“Picnic on the Grass†was a minor Jean Renoir film, but a Renoir film nonetheless, with the added glory of having been filmed in glorious color at the Renoir estate near Cannes. The silly plot focuses on an aloof professor who spends a weekend with young people at a country estate, where he unbuttons his collar and learns to enjoy life. It’s not “Rules of the Game,†but it’s nice to look at.
The accompanying essay on dubbing vs. subtitles has Bosley Crowther ludicrously arguing on behalf of dubbing as a “commercially advantageous way of presenting†foreign films, because [in 1960 figures] dubbing would earn a dubber $12,000-25,000 per film whereas subtitling would earn a subtitler only $2,500-4,000 per film. (In all fairness, he also argues that distributors prefer the cheaper method to maximize their profits.)
I include the “Now Showing At†page to recall what was available at these theaters that Thanksgiving-Christmas season in 1960.
“Picnic on the Grass†was a minor Jean Renoir film, but a Renoir film nonetheless, with the added glory of having been filmed in glorious color at the Renoir estate near Cannes. The silly plot focuses on an aloof professor who spends a weekend with young people at a country estate, where he unbuttons his collar and learns to enjoy life. It’s not “Rules of the Game,†but it’s nice to look at.
The accompanying essay on dubbing vs. subtitles has Bosley Crowther ludicrously arguing on behalf of dubbing as a “commercially advantageous way of presenting†foreign films, because [in 1960 figures] dubbing would earn a dubber $12,000-25,000 per film whereas subtitling would earn a subtitler only $2,500-4,000 per film. (In all fairness, he also argues that distributors prefer the cheaper method to maximize their profits.)
I include the “Now Showing At†page to recall what was available at these theaters that Thanksgiving-Christmas season in 1960.
On second thought, why not post it today, in honor of having seen it there exactly forty-six years ago last night? Here’s my Program from the week beginning 30 July, 1959, acquired on 5 August, 1959:
That summer my friends cheated on me by sneaking out to see “The Nun’s Story†at RCMH while I was at work. Whether or not they thought I’d care to see Audrey Hepburn in a wimple, I was determined to catch that film on the screen where it had premiered. Plus, the stage show had boasted of a wacky finale that depicted the burning of Nome, Alaska, with real fire. So, on the final day of its run, I left work, returned home, ate a sullen supper, and then told my mom I was going off to see some Doris Day romp at the RKO Dyker. [Editor’s note: never trust a liar; Doris Day’s “It Happened to Jane†actually played at Loew’s Alpine that week; the co-feature was “Hey Boy! Hey Girl!†with Louis Prima and Keely Smith.] I then sneaked on to the BMT and arrived at RCMH just as the orchestra was rising for the very last performance of its collegiate overture.
I felt I owed it to myself and to my job to do that. This job, which I held for ten weeks each summer during my last two years of high school and first three years of college, kept me running around the city as a foot-messenger bearing documents and receiving signatures in the days before FAX and e-mail attachments made such work practically obsolete. My employer, a ship-building firm (now also practically obsolete, at least in the USA), entertained corporate clients at B’way shows and Yankees baseball games. When it became apparent to my boss that I knew more about the former than anyone in the shipyard, he dispatched me every day, often twice a day, and sometimes three or more times a day, to Times Square to procure tickets. Whenever I behaved badly, he dispatched me instead to Yankee Stadium, which I really didn’t mind because I could always read a book during the long subway ride. The upshot was that I spent a fair amount of time in the summers of ‘58-’62 scouring the theater district, chatting up box office managers, and doping out the best way to get the best seats for the hits of the time. Though it was only a movie, “Gigi†was one of those hits on reserved seats in ’58 at the Royale. And though it was only a movie which would soon wind up at the RKO Dyker [Editor’s note: really there, yes], “The Nun’s Story†in ’59 stood at the top of my must-see list.
It was the first and only time that I attended a last-night performance at RCMH. Part of the thrill was wondering how in the world the stagehands might strike the old sets and mount the new ones before the doors re-opened the next morning. Though I could imagine that backstage activity was always frenetic, I could only guess how scores of workers disassembled flats lining the choral stairways and then assembled their replacements, with set designers, stage managers, lighting crew, and other experts barking orders as the time flew by. If it took me hours to set up one Christmas tree each December, how could RCMH staff set up scores between midnight and dawn? And in the case of this show’s flaming finale, who would rush the smoldering timbers of Nome off the stage to make way for the spectacular “Serenade to the Stars†announced for the next day? Whew, it gave me a headache to think of it.
