RKO Warner Twin Theatre
1579 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
1579 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10036
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Showing 201 - 225 of 378 comments
OOPS your write on one point nick C was the last name …nick g at that time was the booker for rko(one of 4)
when i was at RKO Genieve R was manager of the main floor and Nick G. The penthouse….Nick told me the 2 of them were managers there for 4o years…..Nick g was also the manager of the orlean at the end of the theaterslife… I was ast mgr for them before going on to manager and then dm …
This isn’t a movie review site, but calling those two films masterpieces is stretching it a bit, don’t you think?
16 May 2007:
Ziegfeld Theatre enthustiasts,
You have the opportunity to capture theatre and film history at the Walter Reade Theatre [Lincoln Center] at the end of this month. Being presented is the Stanley Kubrick’s BARRY LYNDON which showcased at the Ziegfeld in December 1975. In note, I recollect Rex Reed, lighted pen to page and noting the showing with Intermission my questioning of his annoyance of the film which he gave an excellent review thereafter, in publication. Leon Vitali (Lord Bullington of the film) will be present at the theatre for the 35mm positive struck from the internegative. In addition, John Schselinger’s DAY OF THE LOCUST, which premiered at the Cinema I, will be presented at two performances with William Atherton (Todd Hackett of the film) in a question and answer session. Both films are American/UK cinema masterpieces. I advise your particaption at these events as a mark of excellence to yourselves and the brilliant recollections that serve as the base of all that you aspire toward. Your performance checks are:
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for DAY OF THE LOCUST (the Day Hollywood collapsed and fell into an $88,000 hole – Esquire, September 1974)
and the cinematic masterwork filmed without artificial lighting – BARRY LYNDON
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1975 was a critical year in American film.
When you screen the films at Walter Reade, obtain the DVDs of both films for better analysis.
If you don’t have access;
DAY OF THE LOCUST is Fri May 25: 3:30
Sat May 26: 6
Q&A with William Atherton
and BARRY LYNDON
May 27: 3 & 7
May 28: 3 & 7
May 29: 3 & 7
Respectfully,
Don Griffiths
Cinema Centre CEO
Responding to:
This theater always had two managers both who ran the theater for almost 40 years.The second floor or the penthouse was run by a man NICK G. The main floor was run by Genave.All the RKO theaters called this theater every night with daily box office #.
posted by longislandmovies on Aug 20, 2004 at 2:56pm
Pat C was the Manager of the Cinerama (main Floor), Genieve R was the Assistant Manager. Nick C was the Manager of the Penthouse (second floor) and Sal P was the Manager of the Orleans.
The Orleans had its own address and should be listed sepearate.. You could get to to and from the orleans to the strand (employees only) via a hallway…
Just wanted to mention in case some of you aren’t aware that on the From Script To DVD website we have recently posted a historical reference list of Cinerama presentations in New York City. It, of course, includes the many Cinerama films that played this theatre.
And don’t forget we also have a companion list for Cinerama presentations in Los Angeles.
Paul, my guess is that it would have been Grand Central Palace, the old abandoned exhibition hall inside the Grand Central Terminal.
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Hey maybe some of you New York experts can help out a local historian from Wisconsin. I have been researching the Al. Ringling Theatre here in Baraboo, WI, birthplace of Ringling Brothers Circus. In 1915 Al. Ringling constructed a lavish theatre here (www.alringling.com) and in one of the local papers I found an interview with the contractor, H. W. Wiley of Chicago. The paper says…
“He (Wiley)said this is the third of this design to be erected in this country. One was built last year at Champaign, Ill., by himself and his brother, and on in New York City, this latter not by his firm, however. He said by cutting off the balcony system it reduces the capacity of the house materially but it enhances the beauty and convenience very much. Instead of the bacly there are 22 boxes, and between each box there is a 22 foot pillar with an ornamental cap which gives the interior a very beautiful appearance. As to convenience, by discarding the balcony system every seat in the house has almost an equal view of the whole stage, and the interior can be seen from every seat.”
I thought maybe the “one in New York” was the Strand but I see that it had a balcony. The one Champaign is the Orpheum which was built in 1914 and is identical in many ways to the Al. Ringling Theatre. Both have elliptical auditoriums with box seats encircling at the second level, with no balcony. The effect is very intimate and beautiful. Both of these were designed by Rapp & Rapp. It is possible the one referenced in New York was not a Rapp & Rapp and was earlier than 1914.
