings of ‘48. They recoup my earliest memories of the Roxy.
My first visit there was for “You Were meant for Me” with that great jazz stage show. The billing must have made an impression on my parents, who were by no means jazz afficionados, but who certainly possessed the instinct to seek out a great show. I have a hazy memory of the b&w Dan Dailey film (a scene that took place on a railroad train sticks in mind), but a more colorful memory of the live music, and especially of a whooping face-off among Armstrong, Teagarden, Hines, et al. that concluded the show. I of course didn’t know who they were, and many years passed before I learned how to use libraries and dig out microfilm archives of the NYT to trace these memories. It then bowed me over to rediscover what a show it must have been.
I next remember seeing “Sitting Pretty” there. Evidently my parents found the previous show so good that they figured a return to the Roxy would be worth the trip on the BMT. My memory conjures up a stage-Irish review with shamrocks and midget leprachauns, and the premiere date of March 10 certainly bears out the St. Paddy motif. I don’t recall the puppet act, but that—plus the sadistic appeal of Clifton Webb as a baby sitter—would surely have spurred our trek to Rothaffel’s Cathedral.
Finally Ernst Lubitsch’s last film, “That Lady in Ermine,” brought us there again that summer, this time with the ice show as an evident drawer. The film’s Austrian setting prompted a stage show with Viennese waltzes by Strauss on ice, a novelty that competed not only with the lavish spectacles up the block at RCMH but also with the full-length ice shows at the formerly “New Roxy” Center on 49 Street. Those three shows sketched out the coordinates of a post-WWII world bounded by Bourbon Street, County Cork, and the Tyrolian Alps, expansive enough for a Brooklyn kid to deal with at the time. Thanks for putting it into context with the full list of bookings for ‘48.
We all liked Shirley MacLaine, ever since we first saw her in “The Trouble with Harry,†and we thought she’d make a great comedienne. I’ll never forget seeing her arrive at the World Premiere of “Around the World in Eighty Days†on television in October ’56. In those days, all the big B’way premieres were televised live on the local NYC Dumont network channel 5, and “Around†was no exception. As La Shirley stepped from her limo, the interviewer asked her how she acquired such a wacky hair-do, and she giggled, “With an eggbeater,†and then swept grandly into the Rivoli. We speculated that she was ever so tipsy from Champagne and that we’d love to see her again. The Todd-AO spectacle proved disappointing as it allowed her no scope for madcap hilarity, so we waited for the proper comic vehicle to display her talents.
And waited. In January ’59, “Some Came Running†(an RCMH “adult†film, booked for the January post-holiday sober set) gave her an opportunity to act tipsy and boused again, but not really funny. Then in May came “Ask Any Girl,†with its promise of airy sexcapade. But I found the film leaden and predictable. And I don’t recall a single act from the stage show, even though the female violinist, the coloratura, and their crowd wore pajamas and peignoirs. All I remember was the terrific excitement that Audrey Hepburn would follow in “The Nun’s Story,†a book that as a Catholic high school kid I had read amid great controversy about its realistic treatment of religious vocation. A year later MacLaine would hit her stride with “The Apartment,†allowing her to act by turns tipsy and funny.
Warren—
Thanks for the photo of the proscenium. It supplements the wonderful photos from ‘36 that you posted over a year ago, on your entry for July 20 2004 above. In my memory, the '56 renovation spruced up the lighting and bright red color design, but made no substantial changes upon the Criterion I knew in the '40s. And so it remained until the last film I saw there, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff,” a decade later in '66.
Warren—
Thanks for the post in response to my comments about “Laffzapoppin” on the NYC Strand page.
This film opened at the Rivoli on Christmas Day, 1941, with special showing for Servicemen-and-women that cheerless holiday season. At the time I was in the oven, so to speak. But seven or so years later, the RKO circuit offered a revival of “Hellzapoppin” with an on-stage appearances of Olsen and Johnson which my folks took me to at the Dyker. It must have been a repeat of the “Stage Party” mentioned in your ad. The date might have coincided with publicity for O&J’s “Laffzapoppin,” which opened on 30 June ‘49 at Madison Sq Garden with “twenty horses, seventy-five dead ducks, a gorilla, a stork, and a polar bear” and which played in a truncated version at the Strand the following November.
We sat close to the front for the “Party” and I remember it as a silly affair in which O&J invited audience members on to the stage and challenged them to do crazy things such as chase screeching chickens and swallow live goldfish (I recall that distinctly, I think). Advance word assured my parents that children could take part in the shenanagans, too, but when we got there, management invoked a state law prohibiting children below a certain age from stepping on stage.
