Wow from the original photos to the ones in 2002 it looks like someone repainted their basement. One thick coat of ugly colors slapped on with a big brush.
I hope the Saban restoration was able to bring it back to its former beauty. What a great place it probably was to see SOM.
Just would like to clarify the fact that the score to Scaramouche was recorded in 3 track stereo and the film opened here in the summer of ‘52. Recording of the film started in October of '51. As I said would be interesting to know how it was presented.
I saw OK at the Penthouse as well. I had never seen it in Todd AO and thought it was great. Don’t remember it as totally pink at all.
Saw a number of the 70mm prints in the main Cinerama theater. My Fair Lady, South Pacific and Paint Your Wagon were spectacular on that 80 foot curved screen.
And that sound system!
6 track analogue surround sound and not to be believed. They will never be heard like that again.
I only saw The Black Hole here. Was disappointed in the screen size for such a large theater.
When SOM made its big return in 73 it played here and I was hoping it would return to the Rivoli as it had such a long initial engagement there and held the world premiere. I was too young to see it there its first go round. And as it was one of my favorite movie theaters it would have been great.
Was in this theater in its latter days and found it hard to believe movies like The Blue Max and Gigi(after moving from the Royale reserved seat engagement) had prestigious runs here rather than in more spacious theaters in Times Square. Not only dumpy but too small for these kinds of films
The one movie I remember seeing here was a very strange little Isabelle Huppert number. She was in love with a too young hockey player and did unmentionable things to her body with a razorblade. Bad in the way only a French film can be bad.
Perhaps then I saw at Cinema 1 a preview of Bullets over Broadway and did see MMM at the Beekman. I was only in the Coronet once and I believe I saw either Gallipoli or Breaker Morant there. I’d go with Cinema 1 for Days of
Heaven but at this point I wouldn’t bet on it.
I did see Interiors at the Baronet at a first showing on the first Sat of the run. A line outside and the place was packed. I remember I liked it enormously when everyone from the critics to the audience hated it. Went again a short while later and found it just as good.
This looks like one of the great roadshow houses with a truly wide screen that enveloped the audience head on.
I wish more of the photos under the individual theaters had such great photos of the interior and the size of the screen in relation to the audience.
Funny that this even opened as a roadshow house when so many theaters had to be converted to being one. At least in New York.
Yeah SOM would have looked great here.
I have a friend who has seen this Scaramouche at MOMA and while not especially a silent movie buff(he’s a big Sabatini buff) he claims it is much better than the ‘52 remake.
When I first started going to the Hall in ‘70 it was $1.75 before 12 weekday mornings and this was when they still had a ballet company, full symphony orchestra and 36 Rockettes. I believe a few months before it had been $1.50.
Of course the films at that point were very weak, things like Sunflower and Private Life of Sherlock Holmes which was so disastrous they had to pull it early and for the first time in Music Hall history and opened the Christmas show before Thanksgiving which at the time was considered too early.
The films only got worse but every once in a while though rarely they got a What’s Up Doc or Play It Again Sam.
Sill I got to see the spectacles Rhapsody in Blue and the Undersea Ballet which were great. Literally missed Bolero by days and though it had been done frequently in the past it was never done again much to my eternal chagrin. It was done again as part of a Encores spectacle but it was a completely new staging and new sets and costumes like the current Nativity. A completely different thing without the Leonidoff imprimatur and therefore not really the Music Hall at all.
And maybe Mr Endres is to modest to say but the presentation of SITR was so spectacular that Vincent Canby in that Sunday Times did a big piece on it(gilt edged he called it.) And you must understand this was in 75 when all the NY critics were droning on endlessly about the American New Wave in all their long essays. Very surprising.
I was there on a Saturday and had never seen the film before not even on TV. I was in shock(you know how us movie fans can be) and sat through it twice. I had never seen such colors before and there seemed to be enough inventiveness for 10 films.
It was one of my 3 greatest movie going experiences.
