Allen F. Hauss, former projectionist and business manager of Philadelphia Local 306 (projectionists) has just had a book published , “South Jersey Movie Houses,” (Arcadia Press), in which he clears up a fact about the Warner I had always found confusing. To quote him, “In the 1950s, the name was changed to the Warren, to use the same marquee letter, and it became a live venue.” I had always wondered why historical texts on widescreen films sometimes mentioned “Windjammer” as having run at the Warren, and some other texts insisted it played the Warner. Now I know. The book, by the way, is extrememly interesting with many rare photographs and well-written text.
Does anyone here have stats on the Kinopanorama presentation in 1959. I’ve contacted the Moscow film people, and they even dont seem to know much. The reviews mentioned a 60-plus foot screen, only 7 channels, not 8, being used. After the 2nd week, even “Variety” magazine didnt print the box office stats. Anybody know any more?
Hey, Ed and you other guys and girls. Pls answer a question for me. Someome once asked what was the longest run of any film in NYC. My guess is the double feature of “Deep Throat” and “Devil & Ms Jones” somewhere in Manhattan. Opened in the 70’s and ran well into the 80’s. Can someone correct me. pls.
I wish. Last time I was in the area – maybe 10 yrs ago – the marquee was still standing. The building of course was being used for other purposes. DennisMcG is correct in that there was a separate basement lounge. I can only assume that pre-Scope, there was a narrow proscenium which was covered up in late 1953 with a screen/masking configuration to show scope and flat films. My only question is that, according to the advs in the then papers, the scope films were advertised with “stereophonic sound” (4-track mag), though I truly don’t remember seeing (or hearing) surround loudspeakers, or hearing anything other than mono behind the screen. Might be faulty memory. Dennis, can you help?
A point that must be remembered is that when the Stanley-Warner chain got the OK from the Dept. of Justice to show Cinerama films, the chain went on a wholesale renovation of theatres about to show the process. The exterior (and interior) changes at the Boyd were made at the behest of Stanley-Warner. The same thing happened at the Century in Minneapolis, where the theatre received a virtually complete makeover of the exterior. Documentation shows that much of the confusion over the costs of installing Cinerama came from the fact that, depending upon who was doing the accounting, the non-Cinerama-related expenditures may or may not have been included.
Yes, Mike, the Fox up until its last renovation, had a large rising “Austrian swag” curtain as well as the horizontally travelling screen curtain. As for the Stanley, as Dennis pointed out, there were any number of lights, and combinations of patterns, that could light the house curtain.
Yes, Dennis, and when I think about it, the Stanley’s curtain was – with the exception of the Music Hall – probably the largest curtain I have ever seen anywhere, Cinerama houses included! The house was a “widebody” to begin with, and I must reiterate, the traveller stretched out well beyond the proscencium and continued up the side walls. If you can get a copy of Ben Hall’s “Best Remaining Seats,” there’s a from-the-balcony shot of the pre-renovation Stanley, and you can get a pretty good idea of the width of the theatre. Do you also recall two or three side panels in front of the actual screen curtain, too?
The SamEric people were never known for their artfulness or showmanship. Actually, beginning with “Ben-Hur” in Nov. 1959, the space that is now in this photo as the “3” and “4” was occupied by a large front-lit horizontal sign, blazing the name of the current attraction which could be seen for blocks away. But, at least we have one thing to be thankful for…it was the SamEric crowd, not the Budco that took over the theatre. Budco could easily trash the Pyramids in the twinkling of an eye!
Yes, Mike, and I was thoroughly p.o.’d that it was only a 35mm scope print, most other cities running it in 70mm. And, Howard, I dont feel like pulling out my stacks of ads right now, but I would think that in 1953, the Cinerama tickets were the highest relative to other films, the operative term here being “relative to.” And, this can be easily checked, but I’m not going to the library this week, but I believe that “Cleo” had a blood-curdling $5 top. This would have been a record. If you want to go back even more, it would be interesting to see how the admish for GWTW at the Boyd on roadshow (as opposed to its concurrent run at the Earle on “grind”) compared with other fare at that time.