My dad joined a long line of adults willing to submit to the clowning (he was always game for that sort of thing), but after a few rounds of participation by others, the show ended and he returned to his seat without a chance to perform. The “Party” was a big disappointment. And I don’t remember the film being as funny as my folks had said it would be.
Whoops— the beginning of my post fell off the screen— sorry— here’s the whole thing all over again—
Here’s a Program from March, 1959:
View link
View link
Golly. An RCMH Easter show that sort of vaporized in its arty pretension. And another instance of an RCMH stage show mimicking the trope of the film. In the credits you’ll see that the live cast wore “Junior Fashions inspired by ‘Green Mansions.’†Whether this meant the Rockettes, the Schola Cantorum, the Corps de Ballet, or all of them is more than I remember. But I can barely imagine any of them dashing around in the spidery shift that the film’s star wore on screen. Not the Rockettes kicking, nor the Schola chanting from “Prince Igor,†nor the Ballet dancing to Offenbach. Whew.
Warren reports the inventor of Panavision’s crediting the film for the success of that process, which MGM introduced because Hepburn thought that CinemaScope made her look like a balloon in close-ups. The Program gets it wrong and lists the process as “Metrocolor and CinemaScope.†I can only hope that the Program also got it wrong about the stage show’s use of “Radium effects by Stroblite Co. and Black Light Eastern Corp.†If not, we all might have glowed in the dark after leaving the theater. Perhaps we did? What I most remember about the stage show, again mimicking the film, was the jungle scent of “Perfume, ‘Antilope’ by Parfums Weil, Paris,†blown in under the seats during the finale. Folks with serious allergies might have had trouble staying on for the picture that followed.
Rockettes, the Schola Cantorum, the Corps de Ballet, or all of them is more than I remember. But I can barely imagine any of them dashing around in the spidery shift that the film’s star wore on screen. Not the Rockettes kicking, nor the Schola chanting from “Prince Igor,†nor the Ballet dancing to Offenbach. Whew.
Warren reports the inventor of Panavision’s crediting the film for the success of that process, which MGM introduced because Hepburn thought that CinemaScope made her look like a balloon in close-ups. The Program gets it wrong and lists the process as “Metrocolor and CinemaScope.†I can only hope that the Program also got it wrong about the stage show’s use of “Radium effects by Stroblite Co. and Black Light Eastern Corp.†If not, we all might have glowed in the dark after leaving the theater. Perhaps we did? What I most remember about the stage show, again mimicking the film, was the jungle scent of “Perfume, ‘Antilope’ by Parfums Weil, Paris,†blown in under the seats during the finale. Folks with serious allergies might have had trouble staying on for the picture that followed.
I’d bet that one change must have widened the proscenium to acommodate CinemaScope in ‘53. That’s one of the narrowest (but handsomest) prosceniums I’ve ever seen. Widening it would have been difficult, because the exit doors close in so tightly upon it. Does anyone know what they did to widen the screen?
Here’s a Showbill from March, 1961:
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“A bout de souffle†was one of the defining films of the 1960s, but you wouldn’t know it from me. A friend whose judgment I respected had seen it and raved about it. I naturally rushed to see it, and left feeling it fairly hollow. It seemed so jerky, quirky, and amateurish at the time. Years passed before I began to find great things that I had overlooked in the director’s work. It was around the time of “Weekend†and “One Plus One,†I think, but by then it was too late to expect more. I find it hugely ironic that the ad opposite the credit page promotes Mike Nichols and Elaine May’s B’way anthology. Five years later Nichols could come to personify the kind of slick, prestige H’wood film direction that Godard alternately reacted against and critiqued.
Warren—
Yes. I read that ad differently to imply that O and J actually performed in it. Caveat lector emptorque! I wonder how many were fooled by the wording. The next time I’ve got access to Variety in the library, I’ll check the house review for that stage show to see just what it offered.
Last 26 March above, I commented on the Strand’s presentation of recently-closed B'way musicals in abridged versions during that Fall of ‘49. On 30 September '49, with Gary Cooper in “Task Force” on screen, it staged “with a cast of forty” a version of “High Button Shoes,” which Phil Silvers had starred in at the Winter Garden the previous season. On 20 October '49, with Bette Davis in “Beyond the Forest” on screen, it brought in the just-closed review “Make Mine Manhattan,” with another “cast of forty.” I wonder how many of these forty cast-members were in-house Strand performers and how many were veterans of the original productions? And how many of the sets were hold-overs from the legits?