Also I don’t know if the sound had been put through some fake stereo or what but I have not heard since then Conrad Salinger’s orchestrations with such clarity. Especially in the sound stage sequence when Kelly starts turning on the effects for Reynolds. Listen to what Salinger is doing and imagine it in stereo. Magical. Who knows maybe it was stereo originally! The great score of Scaramouche was recorded in stereo(alas the tracks are lost) and that played at the Hall shortly after Rain the same year. Doubt though if it was presented that way. At this point who knows?
The Music Hall had a great stereo system and this was before Dolby. The analogue stereo was better. Warmer, richer and with greater depth. Not so hard and glassy. And there were no visible speakers!
The memory of the sound in the final musical sequence of Scrooge when all the groups converge still gives me chills. It made the final moments of Finney all the more moving. I was a boy but I was practically lifted out of my seat in exhilaration.
When I referred to Ran and OK I was continuing the Cinema 1 discussion. When I mentioned MMM I specifically said sneak preview. I’m sorry I’ve confused you but as I said that photo initially threw me.
My memories are not false. There is no need for research I was there. Sometimes memories run together and I apologize for that. Especially when its 35 years ago and you’ve got 5 theaters on the same small city block.
I posted on the Music Hall page. That woman was correct but she got the year wrong. It was ‘75.
And the Music Hall did indeed show long epics with their stage shows. Not only SOM, but also GWTW, 2001 and Dr.Z.
And though I didn’t see the other films SOM had its intermission as well.
I found this on the 70mm website referring to the ‘82 release of OK though it does not mention the theater it played in.
‘Major restorations on the film, which has had only limited TV airing and has been theatrically shown only in 35mm since 1956, was done under the supervision of Tom Bodley, Goldwyn’s director of the film department, in conjunction with MGM laboratories and Todd-AO. This marks the first time in 20 years that a print has been struck in 70mm, rather than blown up from the conventional 35mm. The restored version will include the films original overtures, exit music and intermission.’
So what did I see at the Penthouse above the Warner Cinerama in ‘78? Was it an original Todd AO print? Whatever it was it was spectacular and I did not know why I liked it so much when on TV it was such a bore until I found out it really was separately filmed from the 35mm film. So that bit about it only being shown in 35mm since '56 is wrong.
If I could only go back in time and have the sense to talk to the managers and the projectionists of that era.
I still remember the humongous cans of Todd AO South Pacific in the Cinerama lobby.
Well I saw Ran and OK here in the 80s though god knows this is so long ago now. What year did Ran open? It was very crowded and I waited on one of those east side movie lines that were so ubiquitous back then.
I then returned to see a sneak preview of Manhattan Murder Mystery in the 90s and remember thinking they ruined this one splendid spacious art house. It was clearly a disappointingly smaller place though I could tell by the seat configuration it was part of the older theater.
And I was surprised myself that they showed OK(maybe ‘81 or '82?) considering that this was one of NY’s most important theaters of the time but it was a special big fanfare release and I was grateful the screen was large enough to do it justice. I saw it on a Sat and it wasn’t at all crowded so it probably didn’t last too long.
Are you saying the original screen size in theater 1 is the same and only the auditorium was made smaller? Because when I returned in the 90’s the auditorium was much smaller and the screen was in no way as expansive as what it was for OK.
Goldwyn releasing played OK exclusively here in the early 80s so it would be interesting to see what the ad
says. If it says 70mm I stand corrected. But could they have played a 70MM print and called it Todd AO?
I’m thinking of the Cinema 1 because of the photo which gives it pride of place. The Cinema 1 was split which before then was a fair sized theater and that is where I saw Oklahoma in Todd AO.
Before the Coronet l was split it had a very impressive sized screen. They even showed Oklahoma there in Todd AO in the early 80s.
The recent publicity about Oklahoma being shown for the first time in Todd AO in 60 years is bunk. I even saw it at the Penthouse in ‘78 in a beautiful print. You can even see the ad for it on the Strand page.