Howard, to answer your question concerning prices for roadshows in the 50’s and 60’s, there were always numerous factors to be considered., theatre configuration and type of film generally being uppermost. Houses with three separate sections like the Boyd and the Stanley and Stanton could have three or more price “levels.†Single-level venues were a different story. The Midtown, for instance, had its screen way “up there” above the exit doors at the front of the auditorium. Therefore, the first half-dozen or so rows, the “neck-strain†section, were most often priced lower than those situated in the rest of the orchestra. On the other hand, a very small single-level theatre like the Trans-Lux had, IIRC, a single price for all of its
seats when it roadshowed “Those Magnificent Men….†Next, type of film played a big role, Cinerama, being a prime example. When the Goldman opened “Sleeping Beauty” in 70mm on a continous-performance basis, the ticket prices were raised greatly, but even the Boyd’s admission price by the mid-1950’s was not that much higher than non-roadshows, with the center city evening-show general admish for non-reserved seat attractions having been set at $1.80. Then comes the attraction itself. Fox’s contract with all exhibitors booking “Cleopatra†on roadshow in the Summer of 1963 stipulated significantly higher prices than other roadshows. Hope this helps.
If you mean did it have the same size screen it had before it was triplexed…absolutely not. Because of the position of the projection booth for the downstairs auditorium, it became one of the smallest screens I have ever seen in a large theatre.
Still not sure about the GWTW run in 70mm in 1975. At that time I lived at 2101 Chestnut St – 2 blks from the Boyd – and passed it every day. I might be wrong, tho. BTW, Im sure you know that GWTW originally premiered at the Boyd (and simultaneously at the Earle) in 1939. As far as a earlier post noted about screen size..,go to the rec.arts.movies.tech group…there are a number of articles about D-150 lenses (and other high-precision short-focal length lenses) still available.
“Ben Hur” opened 11/24/59…closed Jan or Feb 1961, followed by “Exodus” and then (in approximate order) “Judgment at Nuremburg”, “King of Kings,” and “La Dolce Vita”. Vince
Mike, many of us confuse the Boyd (aka SamEric) with the Randolph, usually because at one time both theatres presented 70mm Cinerama (advertised as such) or 70mm presentations on most of the full screen. The curved Cinerama screen was removed from the Boyd in December of 1971. A curved screen has not been used at that venue since then. “Man of La Mancha” was a 1972 release, a full year after the curved screen’s removal. You say “…years later when I went back and saw GWTW.” AFAIK, GWTW had no 70m engagements in the Philadelphia area during the 1970s. The deep-curve screen that was in place at the Boyd/SamEric until 12/71 was actually not the original Cinerama screen, though it was much larger. This particular screen was installed in August 1962 for the run of the Loews-Cinerama features, the original Cinerama screen having been dismantled in the Fall of 1959 after its original installation in October of 1953.
The 66' curved IMAX screen at the NY Museum of Natural History Lefrak Auditorium retracts into the stage revealing the full proscenium and stage which includes a “regular” screen. It has been operating in this fashion since the 1970s. This venue is theatre #11020 on this site. There were also plans a few years back to be able to “fly” a deep curve screen forward of the proscenium at the Imperial in Montreal. AFAIK, these plans have not yet been implemented. And, of
course, in Seattle, the opposite is accomplished: the retractable screen is the “regular” screen which sits in front of the deep-curve Cinerama screen. For a very short period in 1956, the Philadelphia Fox used a roll-a-way screen for the presentation of the dual-projector Thrillarama process. The 72-foot wide curved screen
sat in front of the stage and was installed (and removed) overnight. The installation “kit” also included screen curtains.
More overtures come to mind: Hitchcock’s SPELLBOUND, DUEL IN THE SUN (both musical overture and off-screen narration), JULIUS CAESAR (1953), more recently William Friedkin’s SORCERER. BTW, in my above post about BIRTH OF A NATION, that should read NY Liberty, not NT Liberty.
It may not be the earliest, but “Birth of a Nation” was road-shown at the NT Liberty, incidentally, the same theatre where the live play “The Klansman,” on with BOAN was based, was introduced. Roadshows, in one form or another, with or without prologue/overture/intermission/entr'acte have been around for decades.
Only 5 boothmen for Cinerama? The former biz mgr for the now defunct Philly local told me recently there were 6 at the Boyd; and story goes that the reason the Chicago premiere at the Palace was delayed was because the union insisted on 12 operators. As for the Philly setup I can only imagine – because the last known C'rama operator in the area is now either dead or is unlocatable – 1 man for each of the A/B/C projectors, possibly one for audio and/or picture control, one for the 35mm operation upstairs (prologues and breakdown reels), and one who who go behind the screen and start the curtain motor. (This guy was recognizable in that he could easily be seen walking down the side aisle to the edge of the screen curtain, and disappearing, and then reappearing before and after each of the two acts.