As it happened, the stage show proceeded luxe, calm, and voluptuous, with no hint of haste or who-gives-a-damn-at-this-point. And the film unfolded stately and serene on the fabulous screen, with no sound of hammers or hoists or drilling backstage. And when the contour curtain descended silently on the lone angelus bell at the movie’s end, the houselights came up and the organ came out to disperse the still nearly-full house with solemn exit music. It was a class act in serenity. Finding myself outside in the sultry August night on 50 Street, I saw that the display cases had been changed and the marquee retitled. I walked around the corner to 51 Street and found it cordoned off, ablaze in floodlight as stageworkers hauled scenery out the side doors and onto trucks, waving onwards other trucks packed with scenery ready to be unloaded. It was a beehive of activity. It all seemed unreal when I returned less than forty-five hours later to see “North by Northwest.†Meanwhile, I reported to my mom that I had found the Doris Day romp so good that I stayed to see the entire double feature twice, well past midnight.
Warren— I want to refer readers to your spirited accounts of Gable’s live turn in your post above, last 16-17 Feb., and to the longer account in your book about Gable. It’s hilariously racy.
The film opened forty-six years ago to this very day. The next morning’s newspapers carried rave reviews, and my cinemaniac friends immediately began phoning around to arrange meeting on West 50th Street for the Friday evening show. We only half-believed the reviews, since we imagined that both Hitchcock and Grant were getting a little too old for this sort of thing. But we turned out anyway to check for ourselves.
To our amazement when we arrived, the line stretched around the block. On that sultry evening, the ushers were barking their familiar chant: “The last stage show has already begun; tickets are now on sale for the final showing of the movie only.†When we reached the box-office forty-five minutes later, the ushers were barking, “The final showing of the movie is about to begin; there is some seating in the side rear sections only.†We raced up to the third mezzanine (we wanted to smoke, anyway) and found seats just as Richard Leibert was finishing up his organ solo. Then the picture began, and the rest became history.
Some months ago (4 April ’05), Vincent asked on this page whether audiences laughed at the closing shot of the train entering the tunnel. Well, yes, my friends and I did. You must know that we were exceptionally dirty-minded teenagers, prone to invent double entendres even when there were none. Of course, the mildly (but only mildly) repressed culture of the late ‘50s encouraged such double entendres, and our elders surely joined us in the guffaws. What I most remember about that packed house was the hush, the thrill, the sense of unison in laughter and relief. And when the huge audience emptied out after the last frame, the unusually animated talk, the giggles, andâ€"on meâ€"the sweaty palms of my hands still moist from that breathtakingly acrophobic finale.
Awww— that’s sad to see the current Alpine reduced to a storefront entrance. The structures to the right and left are clearly new ones. The structure to the left has replaced a large furniture store that perfectly complemented the Alpine’s old facade and added bulk to the entrance. It looks so shrunken now. Compare a picture that I posted above last 26 April.
I take it that at the Gotham, Lola Lane’s star-attraction was “Why Girls Leave Home,” which also sounds good. Since that film opened on 3 August ‘45, the clipping must coincide roughly with Hiroshima/Nagasaki/VJ Day.
At the bottom of the clipping, I wonder what film it was that Walter Winchell prophecied we’d laugh out heads off at? Good thing none of us saw it—we wouldn’t have any heads now.
Thanks for the stats. If you remember the location of the lot, you’ll recall how odd it is. At 86 Street, the hitherto parallel 4 and 5 Avenues begin to converge, and the block between 91 and 92 Streets is the last—now trapezoidal—full block before 5 Avenue vanishes into 4 Avenue.
On the building’s 5 Avenue side (the proscenium wall), a fairly large billboard announced the week’s attractions: it appeared as a miniature of the Rivoli’s wonderful rear-wall billboard in Manhattan. The difference was, that the Harbor’s programs changed twice each week, as it showed the hand-me-downs from the Loew’s circuit on Wed-Fri and from the RKO circuit on Sat-Mon (or perhaps vice versa—I’m straining to recall what I saw there in the late 40s and early 50s), with a double-bill revival on Tues. The poster-hangers practically had a full-time job keeping up with it. In addition, neighborhood stores displayed in their windows a cardboard poster listing the weekly attractions. You might think of it as pre-web advertising.
