Rivoli Theatre
1620 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
1620 Broadway,
New York,
NY
10019
49 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 1,005 comments
Thank you ridethechain.
From the looks of it, The RKO Cinerama Twin had recently been remodeled and renamed “The Warner Twin” so UA also wanted to announce the Rivoli remodel with a name change.
@JackLndiania if you read the description it said It became the United Artists Twin from October 26, 1984. I also posted the grand opening ad in the photos as the UA Twin, click on 4 in the photos
Hello-
for anyone who might own it is the currently available blu-ray disc of The Sand Pebbles the original roadshow cut which played here or the general release print?
No I lived there and thought it was stupid.
Does anyone have any idea why the Rivoli’s name was changed to the United Artists Twin in 1984?
If you look up Bosley Crowther’s NYT’s review of South Pacific at the Criterion he says the screen is curved. Was it installed for this one film and then taken down when Old Man and the Sea moved in? I assume anybody who could explain this has gone to their reward.
Hello-
South Pacific’s roadshow run which started at the Criterion moved here at some point. it would be interesting for a 1st person account of seeing it here on the curved screen installed specifically for films shot in Todd-AO as opposed to what I assume was a flat screen at the Criterion.
Passing along the link to my 3-page 60th anniversary retrospective on WEST SIDE STORY, which includes a historian interview and reference listing of its roadshow engagements. The Rivoli, of course, gets a mention.
Here’s a new 4-page 50th anniversary FIDDLER ON THE ROOF retrospective featuring a roadshow playdate chronology and historian Q&A. The Rivoli’s 58-week run is mentioned in the piece.
In addition to Mike (saps) find in Variety, on page 4 of the photos for the Rivoli, I noticed a newspaper ad grindhouse uploaded in Aug 2020 during the run of West Side Story that exclaims about ¾ of the way down “EXCLUSIVE ROADSHOW ENGAGEMENTS For Your Convenience in the New York and New Jersey Areas”.
Hello-
to Mike (saps)- the discussion of roadshow engagements was as you say a tad acrimonious but I believe the quote from Variety’s 9/27/61 review of West Side Story settles the argument.
if I remember the person complaining about our use of the term “roadshow engagement” said it was technically only correct during the silent era when films frequently traveled from town to town and were hence always on the road.
I know the acrimonious discussion of what constitutes a “roadshow” has been mercifully deleted, but in looking at the show-biz bible Variety’s review of the original West Side Story (dated 9/27/61) please note the following quoted passage:
“The Robert Wise production, said to cost $6,000,000, should pile up handsome returns, first on a roadshow basis and later in general runs.”
I wonder if that settles anything…
Oh yeah! Wally where are you??
Ed S - I have no idea but I suppose that was possible - I saw 2 films in one evening at the Golden Gate in SF in the early 70’s - one on a flat wide screen (the musical western Zachariah), the other on their Cinerama screen (a sneak preview of The Andromeda Strain). One of the recent commenters above posted that he was the manager of the Rivoli in the 70’s. Maybe he could chime in on that.
bigjoe59 - According to the link, the ToddAO screen was 52' X 26'. The D150 screen was 74' X 29'.
Hello-
to stevenj- thanks for the info. I read the article you sent a link to which was fact filled. as you state in your e-mail the article mentions the Todd-AO screen installed for Oklahoma was replaced with a D-150 screen prior to The Sand Pebbles opening. which prompts a question- what was the height and width of the D-150 screen as opposed to the Todd-AO screen?
Was that D-150 hidden behind a flat screen? Because I remember seeing both 1941 (in 70mm) and Dawn of the Dead (35mm) at the Rivoli in 1979, and I don’t remember either being projected on a deeply curved screen.
bigjoe59…This is a link to the Rivoli page on In70MM.com…
Rivoli D150 Screen
“A few years after this purchase (referring to ToddAO’s purchase of D150 from it’s inventors), in 1966, a Dimension-150 screen was installed in the Rivoli prior to the opening of “The Sand Pebbles”, which was filmed in Panavision and was screened at the Rivoli in 70mm. This screen remained in place until the theater was twinned in 1984. (“The Bible” and “Patton”, the only D- 150 films, played elsewhere on Broadway so the Rivoli never ran a D-150 film. However, it projected “Hello, Dolly!”, “Star!”, and “The Last Valley” in D-150.)”
Why United Artists would rename this theater the UA Twin after decades as the Rivoli is beyond me. I lived in NYC when they did it. SMH
‘There was never a true D-150 shown in New York City.’
So where were they shown?
I’ll have MIKE TODD get back to you.
Hello-
for the longest period of time this theater’s marquee had a little box on top that said “a D-150 Theater”. to the best of my knowledge this theater never showed a film in D-150 so why was that little box up there for soooooo long?
Hello-
to vindanpar- I suppose I should have said original theatrical release cut. the cut Mankiewicz showed Zanuck the Fall of 1962 as mentioned in the doc. on the 50th Anni. blu-ray disc was 5hrs. 20mins.. after firing him and taking him back Zanuck and Mankiewicz settled on the 4hr. cut. two scenes in the cut 1hr. 20mins. you get glimpses of in the doc. Cleopatra’s camp outside Alexandria after she was banished by her brother and additional footage of her entrance into Rome.
I only saw bits and pieces of Cleo on TV and never had any desire to sit through the whole film. I finally got to see it on its 50th Anniversary when it was shown in theaters in the complete 4 hour version. I went twice. I thought it was tremendous.
The original cut by Mankiewicz was 6 hours and the studio did throw out those 2 hours which is incredibly unfortunate as I would have loved to have seen it.
I’ll purchase it when if ever it comes out in 4k.
Thank you for that ad CC!