Radio City Music Hall

Vincent – The Hall would very much like to have played “That’s Entertainment” and indeed, we ran a trailer for it at one point (years later I used bits from that trailer in a film effect for one of Bob Jani’s shows until MGM refused us the rights to use the material). I think they may have even booked other MGM films just to get a crack at “Entertainment” but it was MGM’s decision. Perhaps they could squeeze an extra performance a day at the Ziegfeld without having to work around the stage show.
You’re probably right about the film being the attraction in the ‘30’s when other venues also had stage shows, but by the time we worked there I think the production staff took a rather snobbish attitude toward films.
The first show without the ballet company was pretty grim, but don’t blame Peter Gennaro. The company was pulled giving him very little time to do anything. The issue was the mandatory hiring of a whole company. If the company was eliminated, the Hall could hire ballet company members as needed rather than as a whole. Thus the show with no ballet at all.
I can’t help but compare the Music Hall’s position in getting films to that of the Ziegfeld today. Comments on that site have decried the pictures that theatre is forced to play, and the situation is somewhat analogous to that of the Hall in the '70’s. Even though the Ziegfeld is part of a circuit, the booking power is always in the hands of the larger circuits such as AMC, Loews and Regal. The Hall was part of the RKO circuit when it started showing films, and later its size and tourist status gave it clout as a prestiege venue, but ultimately it was the boxoffice that counted to the distributors as the urban centers faded. At one point Rock Center tried to get Disney to take over the Hall, but Disney couldn’t understand how a place with so little parking could ever be profitable. In a sense they did give the operation to Disney when they hired Bob Jani, a Disney alumnus, to rejuvenate the place in '79.

Denpiano! Great to hear from you! It would be great to come back for another visit next year. Speaking of Uncle Ray, I gave a concert on a 4 manual Allen George Wright digital theater organ and included several arrangements of Ray’s. My former Music Hall organist friend thought he was back at the Hall hearing Ray play. Glad you are doing the same … even if it is in the middle of the morning … but it’s at the place it should be. Nice clarification on the additional tabs on the Prompt console. I remembered the MIDI tabs now. Hopefully my wife and I will hear her on December 9th, if the musician’s conflict is resolved. Tell the Bishops hello for me.

REndres
Do you know what the issues were concerning the That’s Entertainment film’s and why they didn’t play the theater?
It seems odd that the films would be considered second to the stage show as the Hall always depended on popular films to draw the crowds. I believe in a previous post I mentioned a Variety critic in the early 30’s reviewing a stage show commenting that the size of the Music Hall crowds depended on what film was playing there.
And as far as the stage show being the important thing nobody would cut the theater more slack than I but at that point even I found them pretty embarassing when they weren’t downright tedious.
I remember with The Tamarind Seed(I believe the first without the Ballet.) The Rockettes did a terrific Lullaby of Broadway number but the rest of the stage show was just one singer after another just standing center and singing a song. It was endless. Nobody went to the Music Hall for that.
This was followed by The Girl from Petrovka. Now I like Goldie Hawn as much as anybody but this was beyond the pale. I heard people in the lobby complaining to the ushers about the ghastly stage show. In ‘76 when I worked there the ushers were still singing “Nyet Nyet Nyet.'
There was nothing to do at that point but sit out everything and wait for the organ.

sorry i made a mistake with “the littlest horse thieves”

Thanks for the tip Erik, I do believe I would enjoy owning that DVD.
Truth be told however, we have our own tracking source right here on Cinema Treasures and his name is Warren.

FYI. For those of you who like to track what film played which NYC theater (and for how long), there is a new resource. The New Yorker magazine recently released a set of DVD-ROMs featuring all of the content from every issue of the magazine from 1925 through early 2005, including the weekly film theater listings. The set is surprisingly affordable (retails for $100 but is available at online stores for much less).

REndres thanks for your response. When I worked there during Robin and Marian and Bluebird(neither of which I was able to sit through)it was clear that everyone saw the Hall as a lost cause(so why were they working there?) One of the staff called it a white elephant. I thought he was out of his mind. How do you call one of New York"s great architectural achievments a white elephant?
When you mentioned to someone that perhaps the films and stage show were not what they should be they would give you a deer in the headlights look and insist they had no idea what you were talking about. I also remember the vice president(Fred something?) at the time being very surprised and dismayed that Robin was not a success.
You had to pick me up off the floor. Had anyone seen this dreary dark revisionist film before it was booked as a holiday show?
And the Easter show was totally designed in black and white!
This is what I mean by incompetence.
Then there was that Christmas show(Sunshine Boys) where the only dance number besides the Rockettes was a Raggedy Ann doll on a small set doing a dopey dance. Pretty pathetic.

