Comments from vindanpar

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vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Dec 11, 2017 at 10:27 am

best actress Oscar I meant to say.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Dec 11, 2017 at 10:27 am

Robson certainly deserved the actress for this. One of the truly great performances in an American film. Robson plays the old lady without vanity or sentimentality. Hepburn might have won it, I don’t remember, simply because she was such a novelty and nobody had ever been seen like her before. And yes I think she became a great actress.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about AMC Empire 25 on Dec 8, 2017 at 2:45 pm

How are these megaplexes Cinema Treasures?

The whole thing is a joke discussing these places.

Tearing them down will be like tearing down a supermarket.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Loew's State Theatre on Nov 27, 2017 at 5:44 pm

Paint Your Wagon is another film that should have been shot in 70MM. As in Camelot Truscott’s wonderful work never got the photography it should have. In Cecil Beaton’s diaries he talks about the opening night world premiere at Loew’s State, how dreadful the film is and fleeing at intermission. Actually the complete roadshow film is very entertaining and the stereophonic score is stunning.

Note the mail order ad says 70MM and the opening day ad says Panavision.

How can you not like Lee Marvin singing Wanderin' Star with a great back up male chorus that could never be used on stage? The same with Maria. Some great songs here.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Nov 24, 2017 at 11:42 am

I never understood where those ‘extra’ reserved seats came from. The second mezz? Then there really weren’t 5,000 general admission seats available for every performance. They also did the same thing for Darling Lili due to ‘overwhelming demand.’ Anybody know how they managed this or it was just bs ballyhoo?

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Odeon Luxe London Leicester Square on Nov 23, 2017 at 7:21 pm

I don’t see what’s so great about this theater except that it’s still around.

It’s no Rivoli or Criterion.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Ziegfeld Theatre on Nov 18, 2017 at 7:20 pm

That is one friggin ugly ball room. I wouldn’t even hold an Italian wedding there. The Fiesta on Route 17 has more class.

What happened to the Ziegfeld memorabilia that used to be in the display cases? Were the given to the Museum of the city of New York?

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Loew's Capitol Theatre on Nov 18, 2017 at 8:00 am

So the African Americans who were not allowed into the Cotton Club could see the show from any seat they wanted to in the Capitol.

Funny I saw Ethel Shutta in Follies when I was a boy having no idea who she was and only later finding out she had been a Ziegfeld star.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Nov 17, 2017 at 5:15 pm

Boy how I wish I had a time machine to see this stuff. The most astounding stage show of all had to be with Sign of the Cross. I think the Roxyettes were gladiators in that one(or was it the ballet company or were they roman slaves?)

I think it had a chariot race.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Bellevue Cinema 4 on Nov 17, 2017 at 3:48 pm

I’m not sure what the point is of holding onto these theaters after they are multiplexed.

This was a great cinema at one time and a splendid place to see 70MM. Wish I had seen Sound of Music here during its two year run but I was too young. Got to see though the 70MM GWTW and Sleeping Beauty.

But when they carve it up into shoeboxes and you can see a movie just as well on a large screen TV I don’t get the love. If it could be restored then yes. But it’s not going to happen,

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Nov 17, 2017 at 9:25 am

I can’t imagine any stage show more unusual than Onteora’s Bride an operatic legend of the American Indian. How did they shoe horn the Rockettes into that one?

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Roxy Theatre on Nov 4, 2017 at 12:27 pm

Grown to glorious girlhood? What is that supposed to mean?

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Criterion Theatre on Nov 2, 2017 at 10:23 am

By the way I think it was a big roadshow hit at the Astoria.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Criterion Theatre on Nov 2, 2017 at 10:22 am

And Variety claimed that the Criterion box office was inflating its figures the film did so poorly.

It should have been a Music Hall film. Though it’s uneven it’s got some great musical numbers in it. And Julia Foster straight from Alfie is wonderful.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Winter Garden Theatre on Nov 1, 2017 at 11:46 am

In one of the docs about early cinema on you tube there is pretty spectacular film footage of Noah’s Ark opening night outside this theater(I could swear it was the Winter Garden though I couldn’t see the name.) Even in black and white you can tell these marquees and billboards with dazzling moving neon effects were wondrous to behold.