Warren—
Yes. I read that ad differently to imply that O and J actually performed in it. Caveat lector emptorque! I wonder how many were fooled by the wording. The next time I’ve got access to Variety in the library, I’ll check the house review for that stage show to see just what it offered.
Last 26 March above, I commented on the Strand’s presentation of recently-closed B'way musicals in abridged versions during that Fall of ‘49. On 30 September '49, with Gary Cooper in “Task Force” on screen, it staged “with a cast of forty” a version of “High Button Shoes,” which Phil Silvers had starred in at the Winter Garden the previous season. On 20 October '49, with Bette Davis in “Beyond the Forest” on screen, it brought in the just-closed review “Make Mine Manhattan,” with another “cast of forty.” I wonder how many of these forty cast-members were in-house Strand performers and how many were veterans of the original productions? And how many of the sets were hold-overs from the legits?
With Shirley Temple, Barry Fitzgerald, and Lon McAllister holding the screen in “The Story of Seabiscuit,†the Strand’s stage show was Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson’s “Laffz-a-poppin of 1949,†a review that had toured nationally with “Forty Mad Merrymakers … and a Glamour Chorus of Dancing De-Lovelys.†Its young male singer was Bill Hayes, who went on to strike several hit singles in the ‘50s (notably Disney’s “Song of Davy Crockettâ€) and then to act for thirty-four years as “Doug Williams†on TV’s “Days of Our Lives.†His songs in “Laffz-a-poppin†included “It’s a Big, Wide, Wonderful World†and “Brazil.â€
Here, from Hayes’s website, is the singer-actor’s description of Olsen and Johnson’s “old-fashioned vaudeville/burlesque-style showâ€: “All the very broad comedy centered around Chic and Ole, using endless props and funny costumes, stooges, outrageous puns, crossovers and hilarious sight gags. No profanity or smut, just silly, home-spun Midwestern humor. The female lead was Chic’s daughter June Johnson. The craziest stooge was Ole’s son J. C. Olsen. Marty May, husband of June Johnson, did his Palace Theatre act and worked in all the sketches. Stooges included six Eastern European little people (adult midgets, former acrobats), Nina Varela (former opera singer turned baggy-pants comic), Billy Kaye and Barone Hopper (musical hall performers from Australia), Maurice Millard (female impersonator from South Africa), two second-bananas from burlesque, and six stuntmen from Hollywood doing the big fight sequence in the Western Sketch. Also there were several circus clowns, vaudeville acts (Mata & Hari, Nirska, Gloria Gilbert, one-legged tap-dancer Jack Robbins), “flash acts†(Step Brothers, Clark Brothers). Mayhem! But all planned and timed to perfection.â€
Yum. Around this time, the RKO nabe circuit ran a revival of Olsen and Johnson’s “Hellzapoppin†(1941, with Martha Raye), and the team made a personal live appearance at my local RKO Dyker. My folks couldn’t resist bringing me to see it.
But “Mildred†and “The Three Stoogesâ€: now that’s an inspired pairing. The show opened on 28 Sept. 1945. I truly wish I had been there.
What an intriguing name for a theater! Is it Greek νοÏσ ‘mind’ or French “nous†‘we, us’ or an acronym for ? or just a whimsical invention that sounds good to the ear? The owner’s philosophical background might suggest the Greek meaning?
Here’s a Showbill from December, 1960:
View link
View link
Ποτή τιν ΚυÏιάκι was a huge hit because it made prostitution and sex seem funny and political at the same time. Melina Mercouri supplied the fun on screen with her energetic performance, which she later repeated on the B’way stage in a musical version of the film, I believe one of the first live musicals to derive from a film rather than vice versa. Appropriately too, Mercouri was intensely political in her off-screen activities; it flowed in her blood as the daughter of a Greek Minister of Parliament and granddaughter of the Mayor of Athens. Off-screen, Jules Dassin supplied yet more politics as a resister to McCarthyism in H’wood and an ex-pat who found open-mindedness abroad. On screen, he was hardly funny at all. Mercouri worked in overdrive to give the film the bounce it had.
The article mentioned on the cover, “Can We Take It?†by Robert Hughes, a filmmaker who worked with the United Nations Film Unit, argues that foreign films such as “Hiroshima mon amour” and “Generale della Rovere” have made better anti-war statements than the American-made “Paths of Glory” and “On the Beach.” It ends with a plea for the theatrical showing of John Huston’s unreleased (read: censored) “Let There Be Light,” a 1945 short about combat neurosis. In this year of Our Lord 2005, what could be more relevant?
Vincent— Yes, absolutely. “Nun’s Story” and “NxNW” redeemed everything.