From what I remember of that time and I was so young and went to so few presentations as it was at the point when first run Times Square houses were turning to exploitation films was that roadshow movie houses along with Broadway theaters had female ushers.
Men in tuxedoes sold the souvenir programs. I remember this from when the Rivoli showed Fiddler and the Criterion showed MFL in ‘71.
And I only remember usherettes at legitimate theaters though now it is kind of hazy. Maybe somebody who was going to Broadway shows and roadshow movies during the 50s and 60s could clarify this.
She did not mean ‘65 she meant '75. SOM had a run with stage show. I remember it as it was one of the most beautiful 70MM prints of a film I have ever seen and the sound was spectacular. A great movie presentation(maybe I should thank Mr. Endres.)
I didn’t stay for the stage show because by that time they were so pathetic they were unwatchable. By this time there was no ballet and the Rockettes were cut to 30. The great spectacles that made the Hall famous were no longer done. There were relatively few people on that vast stage and sets were simple and unimpressive.
Also at this point so few people were going to the Hall that sometimes the lights were kept a dark blue so you didn’t realize you were only among a couple of hundred people in a theater of 6,000 seats. Of course you knew and it was painfully sad.
The only good thing I could say about the Hall at this point is that they could still could present a movie. Singing in the Rain, Fantasia and The Sting(if only it had opened there!)were also excellent presentations.
Also the Hall was kept unadorned and intact in its art deco magnificence. No extraneous lights, video screens or thunderous ugly Dolby speakers on the choral stairs.
And Bill if there’s anyone I envy it’s someone who saw 2001 at the Capitol.
Perhaps the ultimate movie experience?
Though seeing it at the Rivoli in ‘76 was pretty stupendous. I was completely floored.
Very odd that for the big 50 for Dr. Z there hasn’t been much of a flurry. Nobody thinks about it anymore though for many years it was considered a classic? No listing of premiere engagements? No restored print theatrical showings? It deserves better. Though I do think it was a crime not filming it in 70MM. Penny wise pound foolish.
Great ad from near the end of the Music Hall’s golden age era of a movie and stage show presentation house. There was a real excitement to going to see a Christmas show back then.
A film like this normally would have played the Music Hall. Guess they didn’t think it was good enough or maybe because it was a 20th Century Fox film.
Thanks for the recent pics of the Rivoli at twilight in the early 60s. Wish I had been around then to go to these roadshow movies. I’m sure I would have gone multiple times.
Going to a multiplex to see contemporary movies does absolutely nothing for me. A DVD at home will do fine.
Wow from the original photos to the ones in 2002 it looks like someone repainted their basement. One thick coat of ugly colors slapped on with a big brush.
I hope the Saban restoration was able to bring it back to its former beauty. What a great place it probably was to see SOM.
Just would like to clarify the fact that the score to Scaramouche was recorded in 3 track stereo and the film opened here in the summer of ‘52. Recording of the film started in October of '51. As I said would be interesting to know how it was presented.
Boy how we remember things differently.
I saw OK at the Penthouse as well. I had never seen it in Todd AO and thought it was great. Don’t remember it as totally pink at all.
Saw a number of the 70mm prints in the main Cinerama theater. My Fair Lady, South Pacific and Paint Your Wagon were spectacular on that 80 foot curved screen.
And that sound system!
6 track analogue surround sound and not to be believed. They will never be heard like that again.
I only saw The Black Hole here. Was disappointed in the screen size for such a large theater.
When SOM made its big return in 73 it played here and I was hoping it would return to the Rivoli as it had such a long initial engagement there and held the world premiere. I was too young to see it there its first go round. And as it was one of my favorite movie theaters it would have been great.
Was in this theater in its latter days and found it hard to believe movies like The Blue Max and Gigi(after moving from the Royale reserved seat engagement) had prestigious runs here rather than in more spacious theaters in Times Square. Not only dumpy but too small for these kinds of films
The one movie I remember seeing here was a very strange little Isabelle Huppert number. She was in love with a too young hockey player and did unmentionable things to her body with a razorblade. Bad in the way only a French film can be bad.