Thanks for the fine picture of the Harbor. Its geometric vertical brick designs and asymetrical placement offer a wonderful example of art deco facade. The top storey windows belonged to the projection room, and I remember frequently seeing the projectionist puffing a cigarette at one of them as I walked to the library a couple of blocks away. The interior was perfectly symmetrical, with maroon walls bathed in yellow side-lights, and with a shallow balcony for patrons who smoked and an expansive orchestra for the rest of us. The length tapered to a rather narrow proscenium, just fine for the pre-wide-screen era, and quite attractive as a pale yellow traveler curtain neatly framed the screen’s black-bordered surface.
To accommodate new projection ratios in 1953, they removed the curtain and installed the widest possible screen that the space allowed, but it was still only just slightly larger than the original one and, when a top mask descended for CinemaScope, proved even smaller than the latter. The nearby Stanley did a much better job by removing sections of the old proscenium to accommodate a properly panoramic screen.
For all that, the Harbor displayed a freer license in selecting films than the neighboring RKO or Loew’s theaters did. As part of the Interboro chain, it received most of its fare third-hand after the Alpine or Dyker passed it on to the Bay Ridge or Shore Road and then to the Harbor, which in turn passed it to the Fortway and last of all to the Stanley. Occasionally, however, the Harbor would disrupt the chain and play a popular foreign film or a domestic film whose distribution was shunned by RKO or Loew’s. In 1953, such a film was “The Moon Is Blue,†which had been denied a Production Code Seal and was condemned by the Roman Catholic Legion of Decency (see posts above for 15 March 2005). In 1956, the Harbor played “Diabolique,†a French thriller that had broken records at the Fine Arts on E. 58 Street. In the early 1960s, the Harbor became an early venue for Premier Showcase bookings and it scooped prestige films such as “West Side Story†which normally would have gone first to the Alpine or Dyker. If only its screen had been large enough to display those films to full advantage!
That takes your breath away: closed for Christmas vacation! If memory serves me, the holiday season was as busy a time for movie-going as it is now, and perhaps even busier. Did drive-ins do a different sort of business?
I never knew about that fracas. And then, in your second advertising image, there’s the detail of the female legs transported on the bicycle. It makes the film appear as though it were a caper comedy. Or, worse, as though it were “Icicle Thieves.”
From the audience’s perspective, the traveler curtain was behind the contour curtain, and at the end of films was synchronized to close as the countour descended.
Thanks for the photo. I dimly recall the neon tubing of the Avenue/Avon’s marquee as green and white. That’s a colorful history, all the more so imbued with the US premiere of de Sica’s “Shoe Shine.”
RobertR: “Jenny Lamour,” aka “Quai des orfevres,” with Louis Jouvet, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (winner of Best Director for it at Venice Festival ‘47), opened on 5 March '48. I wonder how much longer it continued after hitting the eight-week mark?
Our hearts were broken when Kay Kendall died a few weeks before this film opened at RCMH. I shall never forget thinking, as the great contour curtain descended and the traveler curtain closed on the final frame, that we’d never see her again. Then we went to a bar, drank a lot of beer, and argued about whether a young senator from Massachusetts named “Jack†could ever be nominated for president, as so many pundits were predicting he might be. Shortly afterwards, that young senator tossed his diaper into the ring.
Thanks for catching my fudge of the dimensions. After taking into account the lobby space at the entrance and the space for the narrow stage apron before the screen, the auditorium’s interior was still wider than long, and that’s the anomaly that sticks in my mind’s eye. And with the relatively small screens of the 1940s-50s, the viewing area at the RKO SR couldn’t have been more than 12x15 (or unlikely 15x18) maximum.
This means, with a proscenium frontage of 86 feet, no more than 15 (or generously 18) feet were given to the screen’s width. Hence, my memory of an elongated, top-shortened proscenium and burgundy traveler curtain, with side-auditorium seats angled uncomfortably toward the center.
But above all, lostmemory, thanks for every wonderful shred of detail that you’ve contributed to this site over the past months.
I don’t recall the Alpine Ice Cream Parlor on BR Ave. But in the 1940s-50s, the neighborhood’s best emporium for the sweet-tooth was Pohl’s Homemade Candy on 5 Avenue between 70 and 71 Streets (east side—i.e. Alpine side—of the street). The aroma of chocolate and caramel was intoxicating on the street and a knock-out inside. I believe that the store closed around 1960. [it’s not to be confused with Pohl’s Homemade Ice Cream and Candy on 5 Avenue between 82 and 83 Street (west side), which closed a few years later. The latter’s ice cream was inferior to Hinsch’s near 86 Street, and its candy was several notches below the above-mentioned Pohl’s.]