Warren— right; my post on that one last week (18 Aug.) concurs with your estimate. The leads had paired earlier in “Around the World in Eighty Days” with equally gaseous results; but that pic had Todd-AO to look at.
The theater is up and open for special events from time to time, in tandem with the long-range restoration project that continues to make improvements and solicit monies for further improvements. My last visit was two years ago for a concert by Joan Baez. Both Cornell and Ithaca College have several excellent concert and theatrical facilities and have used the State only rarely—Cornell notably did so when its classical concert hall was being renovated a few years ago.
As for art movie houses, Ithaca has two fine ones with five screens between them: Cinemapolis on the Commons, a few yards away from the State; and Fall Creek Cinema in a residential neighborhood some ten blocks away. I’ve contributed listings for CT on Ithaca’s “dead” theaters, and will prepare ones for Cinemapolis and Fall Creek when I get my data collected. These theaters consistently play the best fare in town.
Here’s a Program from April, 1959:
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You can’t win ‘em all. Despite its great cast (with Chevalier direct from “Gigiâ€) and ads that promised a “really riotous romantic comedy,†I found the film a huge dud and completely forgettable. About a year ago, I tuned into TCM while it was being shown and asked myself in disbelief, “I saw that at RCMH?†The scene I watched exposed Kerr in a shower scene full-length nude behind an opaque tub enclosure, totally gratuitously and without any relevance to the plot. Gasp.
In his admirable, lucid, cranky New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson writes of the director and the late ‘50s that they represent “the worst of cinema, when production schedules had not shrunk to the new, smaller audience or begun to aspire to its higher standards. For a few years, major studios still churned out a pale version of their blithe past†(p. 627). We all have our prejudices, and I for one find many films from that era simply wonderful; but as a description of “Count Your Blessings,†I think Thomson’s estimate is right on target.
The Helvetian stage show provided its own whiff of decadence. Advertised as a “gigantic spectacle … featuring singers, dancers, native musicians, folk entertainers, especially brought from Switzerland for this extravaganza,†it has left no trace in my memory. Not even of the “Rock ‘n Yodel†by the Smeed Trio. It seems symptomatic that the Showplace Program abandoned its usual end-page announcement of the next attraction to offer instead a promotional raffle sponsored by laundry and dish detergent. The ad revenues likely offered some subvention for the stage extravaganza.
MyrtleAve—
Thanks for those terrific posts from local newspapers— the News? Journal Amer? Telegram & Sun? B'klyn Eagle? Great stuff. Not the least is the edges of the posts: “Silver Chalice” at the Paramount with “Phhft” at the State; “Baby Doll” at the Victoria with “H'wd or Bust” at the State; “Moon Is Blue” at the Elm and Farragut with “How to Marry” at the State; “Lady Wants Mink” as co-feature with “Shane” and “Column South” with “Young Bess” at the nabes. Ummmm good.
Saps—
You beat me to the Dump while I was busy looking up the election results of ‘49. Sorry to repeat your post. The line still remains fresh as a daisy.
Warren—
That’s an excellent guess for the date. The election of NYS Democrat Senator Herbert Lehman and NYC Democrat Mayor John O'Dwyer on 8 Nov. ‘49 was widely viewed as a bellweather for the future of both parties after the Dems’ dominance during the war years. The Republican candidates conceded defeat by 10:45 pm on Election Night, headline-flashed at Times Square.
I’m intrigued that the NY Times supported both Republicans, John Foster Dulles for Senator on grounds of his expertise in foreign affairs, and Newbold Morris for Mayor on grounds of his opposition to Tammany Hall.
All that seems so remote now, but Bette Davis’s signature line from “Beyond the Forest” at the Strand that night remains fresh as a daisy, and not just through its transmogrification by Edward Albee: “What a dump!”
Yes, the new marquee went up in the early ‘50s. From visiting my grandparents in the neighborhood, I remember its predecessor, an very old-fashioned but quite elegant one. Despite its elegance, everyone still called the theater “The Tub o’ Blood,” as I noted in my post of 7 Aug. ‘04 above.
Whew— that’s quite a statement about “The Spanish Earth.” When did the office of Police Censor shut down? In the early ‘60s? Or did it still chug along until the late 60’s, when most of that stuff melted away?
Gerald—
I’m glad to hear that the Avon is thriving, as I should imagine it would in the neighborhood of Brown and RISD. In the early ‘60s I saw here a few European films—I can’t recall which specific ones—upon visiting my college friend who hailed from RI, and I remember it as a terrific theater. The mid-century problems with censorship take our breath away. I don’t at all know “Professor Mamlock,” but you can imagine how reverse discrimination might stain the day. Some viewers could well have resented the chutzpah of “der Jude” who dared to resist the Brown Shirts.