As for the 2-man rule for 70mm presentations, I always thought it was something like that for here whenever a 70mm roadshow began to fail, the feature would go off roadshow policy and go grind, but a 35mm print would be substituted. “Fall of the Roman Empire” at the Stanley comes immediately to mind, but with some thought I can recall others.
And you wouldnt actually see or hear – multichannel mag striping on the actual projection prints until “The Robe,” for which Hazard Reeves (by that time supervising the technical activities at Cinerama, Inc.) won a technical Oscar.
However, there were a slew of 2-D features before the introduction of CinemaScope’s 4-track-mag-on-film that did incorporate interlocked 4-track: “From Here to Eternity,” “The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T,” “Gilbert and Sullivan”, “Julius Caesar,” “Mogambo,” “Shane,” quite a few others including a reissue of “GWTW.” It wasn’t always a welcome event, according to some critics. In the NYTimes review of “From Here to Eternity” on 8/5/53, it was reported “…is being shown on a wide screen and Stereophonic Sound. It does not need these enhancements. It has scope, power and impact without them.” Earlier in April of that year, the Times, equally disappointed in Warner Bros.‘ 4-channel-interlocked “WarnerPhonic Sound” introduced with the 3-D “House of Wax” sighed “Dimly we forsee movie audiences embalmed in three-dimensional wax and sound.”
Vito, you said: “The Paramount in NY was able to run 3-D without intermission because it was a four projector booth and could make a changeover.” So did the Randolph in Philadelphia. During 3-D engagements there, the print ads always stated prominently “No Intermission!”.
I went to Penn State Univ located in State College, and the Cathaum, then a Stanley-Warner house was a major hanout for me. House featured gold curtains, slightly curved CinemaScope screen about 30-35' in width, and had 4-channel mag capabilities. My first visit to a projection booth was here, and I remember how the projectionist on duty showed me how – during a matinee of “Days of Wine and Roses” – how he could switch the channels around from any of the 3 screen speakers to the surrounds. Mustve momentarily disoriented the audience, tho, his doing that in the middle of this monophonic film.
Allen F. Hauss, former projectionist and business manager of Philadelphia Local 306 (projectionists) has just had a book published , “South Jersey Movie Houses,” (Arcadia Press), in which he clears up a fact about the Warner I had always found confusing. To quote him, “In the 1950s, the name was changed to the Warren, to use the same marquee letter, and it became a live venue.” I had always wondered why historical texts on widescreen films sometimes mentioned “Windjammer” as having run at the Warren, and some other texts insisted it played the Warner. Now I know. The book, by the way, is extrememly interesting with many rare photographs and well-written text.
Does anyone here have stats on the Kinopanorama presentation in 1959. I’ve contacted the Moscow film people, and they even dont seem to know much. The reviews mentioned a 60-plus foot screen, only 7 channels, not 8, being used. After the 2nd week, even “Variety” magazine didnt print the box office stats. Anybody know any more?
Hey, Ed and you other guys and girls. Pls answer a question for me. Someome once asked what was the longest run of any film in NYC. My guess is the double feature of “Deep Throat” and “Devil & Ms Jones” somewhere in Manhattan. Opened in the 70’s and ran well into the 80’s. Can someone correct me. pls.
I wish. Last time I was in the area – maybe 10 yrs ago – the marquee was still standing. The building of course was being used for other purposes. DennisMcG is correct in that there was a separate basement lounge. I can only assume that pre-Scope, there was a narrow proscenium which was covered up in late 1953 with a screen/masking configuration to show scope and flat films. My only question is that, according to the advs in the then papers, the scope films were advertised with “stereophonic sound” (4-track mag), though I truly don’t remember seeing (or hearing) surround loudspeakers, or hearing anything other than mono behind the screen. Might be faulty memory. Dennis, can you help?
The NEW Roxy, not the OLD Roxy!
A point that must be remembered is that when the Stanley-Warner chain got the OK from the Dept. of Justice to show Cinerama films, the chain went on a wholesale renovation of theatres about to show the process. The exterior (and interior) changes at the Boyd were made at the behest of Stanley-Warner. The same thing happened at the Century in Minneapolis, where the theatre received a virtually complete makeover of the exterior. Documentation shows that much of the confusion over the costs of installing Cinerama came from the fact that, depending upon who was doing the accounting, the non-Cinerama-related expenditures may or may not have been included.