For those who threw all caution to the winds and would sacrifice artisanal chocolate for sheer bulk, a doughnut shop across the street from the Alpine offered its wares for the movie-going crowd. There the proprietor would hand-fry your choice of a doughnut-with-cream-filling as you stood at the counter. The paper-bag that you brought into the Alpine would be dripping with hot oil as you entered the theater.
I forewent all that so I could save money to see more movies later in the week at the Stanley or Bay Ridge. But I remember that most people wouldn’t think of buying a ticket without the promise of sweets to go with it. Those double features, after all, were pretty long and viewers got hungry.
Thanks for the update and the news that Apple Bank has replaced the supermarket that replaced the theater. The photo shows that the bank has completely modernized the building, replacing the red granite exterior with apparent stonework.
I don’t believe that the marquee remained in the early ‘60s. The theater’s transformation into a supermarket occurred fairly rapidly after the theater closed in Spring '57. At least at that time, property in this area did not remain vacant for long.
Thanks for the stats. FxD 106x100 approximates my guestimate of 110x90. The Phantom’s current picture conveys the disproportionate width of the frontage if you bear in mind that the depth ends abruptly where it appears to end in the image: there’s nothing beyond that rear angle as it hits the property line of houses on 85 Street. What an odd building.
The Paris accommodated such events. Eight years later, in the winter of ‘68-’69, my wife organized an excursion of some 500 high school students to see a showing of Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet†which had been playing at that theater. That production we had seen live in its stage version at the City Center some five years earlier, and now in this film the director was recreating his magnificent stage effects set against location photography in Verona.
As luck would have it, a huge snowstorm closed NYC schools the day before and day of the showing. Panicked with 500 tickets in our hands, we ran announcements on the major NYC radio stations instructing students to show up at the theater for the scheduled 10:00 am special showing. We set out for the theater from Queens two hours early, snowstorm be damned. About a hundred kids eventually showed up. The school then soaked up the losses.
If this theater hosted the first-run of “Lawrence of Arabia,” then that’s where I saw it in Spring of ‘63. My friend from college lived in RI, and we hung out at each other’s homes on seasonal breaks.
The film was not high on our must-see list. Bosley Crowther had given it a rotten review (“barren of humanity….just a huge thundering camel-opera that ends to run down rather badly”), and the sold-out reserved seating cum outrageous prices at the Criterion in NYC ruled out casual viewing in my home town. On the other hand, in Providence we phoned the Elmwood, learned that tickets were available and that the price was right, and so off we went.
The film (and the Elmwood’s presentation) overwhelmed me, and it remains one of my favorites, too. A few months later we saw “Cleopatra” (a.k.a. “Lizpatra”) at the Music Hall in Boston under similar circumstances, but with the opposite critical reaction (though I thought the presentation was splendid there too).
Swell pictures and accompanying captions. Did your photo of the televised boxing match come from Life Magazine? As a kid, I remember seeing such a photo there ca. 1950. Do you have its source and date? And do you have the source for the Beatles' photo, too?
Warren— gorgeous. I remember the Capitol’s ‘40s-'50s color scheme as green (the color of the immense traveler curtain) and brown (the woodwork), but your notation of olive is no doubt accurate. And, yes, silver leaf rather than gold: I always remember the Capitol as full of glittering accents, showing off the crystal and marble to best effect.
Variety is on line through LexisNexis only back to 1993. Various libraries have it on microfilm or in the original paper editions or in some combination of the two.
I truly don’t know why I went to see the movie, though the great casting of Genevieve Page, Patricia Morison, Martita Hunt, Lou Jacobi, and Marcel Dalio must have made it worthwhile. I remember joining my cynical college friends in heckling some of the grosser Hollywood lines about nineteenth-century high cultcha. Something tells me that one of us knew someone in the GW University chorus which performed in the stage show. Certainly the photo on the program’s cover could have been of any of us, except that we’d never give up our chinos or turtle necks to wear tuxes or gowns for any reason, not even to appear on RCMH’s great stage if we could.
Here’s a Showbill from November 1960.
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“Picnic on the Grass†was a minor Jean Renoir film, but a Renoir film nonetheless, with the added glory of having been filmed in glorious color at the Renoir estate near Cannes. The silly plot focuses on an aloof professor who spends a weekend with young people at a country estate, where he unbuttons his collar and learns to enjoy life. It’s not “Rules of the Game,†but it’s nice to look at.
