Comments from Gerald A. DeLuca

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Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Public Theater on Dec 21, 2004 at 7:29 am

Regarding the theatre’s name: in ads and publicity and in a logo, this was generally referred to as The Public Theatre or The Public…with the definite article included.

I have many memories of seeing films here during the venue’s several-decades-long life. One of the auditoriums was used for live theatre productions, such as Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival. The “Little Theatre” is, I believe, now also used for that purpose.

Many Italian films of merit were shown here. I remember a belated American premiere run in 1982 of Bolognini’s moody and atmospheric 1961 “Senilità”—-renamed “Careless” for its run here. I saw a number of Rossellini films here: “The Age of the Medici,” a rare screening of his “The Messiah,” with an introduction by daughter Isabella, a presentation of Francesco Rosi’s “Neapolitan Diary” with the director on hand, a retrospective of Mario Monicelli films with the director introducing.

Some hard-to-see Luis Buñuel films made in Mexico were offered to filmgoers here. There was so much more, and I would like to check my files to refresh my memory. Perhaps other New York film buffs may want to add their recollections of this unique cinema.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Soho Playhouse on Dec 15, 2004 at 2:57 am

Br,
No, I can tell you with certainty that the Thalia Soho also showed 35mm prints because I attended some there and because we (see my posting above) loaned them 35mm prints of out-of-circulation Italian films (among others: Léonide Moguy’s “Tomorrow is Too Late” with Pier Angeli) and because there were numerous 35mm prints in the Thalia/Schwartz collection from which the theatre programmed liberally and that we ourselves borrowed from Richard in return. Their theatre van was used to deliver and pick up prints in order to save on shipping charges. In our collaboration a Schwartz employee came all the way up to Rhode Island with the van. Yes, they owned, rented, and showed a good deal of 16mm, but not exclusively. The Schwartz film collection went to UCLA Film Archives after his death, but even now, I believe it is once a year, a film program takes place at the Anthology Film Archives in Schwartz’s memory using films from his former collection.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Soho Playhouse on Dec 3, 2004 at 1:43 pm

Under Schwartz’s tutelage the programs here were imaginative and exciting. In the mid-1980s I was asked by him to program a couple of series of rare Italian films there, many of them unseen in decades, and I had a good deal of enjoyment doing that. (I had had some experience running the Italian Film Society of R.I. and had access at that time to some rarer prints.)

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Art East Cinema on Dec 2, 2004 at 1:45 pm

A short hop from there is the Queensboro Bridge. In the late 1960s there was talk of the Cinémathèque Française constructing a New York branch of the famous Paris institution in the form of a screening facility beneath the Manhattan end of the bridge’s concrete support structure. That, of course, never materialized, but what a great idea!

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about United Artists 64th & 2nd Avenue on Dec 2, 2004 at 6:41 am

When it was the Gemini I visited this place once in October 1979 to see the then oh-so-popular Laura Antonelli baring all she had in the Italian film “The Divine Nymph,” a rather poor film apart from the baring.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Johnston Cinema on Dec 2, 2004 at 3:24 am

Gerard Damiano’s “The Devil in Miss Jones” played here in May, 1973. As with a number of porn theatres of the time they used 35mm prints. Interesting that a film like this would be advertised with the director’s name prominently featured in ads. Other 35mm porno films shown during this pre-video period were “Behind the Green Door” and “Teenage Cheerleaders.”

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Art East Cinema on Dec 2, 2004 at 3:12 am

No…I also saw Toshio Matsumoto’s “Funeral Parade of Roses” here on June 9, 1973.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Art East Cinema on Dec 1, 2004 at 5:24 pm

Br, yes, I believe it was located between 61st and 62nd Street on the west side of First Avenue. So the street address you gave is probably correct.

The only film I ever saw there was Akira Kurosawa’s “Dodes'ka-den” in October of 1974. Other films that played there were “First Position” (“A Dancer’s Life”), Renoir’s “The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir” and the Cuban film by Alea, “Memories of Underdevelopment.”

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Copley Place Cinemas on Dec 1, 2004 at 11:15 am

Ron, the ICA Cinema on Boylston Street, which probably merits its own listing, had the worst sight lines imaginable. Unless you sat in the very first row, you were doomed to having your view of the screen, and inevitably any subtitles, partially blocked by heads. This was a bad feature of their otherwise fantastic complete Pasolini retrospective.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Janus 3 Theatre on Dec 1, 2004 at 11:09 am

I visited this theatre once only, in March of 1976, to see “Scent of a Woman,” the original Italian version (“Profumo di donna”) starring Vittorio Gassman.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Fairlawn Theatre on Dec 1, 2004 at 11:03 am

The theatre was named the Starcase Cinema after the mid-1970s.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Cumberland Cinemas on Dec 1, 2004 at 9:41 am

…but was the Cumberland Twin when I saw “Bite the Bullet” in 1975.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about VIP Luxury Cinema on Nov 30, 2004 at 7:58 am