Yes, Mike, the Fox up until its last renovation, had a large rising “Austrian swag” curtain as well as the horizontally travelling screen curtain. As for the Stanley, as Dennis pointed out, there were any number of lights, and combinations of patterns, that could light the house curtain.
Yes, Dennis, and when I think about it, the Stanley’s curtain was – with the exception of the Music Hall – probably the largest curtain I have ever seen anywhere, Cinerama houses included! The house was a “widebody” to begin with, and I must reiterate, the traveller stretched out well beyond the proscencium and continued up the side walls. If you can get a copy of Ben Hall’s “Best Remaining Seats,” there’s a from-the-balcony shot of the pre-renovation Stanley, and you can get a pretty good idea of the width of the theatre. Do you also recall two or three side panels in front of the actual screen curtain, too?
The SamEric people were never known for their artfulness or showmanship. Actually, beginning with “Ben-Hur” in Nov. 1959, the space that is now in this photo as the “3” and “4” was occupied by a large front-lit horizontal sign, blazing the name of the current attraction which could be seen for blocks away. But, at least we have one thing to be thankful for…it was the SamEric crowd, not the Budco that took over the theatre. Budco could easily trash the Pyramids in the twinkling of an eye!
Yes, Mike, and I was thoroughly p.o.’d that it was only a 35mm scope print, most other cities running it in 70mm. And, Howard, I dont feel like pulling out my stacks of ads right now, but I would think that in 1953, the Cinerama tickets were the highest relative to other films, the operative term here being “relative to.” And, this can be easily checked, but I’m not going to the library this week, but I believe that “Cleo” had a blood-curdling $5 top. This would have been a record. If you want to go back even more, it would be interesting to see how the admish for GWTW at the Boyd on roadshow (as opposed to its concurrent run at the Earle on “grind”) compared with other fare at that time.
Howard, to answer your question concerning prices for roadshows in the 50’s and 60’s, there were always numerous factors to be considered., theatre configuration and type of film generally being uppermost. Houses with three separate sections like the Boyd and the Stanley and Stanton could have three or more price “levels.†Single-level venues were a different story. The Midtown, for instance, had its screen way “up there” above the exit doors at the front of the auditorium. Therefore, the first half-dozen or so rows, the “neck-strain†section, were most often priced lower than those situated in the rest of the orchestra. On the other hand, a very small single-level theatre like the Trans-Lux had, IIRC, a single price for all of its
seats when it roadshowed “Those Magnificent Men….†Next, type of film played a big role, Cinerama, being a prime example. When the Goldman opened “Sleeping Beauty” in 70mm on a continous-performance basis, the ticket prices were raised greatly, but even the Boyd’s admission price by the mid-1950’s was not that much higher than non-roadshows, with the center city evening-show general admish for non-reserved seat attractions having been set at $1.80. Then comes the attraction itself. Fox’s contract with all exhibitors booking “Cleopatra†on roadshow in the Summer of 1963 stipulated significantly higher prices than other roadshows. Hope this helps.
Yes
If you mean did it have the same size screen it had before it was triplexed…absolutely not. Because of the position of the projection booth for the downstairs auditorium, it became one of the smallest screens I have ever seen in a large theatre.
Still not sure about the GWTW run in 70mm in 1975. At that time I lived at 2101 Chestnut St – 2 blks from the Boyd – and passed it every day. I might be wrong, tho. BTW, Im sure you know that GWTW originally premiered at the Boyd (and simultaneously at the Earle) in 1939. As far as a earlier post noted about screen size..,go to the rec.arts.movies.tech group…there are a number of articles about D-150 lenses (and other high-precision short-focal length lenses) still available.
“Ben Hur” opened 11/24/59…closed Jan or Feb 1961, followed by “Exodus” and then (in approximate order) “Judgment at Nuremburg”, “King of Kings,” and “La Dolce Vita”. Vince
Mike, many of us confuse the Boyd (aka SamEric) with the Randolph, usually because at one time both theatres presented 70mm Cinerama (advertised as such) or 70mm presentations on most of the full screen. The curved Cinerama screen was removed from the Boyd in December of 1971. A curved screen has not been used at that venue since then. “Man of La Mancha” was a 1972 release, a full year after the curved screen’s removal. You say “…years later when I went back and saw GWTW.” AFAIK, GWTW had no 70m engagements in the Philadelphia area during the 1970s. The deep-curve screen that was in place at the Boyd/SamEric until 12/71 was actually not the original Cinerama screen, though it was much larger. This particular screen was installed in August 1962 for the run of the Loews-Cinerama features, the original Cinerama screen having been dismantled in the Fall of 1959 after its original installation in October of 1953.