The accompanying essay on dubbing vs. subtitles has Bosley Crowther ludicrously arguing on behalf of dubbing as a “commercially advantageous way of presenting†foreign films, because [in 1960 figures] dubbing would earn a dubber $12,000-25,000 per film whereas subtitling would earn a subtitler only $2,500-4,000 per film. (In all fairness, he also argues that distributors prefer the cheaper method to maximize their profits.)
I include the “Now Showing At†page to recall what was available at these theaters that Thanksgiving-Christmas season in 1960.
Here’s a Showbill from November 1960.
View link
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“Picnic on the Grass†was a minor Jean Renoir film, but a Renoir film nonetheless, with the added glory of having been filmed in glorious color at the Renoir estate near Cannes. The silly plot focuses on an aloof professor who spends a weekend with young people at a country estate, where he unbuttons his collar and learns to enjoy life. It’s not “Rules of the Game,†but it’s nice to look at.
The accompanying essay on dubbing vs. subtitles has Bosley Crowther ludicrously arguing on behalf of dubbing as a “commercially advantageous way of presenting†foreign films, because [in 1960 figures] dubbing would earn a dubber $12,000-25,000 per film whereas subtitling would earn a subtitler only $2,500-4,000 per film. (In all fairness, he also argues that distributors prefer the cheaper method to maximize their profits.)
I include the “Now Showing At†page to recall what was available at these theaters that Thanksgiving-Christmas season in 1960.
On second thought, why not post it today, in honor of having seen it there exactly forty-six years ago last night? Here’s my Program from the week beginning 30 July, 1959, acquired on 5 August, 1959:
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That summer my friends cheated on me by sneaking out to see “The Nun’s Story†at RCMH while I was at work. Whether or not they thought I’d care to see Audrey Hepburn in a wimple, I was determined to catch that film on the screen where it had premiered. Plus, the stage show had boasted of a wacky finale that depicted the burning of Nome, Alaska, with real fire. So, on the final day of its run, I left work, returned home, ate a sullen supper, and then told my mom I was going off to see some Doris Day romp at the RKO Dyker. [Editor’s note: never trust a liar; Doris Day’s “It Happened to Jane†actually played at Loew’s Alpine that week; the co-feature was “Hey Boy! Hey Girl!†with Louis Prima and Keely Smith.] I then sneaked on to the BMT and arrived at RCMH just as the orchestra was rising for the very last performance of its collegiate overture.
I felt I owed it to myself and to my job to do that. This job, which I held for ten weeks each summer during my last two years of high school and first three years of college, kept me running around the city as a foot-messenger bearing documents and receiving signatures in the days before FAX and e-mail attachments made such work practically obsolete. My employer, a ship-building firm (now also practically obsolete, at least in the USA), entertained corporate clients at B’way shows and Yankees baseball games. When it became apparent to my boss that I knew more about the former than anyone in the shipyard, he dispatched me every day, often twice a day, and sometimes three or more times a day, to Times Square to procure tickets. Whenever I behaved badly, he dispatched me instead to Yankee Stadium, which I really didn’t mind because I could always read a book during the long subway ride. The upshot was that I spent a fair amount of time in the summers of ‘58-’62 scouring the theater district, chatting up box office managers, and doping out the best way to get the best seats for the hits of the time. Though it was only a movie, “Gigi†was one of those hits on reserved seats in ’58 at the Royale. And though it was only a movie which would soon wind up at the RKO Dyker [Editor’s note: really there, yes], “The Nun’s Story†in ’59 stood at the top of my must-see list.
It was the first and only time that I attended a last-night performance at RCMH. Part of the thrill was wondering how in the world the stagehands might strike the old sets and mount the new ones before the doors re-opened the next morning. Though I could imagine that backstage activity was always frenetic, I could only guess how scores of workers disassembled flats lining the choral stairways and then assembled their replacements, with set designers, stage managers, lighting crew, and other experts barking orders as the time flew by. If it took me hours to set up one Christmas tree each December, how could RCMH staff set up scores between midnight and dawn? And in the case of this show’s flaming finale, who would rush the smoldering timbers of Nome off the stage to make way for the spectacular “Serenade to the Stars†announced for the next day? Whew, it gave me a headache to think of it.