A bit sad though to see a very old Dolores Costello reminiscing. You want these people to be able to hold on to some vestige of their great beauty. Instead they turn into everyone else if they live long enough.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Roxy Theatre on Nov 1, 2017 at 11:31 am

When the Capitol was torn down I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the auditorium was intact. It looked like they just built a smaller capacity Cinerama theater within it. Same with the Strand.

Like what happened with the El Capitan when it was modernized. Sad to think those great original auditoriums were unseen for so many years and then demolished before anyone could see them again. Who knows what treasures the demolitionists found and then destroyed.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Oct 31, 2017 at 5:54 pm

This is the exact same problem the Music Hall had when it opened in ‘32. Nobody was interested in the stage show or the Roxyettes. It was a huge fiasco from which Roxy never recovered.

They had to add movies. And as was noted by Variety at the time crowds varied according to the popularity of the movie. Of course the stage show was a big plus and made going to see the film at the Hall an incentive but without a popular film the Hall had acres of empty seats.

And at todays prices it is ludicrous to think anybody outside of a big musical concert star is going to get people into the place.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Roxy Theatre on Oct 23, 2017 at 3:52 pm

Even an A house occasionally would have to play a B picture. Also didn’t the Roxy shortly before this play a double bill of Waterfront and another perhaps Brando film? Normally at this time what you’d find on 42nd Street.

An ignominious end to a glorious theater but they pretty much all ended that way. Especially if they made it to the 70s. They became mausoleums for exploitation films.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Roxy Theatre on Oct 23, 2017 at 7:31 am

So when Windjammer played here what was the seating configuration? Did they seriously reduce the number of seats? Did they curtain off entire areas at the sides and back of the orchestra and the balc to bring it into more of a Capitol or Strand layout for roadshow films?

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Loew's Jersey Theatre on Oct 21, 2017 at 10:55 am

I really wish this place would only play films suitable for the entire family and when you consider what they play are classics there is no place in a great movie palace for utter trash like Rocky Horror.

I like early Almodovar and John Waters but I don’t want to see it at the Loew’s.

For a party like this it should be family friendly and Phantom should be the star feature WITH the color sequence. I don’t know what gets into the heads of people that plan this stuff.

And what’s up with the digital nonsense?

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Radio City Music Hall on Oct 18, 2017 at 4:48 am

As per How To Succeed ad NYer just posted'Coffee Break' filmed but cut and lost.

Stereo track also lost which is most unfortunate because what you hear of it on soundtrack album is terrific. So no stereo first run prints were saved. If anything has been found since I was told this years ago let me know.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Criterion Theatre on Oct 16, 2017 at 1:36 pm

Though it’s impossible at this point I imagine I’d like to know what the size of the Criterion screen was for 70 MM films like Lawrence and MFL and the size of the South Pacific ‘arcing panel.’

The Variety reviewer said something to the effect that looking at the heads in SP was like looking at Mt Rushmore.

Though he didn’t mean it as a compliment I would have loved to have seen that.

I feel fortunate to have seen a Todd AO print(maybe an original? Boy those cans were big) with magnificent 6 track analog sound at the Warner Cinerama. A great experience as was seeing there MFL and Paint Your Wagon(I know blow-up but the sound blew you out of the theater.) I must be the only person on the planet who loves Marvin singing Wanderin Star with that huge men’s chorus behind him. On stage it could never be like that(and it wasn’t at Encores.) Worth the entire film.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Criterion Theatre on Oct 15, 2017 at 12:21 pm

Well I don’t know. I just know that everytime I was in it until Alien it was flat. As I said I only read of a huge ‘arcing screen’ in the place was in the Times review of South Pacific available on line even if you don’t have a subscription.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Criterion Theatre on Oct 15, 2017 at 12:13 pm

Something is very confusing here. The Criterion never had a stage. It was built as a cinema. See the vintage photos of the auditorium from the 30s on one of the previous pages.

vindanpar
vindanpar commented about Criterion Theatre on Oct 15, 2017 at 11:05 am

I also saw Superman I here which may have been ‘78 after it moved over from the Astor Plaza and the screen was flat.

Had the theater been twinned before Divine Madness?