By the way I walked out of Caravans when when Michael Sarrazin started pissing against a wall. People were being paid to negotiate Christmas films like this? They could have simply righted a wrong done back in ‘44 and showed a beautiful Technicolor print of Meet Me In Saint Louis. There was no way that there would have been fewer people in the house especially if they had bothered to put a sensational Christmas show on that stage.

Vincent-your question is a little like the classic, “Have you stopped beating your wife?”! The Hall’s films at that time certainly left a lot to be desired. I had come to New York from Illinois and a small circuit which was owned by one of the best bookers I’ve ever worked with. Over the years I would have lunch with him during my vacations and he gave me a course in successful booking, so the contrast with the Hall was even more marked. Nonetheless, neither of your assumptions is exactly true. Remember the 70’s were the start of tentpole pictures like “Jaws” which opened wide rather than on a single screen in a major market. The Hall was a single screen (a very LARGE single screen)theatre competing against the circuits. Even in Illinois in medium markets, theatre circuits would “split” product — a practice which was to get several theatre circuits into legal trouble when the courts declared it illegal. The Hall didn’t as a single screen have the clout to be involved in splits. In addition the Hall was locked into the movie/stage show policy as a national tourist attraction. That meant no “R” rated movies, a huge nut that involved special rates with the film companies, and exclusive right to play a film within a large radius. Theatres in city centers across country were suffering from the flight to the suburbs — note how many of the movie palaces on this site have survived, as the Hall has, by becoming performing arts centers. I was friends with some of the Hall management involved in booking, and I know they suffered when they had to play some of the pictures they were forced to play. Our last picture in the movie/stage show years, “Caravans”, was picked up by Universal only because it would gaurantee us a Christmas Show. That was because of a close relationship between Hi Martin of Universal and Charles Hacker our Chief Operating Officer. Universal was the only major at the time that would go out of its way for us. I too railed at the pictures we played (after all as Head Projectionist I had to look at them over and over). Rock Center did realize that the policy had to be changed. A friend of mine at the Hall who knew the President of Rock Center told me years later that the President told him over lunch that the supposed “closing” that was announced in ‘79 was really done to enable the Hall to drop the policy it was locked into. I don’t think our management was the sharpest theatre team I’ve ever worked with, but I don’t think they were incompetent either. They were locked into a unique situation where the rules that applied to the rest of the industry just didn’t apply. A sea change was coming in film distribution that swamped the Hall and most of the urban centered showcase theatres across the country.

REndres I saw Super Dad at the Hall to what I remember was a fairly full house and I remember as well the wedding at the end being very effective. Now I know why.
Being that you were working at the Hall in the mid 70’s and being that the bookings and the stage shows at this time were so inexplicably disastrous do you think this was done on purpose to drive the Hall into the ground and sell it for office space or was the place being run by simply terribly incompetent people put there by nepotism and connections?

Oops! Of course its “Mr. Billions” (Perhaps “Billious” would have been better!) When Bob Jani took over in ‘79 after the format change both consoles were played at each performance. The two organists were reputedly the youngest in the country to play a dual console gig and were featured in the Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not” strip in the Sunday comics. One of the two was Lance Luce, a name I remember because everyone in his family had a first and last name that began with an “L”. One night I was showing a projection lens company representative around the theatre after the last show, and Lance was practicing at the console as we walked up. When we admired what he was playing, he launched into a “Star Wars” medley that included the bar room sequence and utilized the “toy counter” of organ effects in a way that I hadn’t heard before. I always wished the organists (Jimmy Paulin in particular) were given more latitude to chose their selections since some of the music I heard while they were rehearsing made a far more interesting use of the instrument than what was heard during the shows. I remember Ray Bohr playing out of the feature into the intermission, and when I came to the Hall I had shown “Super Dad” in Illinois as a New Year’s Eve special with some other Disney feature. It ended with a wedding and a really nice theme. It was the first feature we played when I started at the Hall, and I asked if Ray could pick up the theme going into the intermission. He did – beautifully blending the Hall organ with the organ in the church on the soundtrack of the film, and then continuing the theme as the contour came in and the house lights came up. That was a transition I’ll never forget!

Did Radio City (or any other theater) ever have twin Wurlitzers? For some reason, I seem to remember that there were two organs (one on either side of the proscenium) that emerged simultaneously from their bays while their operators labored furiously to produce the thunderous music that filled the great space. Memory can play tricks (and my memory in particular ought to be clad in top hat, cape and magician’s wand), but the image seems vivid enough to me. Am I mistaken?

I think “Mr. Billion” is the correct title.

From the audience I saw I can’t imagine Thieves did any better than Mr.Billions(or is it Millions?) Who in the world was booking movies at this time? Movies that you wouldn’t go to see on the bottom of a double bill on 42nd street for $1.50. Even another revival of Singing in the Rain would have been better and probably a lot cheaper.