Titles of films weren’t given in newspaper ads. I guess they just changed stuff once a week.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Orson Welles Cinema on Nov 29, 2004 at 3:22 pm

The film and discussion session with legendary director Nicholas Ray took place on the evening of January 2, 1975. Mr. Ray fielded questions after the showing of the documentary on his life and career by David Helpern, “I’m a Stranger Here Myself.” Ray died four years later of lung cancer in 1979.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Johnston Theatre on Nov 29, 2004 at 10:56 am

In its Cinema Italia phase, when the theatre was leased and programmed by Mr. Rolando Petrella of the local Italian-language radio programs, many popular Italian films of wide appeal to the Italian-speaking audience were shown, generally without subtitles. The Italian comic Totò was a standard favorite and would always draw larger audiences. In March of 1967 a film of his, the 1954 “Miseria e nobilità” (co-starring a young Sophia Loren) played here alongside the non-Totò “Il conte di Matera.” The general American film-going audience never really knew Totò except from art-house fare like Monicelli’s “Big Deal on Madonna Street” and Pasolini’s “The Hawks and the Sparrows.” In recent years, however, there have been Totò retrospectives and tributes at places like the Museum of Modern Art and the Walter Reade Theatre in New York.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Bomes Theatre on Nov 29, 2004 at 10:36 am

When Joseph Strick’s film “James Joyce’s Ulysses” played here in March of 1967, the unheard-of admission price (for that time) was $5.50! That was about two to three times what normal admission prices were in the area.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about York Theatre on Nov 28, 2004 at 2:20 pm

I visited this theatre only once, to see a specially-touted revival of David Lean’s “Great Expectations” in July of 1964. Was this at the start of the new art/revival policy?

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Cumberland Cinemas on Nov 28, 2004 at 12:34 pm

This was still the Jerry Lewis Cinema when I saw “Gimme Shelter” here in November of 1971.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Bijou Cinema on Nov 24, 2004 at 1:48 pm

The Bijou Cinema has closed as of Saturday, November 20, 2004. For the reasons see their website http://bijoucinema.org/ Among the last films shown, appropriately, was a revival of “The Last Picture Show.” No admission was charged.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Climax Theater on Nov 23, 2004 at 6:04 am

What a name! Sounds like it could have easily made the transition to a porn house. Er, sorry.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Janus Cinema on Nov 22, 2004 at 1:37 pm

This should also be listed under the alternate name “Galeria Cinema” since that is what it opened as…“Galeria” with one l.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Fairfax Cinemas on Nov 22, 2004 at 7:20 am

I saw a pile of films here in the spring 1981, a year when the theatre was one of several used for FILMEX.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Cinema Sala Trevi - Alberto Sordi on Nov 21, 2004 at 3:47 pm

Boxoffice Bill, Thanks…
I know Ginzburg’s play “Ti ho sposato…” from the book and from the film version. I have De Filippo’s 1942 film version of “Non ti pago!” with the whole De Filippo family…utterly hilarious. When I first saw it at MoMA in New York, the audience was in stitches. Do you know the Teatro Rossini…near the Pantheon? I remember seeing a Roman dialect play, “L'avaro” there in 2000. I did an entry on this website on the Azzurro Scipioni, an idiosyncratic but indispensable cinema. It’s practically in the Pope’s backyard. He should go there. Perhaps you should add your comments there as well.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about BTM Criterion Cinemas on Nov 21, 2004 at 10:08 am

I went to two films at this spiffy brand-new cinema yesterday and I must say it is a very comfortable and pleasant place to visit, and New Haven is lucky to have it. We hope the place complements the programming at the York Square without putting the older place out of business.

This kind of venue, that is, a multi-screen state-of-the-art art-house, has been promised for years to those of us who live in Providence but has not materialized. The two films I saw were both somewhat off-beat but have a great deal to recommend them: “Undertow” and “Callas Forever.” Judging by the line at the evening show, “Sideways” seemed to be attracting so many patrons that you couldn’t get in sideways.

Sound, projection, seat-comfort are all terrific, and there was no obnoxious slide-show before the movie! My only beef: if they insist on playing music before each show, why does it have to be so ear-splittingly loud? Some patrons may like to have quiet conversations or just simply prefer not to have their ears assaulted in such aggressive fashion while waiting for the movie to start.

Gerald A. DeLuca
Gerald A. DeLuca commented about Cinema Sala Trevi - Alberto Sordi on Nov 21, 2004 at 5:21 am

Yes, back toward the fountain, with the baroque-façade church of Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio on your left walk toward the rear of the Quirinale, not toward the via Tritone. Maps list the street as being Via San Vincenzo. If you were to continue walking, you would end up at via IV Novembre. The Vicolo del Puttarello address comes from the newspaper listing in Il Messagero and their website and according to this online article on Trevi district streets, it seems to be a tiny street that runs off Via San Vincenzo.
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