As it happened, the stage show proceeded luxe, calm, and voluptuous, with no hint of haste or who-gives-a-damn-at-this-point. And the film unfolded stately and serene on the fabulous screen, with no sound of hammers or hoists or drilling backstage. And when the contour curtain descended silently on the lone angelus bell at the movie’s end, the houselights came up and the organ came out to disperse the still nearly-full house with solemn exit music. It was a class act in serenity. Finding myself outside in the sultry August night on 50 Street, I saw that the display cases had been changed and the marquee retitled. I walked around the corner to 51 Street and found it cordoned off, ablaze in floodlight as stageworkers hauled scenery out the side doors and onto trucks, waving onwards other trucks packed with scenery ready to be unloaded. It was a beehive of activity. It all seemed unreal when I returned less than forty-five hours later to see “North by Northwest.†Meanwhile, I reported to my mom that I had found the Doris Day romp so good that I stayed to see the entire double feature twice, well past midnight.
I do, and will post it next Thursday, or the Thursday after.
Warren— I want to refer readers to your spirited accounts of Gable’s live turn in your post above, last 16-17 Feb., and to the longer account in your book about Gable. It’s hilariously racy.
Here’s a Program from 6 August, 1959:
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The film opened forty-six years ago to this very day. The next morning’s newspapers carried rave reviews, and my cinemaniac friends immediately began phoning around to arrange meeting on West 50th Street for the Friday evening show. We only half-believed the reviews, since we imagined that both Hitchcock and Grant were getting a little too old for this sort of thing. But we turned out anyway to check for ourselves.
To our amazement when we arrived, the line stretched around the block. On that sultry evening, the ushers were barking their familiar chant: “The last stage show has already begun; tickets are now on sale for the final showing of the movie only.†When we reached the box-office forty-five minutes later, the ushers were barking, “The final showing of the movie is about to begin; there is some seating in the side rear sections only.†We raced up to the third mezzanine (we wanted to smoke, anyway) and found seats just as Richard Leibert was finishing up his organ solo. Then the picture began, and the rest became history.
Some months ago (4 April ’05), Vincent asked on this page whether audiences laughed at the closing shot of the train entering the tunnel. Well, yes, my friends and I did. You must know that we were exceptionally dirty-minded teenagers, prone to invent double entendres even when there were none. Of course, the mildly (but only mildly) repressed culture of the late ‘50s encouraged such double entendres, and our elders surely joined us in the guffaws. What I most remember about that packed house was the hush, the thrill, the sense of unison in laughter and relief. And when the huge audience emptied out after the last frame, the unusually animated talk, the giggles, andâ€"on meâ€"the sweaty palms of my hands still moist from that breathtakingly acrophobic finale.
Awww— that’s sad to see the current Alpine reduced to a storefront entrance. The structures to the right and left are clearly new ones. The structure to the left has replaced a large furniture store that perfectly complemented the Alpine’s old facade and added bulk to the entrance. It looks so shrunken now. Compare a picture that I posted above last 26 April.
That’s a great double-bill at the Miami!
I take it that at the Gotham, Lola Lane’s star-attraction was “Why Girls Leave Home,” which also sounds good. Since that film opened on 3 August ‘45, the clipping must coincide roughly with Hiroshima/Nagasaki/VJ Day.
At the bottom of the clipping, I wonder what film it was that Walter Winchell prophecied we’d laugh out heads off at? Good thing none of us saw it—we wouldn’t have any heads now.
Lostmemory—
Thanks for the stats. If you remember the location of the lot, you’ll recall how odd it is. At 86 Street, the hitherto parallel 4 and 5 Avenues begin to converge, and the block between 91 and 92 Streets is the last—now trapezoidal—full block before 5 Avenue vanishes into 4 Avenue.
On the building’s 5 Avenue side (the proscenium wall), a fairly large billboard announced the week’s attractions: it appeared as a miniature of the Rivoli’s wonderful rear-wall billboard in Manhattan. The difference was, that the Harbor’s programs changed twice each week, as it showed the hand-me-downs from the Loew’s circuit on Wed-Fri and from the RKO circuit on Sat-Mon (or perhaps vice versa—I’m straining to recall what I saw there in the late 40s and early 50s), with a double-bill revival on Tues. The poster-hangers practically had a full-time job keeping up with it. In addition, neighborhood stores displayed in their windows a cardboard poster listing the weekly attractions. You might think of it as pre-web advertising.
The Phantom—
Thanks for the fine picture of the Harbor. Its geometric vertical brick designs and asymetrical placement offer a wonderful example of art deco facade. The top storey windows belonged to the projection room, and I remember frequently seeing the projectionist puffing a cigarette at one of them as I walked to the library a couple of blocks away. The interior was perfectly symmetrical, with maroon walls bathed in yellow side-lights, and with a shallow balcony for patrons who smoked and an expansive orchestra for the rest of us. The length tapered to a rather narrow proscenium, just fine for the pre-wide-screen era, and quite attractive as a pale yellow traveler curtain neatly framed the screen’s black-bordered surface.