The 66' curved IMAX screen at the NY Museum of Natural History Lefrak Auditorium retracts into the stage revealing the full proscenium and stage which includes a “regular” screen. It has been operating in this fashion since the 1970s. This venue is theatre #11020 on this site. There were also plans a few years back to be able to “fly” a deep curve screen forward of the proscenium at the Imperial in Montreal. AFAIK, these plans have not yet been implemented. And, of
course, in Seattle, the opposite is accomplished: the retractable screen is the “regular” screen which sits in front of the deep-curve Cinerama screen. For a very short period in 1956, the Philadelphia Fox used a roll-a-way screen for the presentation of the dual-projector Thrillarama process. The 72-foot wide curved screen
sat in front of the stage and was installed (and removed) overnight. The installation “kit” also included screen curtains.
More overtures come to mind: Hitchcock’s SPELLBOUND, DUEL IN THE SUN (both musical overture and off-screen narration), JULIUS CAESAR (1953), more recently William Friedkin’s SORCERER. BTW, in my above post about BIRTH OF A NATION, that should read NY Liberty, not NT Liberty.
It may not be the earliest, but “Birth of a Nation” was road-shown at the NT Liberty, incidentally, the same theatre where the live play “The Klansman,” on with BOAN was based, was introduced. Roadshows, in one form or another, with or without prologue/overture/intermission/entr'acte have been around for decades.
Only 5 boothmen for Cinerama? The former biz mgr for the now defunct Philly local told me recently there were 6 at the Boyd; and story goes that the reason the Chicago premiere at the Palace was delayed was because the union insisted on 12 operators. As for the Philly setup I can only imagine – because the last known C'rama operator in the area is now either dead or is unlocatable – 1 man for each of the A/B/C projectors, possibly one for audio and/or picture control, one for the 35mm operation upstairs (prologues and breakdown reels), and one who who go behind the screen and start the curtain motor. (This guy was recognizable in that he could easily be seen walking down the side aisle to the edge of the screen curtain, and disappearing, and then reappearing before and after each of the two acts.
As for the 2-man rule for 70mm presentations, I always thought it was something like that for here whenever a 70mm roadshow began to fail, the feature would go off roadshow policy and go grind, but a 35mm print would be substituted. “Fall of the Roman Empire” at the Stanley comes immediately to mind, but with some thought I can recall others.
And you wouldnt actually see or hear – multichannel mag striping on the actual projection prints until “The Robe,” for which Hazard Reeves (by that time supervising the technical activities at Cinerama, Inc.) won a technical Oscar.
However, there were a slew of 2-D features before the introduction of CinemaScope’s 4-track-mag-on-film that did incorporate interlocked 4-track: “From Here to Eternity,” “The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T,” “Gilbert and Sullivan”, “Julius Caesar,” “Mogambo,” “Shane,” quite a few others including a reissue of “GWTW.” It wasn’t always a welcome event, according to some critics. In the NYTimes review of “From Here to Eternity” on 8/5/53, it was reported “…is being shown on a wide screen and Stereophonic Sound. It does not need these enhancements. It has scope, power and impact without them.” Earlier in April of that year, the Times, equally disappointed in Warner Bros.‘ 4-channel-interlocked “WarnerPhonic Sound” introduced with the 3-D “House of Wax” sighed “Dimly we forsee movie audiences embalmed in three-dimensional wax and sound.”
Many long, long runs here including the premiere engagement of “David and Lisa,” and the French suspense classic “Diabolique.”
Vito, you said: “The Paramount in NY was able to run 3-D without intermission because it was a four projector booth and could make a changeover.” So did the Randolph in Philadelphia. During 3-D engagements there, the print ads always stated prominently “No Intermission!”.
I bet that theatre must’ve really “rocked” when “Psycho” opened there in 1960.
I went to Penn State Univ located in State College, and the Cathaum, then a Stanley-Warner house was a major hanout for me. House featured gold curtains, slightly curved CinemaScope screen about 30-35' in width, and had 4-channel mag capabilities. My first visit to a projection booth was here, and I remember how the projectionist on duty showed me how – during a matinee of “Days of Wine and Roses” – how he could switch the channels around from any of the 3 screen speakers to the surrounds. Mustve momentarily disoriented the audience, tho, his doing that in the middle of this monophonic film.