Perhaps then I saw at Cinema 1 a preview of Bullets over Broadway and did see MMM at the Beekman. I was only in the Coronet once and I believe I saw either Gallipoli or Breaker Morant there. I’d go with Cinema 1 for Days of Heaven but at this point I wouldn’t bet on it.
I did see Interiors at the Baronet at a first showing on the first Sat of the run. A line outside and the place was packed. I remember I liked it enormously when everyone from the critics to the audience hated it. Went again a short while later and found it just as good.
This looks like one of the great roadshow houses with a truly wide screen that enveloped the audience head on.
I wish more of the photos under the individual theaters had such great photos of the interior and the size of the screen in relation to the audience.
Funny that this even opened as a roadshow house when so many theaters had to be converted to being one. At least in New York.
Yeah SOM would have looked great here.
I have a friend who has seen this Scaramouche at MOMA and while not especially a silent movie buff(he’s a big Sabatini buff) he claims it is much better than the ‘52 remake.
When I first started going to the Hall in ‘70 it was $1.75 before 12 weekday mornings and this was when they still had a ballet company, full symphony orchestra and 36 Rockettes. I believe a few months before it had been $1.50.
Of course the films at that point were very weak, things like Sunflower and Private Life of Sherlock Holmes which was so disastrous they had to pull it early and for the first time in Music Hall history and opened the Christmas show before Thanksgiving which at the time was considered too early.
The films only got worse but every once in a while though rarely they got a What’s Up Doc or Play It Again Sam.
Sill I got to see the spectacles Rhapsody in Blue and the Undersea Ballet which were great. Literally missed Bolero by days and though it had been done frequently in the past it was never done again much to my eternal chagrin. It was done again as part of a Encores spectacle but it was a completely new staging and new sets and costumes like the current Nativity. A completely different thing without the Leonidoff imprimatur and therefore not really the Music Hall at all.
And maybe Mr Endres is to modest to say but the presentation of SITR was so spectacular that Vincent Canby in that Sunday Times did a big piece on it(gilt edged he called it.) And you must understand this was in 75 when all the NY critics were droning on endlessly about the American New Wave in all their long essays. Very surprising.
I was there on a Saturday and had never seen the film before not even on TV. I was in shock(you know how us movie fans can be) and sat through it twice. I had never seen such colors before and there seemed to be enough inventiveness for 10 films.
It was one of my 3 greatest movie going experiences.
Also I don’t know if the sound had been put through some fake stereo or what but I have not heard since then Conrad Salinger’s orchestrations with such clarity. Especially in the sound stage sequence when Kelly starts turning on the effects for Reynolds. Listen to what Salinger is doing and imagine it in stereo. Magical. Who knows maybe it was stereo originally! The great score of Scaramouche was recorded in stereo(alas the tracks are lost) and that played at the Hall shortly after Rain the same year. Doubt though if it was presented that way. At this point who knows?
The Music Hall had a great stereo system and this was before Dolby. The analogue stereo was better. Warmer, richer and with greater depth. Not so hard and glassy. And there were no visible speakers!
The memory of the sound in the final musical sequence of Scrooge when all the groups converge still gives me chills. It made the final moments of Finney all the more moving. I was a boy but I was practically lifted out of my seat in exhilaration.
When I referred to Ran and OK I was continuing the Cinema 1 discussion. When I mentioned MMM I specifically said sneak preview. I’m sorry I’ve confused you but as I said that photo initially threw me.
My memories are not false. There is no need for research I was there. Sometimes memories run together and I apologize for that. Especially when its 35 years ago and you’ve got 5 theaters on the same small city block.
I posted on the Music Hall page. That woman was correct but she got the year wrong. It was ‘75.
And the Music Hall did indeed show long epics with their stage shows. Not only SOM, but also GWTW, 2001 and Dr.Z. And though I didn’t see the other films SOM had its intermission as well.