I would appreciate any help identifying which New York theatre this might have been.
Paul Wolter
Hollywood90038… you also could have posted this under the page for the Forum Theater where “Any Gun Can Play” is showing. I think it’s listed under the name Movieland, which is what it was known as under the BS Moss chain in the 80’s.
It’s funny, every movie in that postcard, “2001”, “Finian’s Rainbow”, “Lion in Winter” and “Any Gun Can Play”…I have on DVD! I’ll bet you back in 1968 movie execs never would have dreamed that.
You posted it in the right theatre listing.
The Roadshow engagement of “Finian’s Rainbow” board is on the south end of the building at 47th street and Broadway.
That sign was for a place called “McGinnis”. It was a place the eat, drink and dance. The sign has 7 letters the top spot is Mc and the rest is spelled out for Ginnis.
On the aka list on the top of this listing, The Orleans Theatre should also be listed. When the Warner was triplexed in 1968, the Orleans was carved out of the backstage area.
Last days at popular prices
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Freddy Martin and Merv Griffin headlined the stage show with Johnny Belinda
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Thanks Bill… I couldn’t remember the exact number. I think in it’s heyday (circa 1961 or 62), there were some 200 theaters (mostly conversions of older houses) that were so equipped.
Astyanax and Ed: The only other theater in the world besides the two Ed mentioned that can show 3-strip Cinerama is in Bradford, England. A real shame, considering how many theaters all over the world were capable of showing it 45 years ago.
For Lost Memory’s last post.
It looks like that photo might date from Aug. 1929.
On the left side of the photo on the Strand’s famous display sign has Al Jolson name featured for the film “Say It with Songs” (Aug. 1929). On the right side of the photo you can see the vertical sign for the Columbia Theatre. The Columbia operated till early 1930 and was gutted to become the Mayfair Theatre (opening Oct. 31, 1930) and a few blocks up the Manger Hotel (opened 11/1926) later known as the
Taft Hotel. And also you can see the Brill Building has not been built yet (1931).
There is a very small number of theaters around the country (and perhaps elsewhere) that are still capable of three-strip Cinerama presentations, but none – alas – in New York City. The two that come to mind right off the bat are the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood and the old Martin Theater in Seattle.
Seeing 2001 in Cinerama was spectacular; other viewings cannot measure up to that experience. Does any theater still exist capable of Cinerama presentations?
Wow. If Matthew Polon could see Broadway now. Not one movie theatre.
Here is an article from the Long Beach Press-Telegram dated 7/29/68:
Not every old New York movie palace is condemned to die to make way for a glass and steel monolith. Nor must it fade away into the sad anonymity reserved for theaters that play last run commercial films or first-run sex movies. Now, amoeba-like, it may split up into two or three new theaters, each equipped with â€" as one exhibitor
said proudly recently, “the last word in new projection and sound
systems, and in luxurious appointments for the ladies' lounges”.
Tuesday night, the Warner Cinerama Theater on Times Square will be
formally unveiled as three separate new theaters, the 1,000-seat Cinerama, the 1,200-seat Penthouse, and the 400-seat Orleans. Another Broadway theater, Loew’s State, which was built in 1921, will close Sept. 8. It will reopen as two theaters, Loew’s State
one and Loew’s State Two.
The new theaters are examples of what the film trade calls “piggy-back conversions,” and they will mean a new lease on life for the Broadway movie house. With the recent demolition of the Paramount
and Roxy thaters, and the planned closing of the Capitol in September, the fear had been expressed that Broadway was doomed to extinction as the moviegoing center of New York and the world. Apparently this is not happening.
Broadway movie business is bigger than ever,“ according to Matthew
Polon, the short, stocky, ebullient president of the Pro-Stanley Warner Corporation. "But Broadway movie business has changed,” Polon
said. “Because of taxes and the rising value of real estate, it’s no longer economical to operate theaters with more than 1,000 or 1,200 seats.” As the movies themselves have become more specialized (and occasionally more adult) in themes, there have been changes in the theaters in which they are exhibited.
Today’s movie houses are less eclectic than were the Rococo movie palaces of the teens and twenties. Those were very special structures with their unembarrassed mixtures of Byzantine, Baroque and Moorish architecture, their fountains, paintings and statuary, even their ceiling clouds that hypnotized several generations of move-struck children.
Cannot and WILL not play at neighborhood theatres
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