To accommodate new projection ratios in 1953, they removed the curtain and installed the widest possible screen that the space allowed, but it was still only just slightly larger than the original one and, when a top mask descended for CinemaScope, proved even smaller than the latter. The nearby Stanley did a much better job by removing sections of the old proscenium to accommodate a properly panoramic screen.
For all that, the Harbor displayed a freer license in selecting films than the neighboring RKO or Loew’s theaters did. As part of the Interboro chain, it received most of its fare third-hand after the Alpine or Dyker passed it on to the Bay Ridge or Shore Road and then to the Harbor, which in turn passed it to the Fortway and last of all to the Stanley. Occasionally, however, the Harbor would disrupt the chain and play a popular foreign film or a domestic film whose distribution was shunned by RKO or Loew’s. In 1953, such a film was “The Moon Is Blue,†which had been denied a Production Code Seal and was condemned by the Roman Catholic Legion of Decency (see posts above for 15 March 2005). In 1956, the Harbor played “Diabolique,†a French thriller that had broken records at the Fine Arts on E. 58 Street. In the early 1960s, the Harbor became an early venue for Premier Showcase bookings and it scooped prestige films such as “West Side Story†which normally would have gone first to the Alpine or Dyker. If only its screen had been large enough to display those films to full advantage!
That takes your breath away: closed for Christmas vacation! If memory serves me, the holiday season was as busy a time for movie-going as it is now, and perhaps even busier. Did drive-ins do a different sort of business?
I never knew about that fracas. And then, in your second advertising image, there’s the detail of the female legs transported on the bicycle. It makes the film appear as though it were a caper comedy. Or, worse, as though it were “Icicle Thieves.”
To censor “Bicycle Thieves”? For what? Does the ad depict little Bruno urinating? I guess the publicity sold tickets. Ahhh…the way of the World.
Gustavelifting—
From the audience’s perspective, the traveler curtain was behind the contour curtain, and at the end of films was synchronized to close as the countour descended.
Warren—
Thanks for the photo. I dimly recall the neon tubing of the Avenue/Avon’s marquee as green and white. That’s a colorful history, all the more so imbued with the US premiere of de Sica’s “Shoe Shine.”
RobertR: “Jenny Lamour,” aka “Quai des orfevres,” with Louis Jouvet, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (winner of Best Director for it at Venice Festival ‘47), opened on 5 March '48. I wonder how much longer it continued after hitting the eight-week mark?
Here’s a Program from February 1960:
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Our hearts were broken when Kay Kendall died a few weeks before this film opened at RCMH. I shall never forget thinking, as the great contour curtain descended and the traveler curtain closed on the final frame, that we’d never see her again. Then we went to a bar, drank a lot of beer, and argued about whether a young senator from Massachusetts named “Jack†could ever be nominated for president, as so many pundits were predicting he might be. Shortly afterwards, that young senator tossed his diaper into the ring.
lostmemory—
Thanks for catching my fudge of the dimensions. After taking into account the lobby space at the entrance and the space for the narrow stage apron before the screen, the auditorium’s interior was still wider than long, and that’s the anomaly that sticks in my mind’s eye. And with the relatively small screens of the 1940s-50s, the viewing area at the RKO SR couldn’t have been more than 12x15 (or unlikely 15x18) maximum.
This means, with a proscenium frontage of 86 feet, no more than 15 (or generously 18) feet were given to the screen’s width. Hence, my memory of an elongated, top-shortened proscenium and burgundy traveler curtain, with side-auditorium seats angled uncomfortably toward the center.
But above all, lostmemory, thanks for every wonderful shred of detail that you’ve contributed to this site over the past months.
Theaterfan—
I don’t recall the Alpine Ice Cream Parlor on BR Ave. But in the 1940s-50s, the neighborhood’s best emporium for the sweet-tooth was Pohl’s Homemade Candy on 5 Avenue between 70 and 71 Streets (east side—i.e. Alpine side—of the street). The aroma of chocolate and caramel was intoxicating on the street and a knock-out inside. I believe that the store closed around 1960. [it’s not to be confused with Pohl’s Homemade Ice Cream and Candy on 5 Avenue between 82 and 83 Street (west side), which closed a few years later. The latter’s ice cream was inferior to Hinsch’s near 86 Street, and its candy was several notches below the above-mentioned Pohl’s.]