For the life of me, however, I can’t imagine why the NCD (or CLOD, as Theaterat called it on this site) condemned “Daybreak.” In the ‘60s, some of my Roman-collared friends rated films for NCD; most of them were progressive-minded, evidently in reaction against their predecessors. Still, the very institution of an NCD as a further corrective to the secular policing of Lieut. Blessing and the like was outrageous.
This plan, reproduced in each Showplace Program up through the early ‘60s, projects an optical illusion, or at least a misleading ratio since the mezzanine sketches do not share the same scale as the orchestra sketch. If you measure the width of the mezzanines as compared with that of the orchestra, or the opening of the mezzanine promenades as compared with that of the Grand Foyer, you’ll find that the scale of the upper levels is magnified by comparison with that of the ground floor.
This disproportion vexed me as a kid who studied such architectural plans compulsively. I’d never set foot in the first mezzanine, which held only reserved seating during the film years, but when as a teenager I eventually climbed to the second and third mezzanines with cartons of Philip Morris to puff on, I recognized the difference immediately.
Warren—
Thanks for the bookings of ‘48. They recoup my earliest memories of the Roxy.
My first visit there was for “You Were meant for Me” with that great jazz stage show. The billing must have made an impression on my parents, who were by no means jazz afficionados, but who certainly possessed the instinct to seek out a great show. I have a hazy memory of the b&w Dan Dailey film (a scene that took place on a railroad train sticks in mind), but a more colorful memory of the live music, and especially of a whooping face-off among Armstrong, Teagarden, Hines, et al. that concluded the show. I of course didn’t know who they were, and many years passed before I learned how to use libraries and dig out microfilm archives of the NYT to trace these memories. It then bowed me over to rediscover what a show it must have been.
I next remember seeing “Sitting Pretty” there. Evidently my parents found the previous show so good that they figured a return to the Roxy would be worth the trip on the BMT. My memory conjures up a stage-Irish review with shamrocks and midget leprachauns, and the premiere date of March 10 certainly bears out the St. Paddy motif. I don’t recall the puppet act, but that—plus the sadistic appeal of Clifton Webb as a baby sitter—would surely have spurred our trek to Rothaffel’s Cathedral.
Finally Ernst Lubitsch’s last film, “That Lady in Ermine,” brought us there again that summer, this time with the ice show as an evident drawer. The film’s Austrian setting prompted a stage show with Viennese waltzes by Strauss on ice, a novelty that competed not only with the lavish spectacles up the block at RCMH but also with the full-length ice shows at the formerly “New Roxy” Center on 49 Street. Those three shows sketched out the coordinates of a post-WWII world bounded by Bourbon Street, County Cork, and the Tyrolian Alps, expansive enough for a Brooklyn kid to deal with at the time. Thanks for putting it into context with the full list of bookings for ‘48.
Here’s a program from May, 1959:
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We all liked Shirley MacLaine, ever since we first saw her in “The Trouble with Harry,†and we thought she’d make a great comedienne. I’ll never forget seeing her arrive at the World Premiere of “Around the World in Eighty Days†on television in October ’56. In those days, all the big B’way premieres were televised live on the local NYC Dumont network channel 5, and “Around†was no exception. As La Shirley stepped from her limo, the interviewer asked her how she acquired such a wacky hair-do, and she giggled, “With an eggbeater,†and then swept grandly into the Rivoli. We speculated that she was ever so tipsy from Champagne and that we’d love to see her again. The Todd-AO spectacle proved disappointing as it allowed her no scope for madcap hilarity, so we waited for the proper comic vehicle to display her talents.
And waited. In January ’59, “Some Came Running†(an RCMH “adult†film, booked for the January post-holiday sober set) gave her an opportunity to act tipsy and boused again, but not really funny. Then in May came “Ask Any Girl,†with its promise of airy sexcapade. But I found the film leaden and predictable. And I don’t recall a single act from the stage show, even though the female violinist, the coloratura, and their crowd wore pajamas and peignoirs. All I remember was the terrific excitement that Audrey Hepburn would follow in “The Nun’s Story,†a book that as a Catholic high school kid I had read amid great controversy about its realistic treatment of religious vocation. A year later MacLaine would hit her stride with “The Apartment,†allowing her to act by turns tipsy and funny.
Yes, Warren, that mania produced quite a high! It was the first wide-screen presentation in NYC.