For those who threw all caution to the winds and would sacrifice artisanal chocolate for sheer bulk, a doughnut shop across the street from the Alpine offered its wares for the movie-going crowd. There the proprietor would hand-fry your choice of a doughnut-with-cream-filling as you stood at the counter. The paper-bag that you brought into the Alpine would be dripping with hot oil as you entered the theater.
I forewent all that so I could save money to see more movies later in the week at the Stanley or Bay Ridge. But I remember that most people wouldn’t think of buying a ticket without the promise of sweets to go with it. Those double features, after all, were pretty long and viewers got hungry.
The Phantom—
Thanks for the update and the news that Apple Bank has replaced the supermarket that replaced the theater. The photo shows that the bank has completely modernized the building, replacing the red granite exterior with apparent stonework.
I don’t believe that the marquee remained in the early ‘60s. The theater’s transformation into a supermarket occurred fairly rapidly after the theater closed in Spring '57. At least at that time, property in this area did not remain vacant for long.
Lostmemory—
Thanks for the stats. FxD 106x100 approximates my guestimate of 110x90. The Phantom’s current picture conveys the disproportionate width of the frontage if you bear in mind that the depth ends abruptly where it appears to end in the image: there’s nothing beyond that rear angle as it hits the property line of houses on 85 Street. What an odd building.
Here’s a Showbill from the Paris in April 1960:
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High Culture, this filming of a stage production by the venerable Comédie française. The Franco export evidently aimed to hit school markets around the world as teachers of French might bring their students to it for a cultural experience.
The Paris accommodated such events. Eight years later, in the winter of ‘68-’69, my wife organized an excursion of some 500 high school students to see a showing of Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet†which had been playing at that theater. That production we had seen live in its stage version at the City Center some five years earlier, and now in this film the director was recreating his magnificent stage effects set against location photography in Verona.
As luck would have it, a huge snowstorm closed NYC schools the day before and day of the showing. Panicked with 500 tickets in our hands, we ran announcements on the major NYC radio stations instructing students to show up at the theater for the scheduled 10:00 am special showing. We set out for the theater from Queens two hours early, snowstorm be damned. About a hundred kids eventually showed up. The school then soaked up the losses.
If this theater hosted the first-run of “Lawrence of Arabia,” then that’s where I saw it in Spring of ‘63. My friend from college lived in RI, and we hung out at each other’s homes on seasonal breaks.
The film was not high on our must-see list. Bosley Crowther had given it a rotten review (“barren of humanity….just a huge thundering camel-opera that ends to run down rather badly”), and the sold-out reserved seating cum outrageous prices at the Criterion in NYC ruled out casual viewing in my home town. On the other hand, in Providence we phoned the Elmwood, learned that tickets were available and that the price was right, and so off we went.
The film (and the Elmwood’s presentation) overwhelmed me, and it remains one of my favorites, too. A few months later we saw “Cleopatra” (a.k.a. “Lizpatra”) at the Music Hall in Boston under similar circumstances, but with the opposite critical reaction (though I thought the presentation was splendid there too).
RobertR—
Swell pictures and accompanying captions. Did your photo of the televised boxing match come from Life Magazine? As a kid, I remember seeing such a photo there ca. 1950. Do you have its source and date? And do you have the source for the Beatles' photo, too?
Warren— gorgeous. I remember the Capitol’s ‘40s-'50s color scheme as green (the color of the immense traveler curtain) and brown (the woodwork), but your notation of olive is no doubt accurate. And, yes, silver leaf rather than gold: I always remember the Capitol as full of glittering accents, showing off the crystal and marble to best effect.
Variety is on line through LexisNexis only back to 1993. Various libraries have it on microfilm or in the original paper editions or in some combination of the two.
Here’s a Program from September, 1960:
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I truly don’t know why I went to see the movie, though the great casting of Genevieve Page, Patricia Morison, Martita Hunt, Lou Jacobi, and Marcel Dalio must have made it worthwhile. I remember joining my cynical college friends in heckling some of the grosser Hollywood lines about nineteenth-century high cultcha. Something tells me that one of us knew someone in the GW University chorus which performed in the stage show. Certainly the photo on the program’s cover could have been of any of us, except that we’d never give up our chinos or turtle necks to wear tuxes or gowns for any reason, not even to appear on RCMH’s great stage if we could.