I found this on the 70mm website referring to the ‘82 release of OK though it does not mention the theater it played in.
‘Major restorations on the film, which has had only limited TV airing and has been theatrically shown only in 35mm since 1956, was done under the supervision of Tom Bodley, Goldwyn’s director of the film department, in conjunction with MGM laboratories and Todd-AO. This marks the first time in 20 years that a print has been struck in 70mm, rather than blown up from the conventional 35mm. The restored version will include the films original overtures, exit music and intermission.’
So what did I see at the Penthouse above the Warner Cinerama in ‘78? Was it an original Todd AO print? Whatever it was it was spectacular and I did not know why I liked it so much when on TV it was such a bore until I found out it really was separately filmed from the 35mm film. So that bit about it only being shown in 35mm since '56 is wrong.
If I could only go back in time and have the sense to talk to the managers and the projectionists of that era.
I still remember the humongous cans of Todd AO South Pacific in the Cinerama lobby.
Well I saw Ran and OK here in the 80s though god knows this is so long ago now. What year did Ran open? It was very crowded and I waited on one of those east side movie lines that were so ubiquitous back then.
I then returned to see a sneak preview of Manhattan Murder Mystery in the 90s and remember thinking they ruined this one splendid spacious art house. It was clearly a disappointingly smaller place though I could tell by the seat configuration it was part of the older theater.
And I was surprised myself that they showed OK(maybe ‘81 or '82?) considering that this was one of NY’s most important theaters of the time but it was a special big fanfare release and I was grateful the screen was large enough to do it justice. I saw it on a Sat and it wasn’t at all crowded so it probably didn’t last too long.
Are you saying the original screen size in theater 1 is the same and only the auditorium was made smaller? Because when I returned in the 90’s the auditorium was much smaller and the screen was in no way as expansive as what it was for OK.
Goldwyn releasing played OK exclusively here in the early 80s so it would be interesting to see what the ad says. If it says 70mm I stand corrected. But could they have played a 70MM print and called it Todd AO?
Not wrong Coronet, wrong theater!
I’m thinking of the Cinema 1 because of the photo which gives it pride of place. The Cinema 1 was split which before then was a fair sized theater and that is where I saw Oklahoma in Todd AO.
Before the Coronet l was split it had a very impressive sized screen. They even showed Oklahoma there in Todd AO in the early 80s.
The recent publicity about Oklahoma being shown for the first time in Todd AO in 60 years is bunk. I even saw it at the Penthouse in ‘78 in a beautiful print. You can even see the ad for it on the Strand page.
From what I remember of that time and I was so young and went to so few presentations as it was at the point when first run Times Square houses were turning to exploitation films was that roadshow movie houses along with Broadway theaters had female ushers.
Men in tuxedoes sold the souvenir programs. I remember this from when the Rivoli showed Fiddler and the Criterion showed MFL in ‘71.
And I only remember usherettes at legitimate theaters though now it is kind of hazy. Maybe somebody who was going to Broadway shows and roadshow movies during the 50s and 60s could clarify this.
She did not mean ‘65 she meant '75. SOM had a run with stage show. I remember it as it was one of the most beautiful 70MM prints of a film I have ever seen and the sound was spectacular. A great movie presentation(maybe I should thank Mr. Endres.)
I didn’t stay for the stage show because by that time they were so pathetic they were unwatchable. By this time there was no ballet and the Rockettes were cut to 30. The great spectacles that made the Hall famous were no longer done. There were relatively few people on that vast stage and sets were simple and unimpressive.
Also at this point so few people were going to the Hall that sometimes the lights were kept a dark blue so you didn’t realize you were only among a couple of hundred people in a theater of 6,000 seats. Of course you knew and it was painfully sad.
The only good thing I could say about the Hall at this point is that they could still could present a movie. Singing in the Rain, Fantasia and The Sting(if only it had opened there!)were also excellent presentations.
Also the Hall was kept unadorned and intact in its art deco magnificence. No extraneous lights, video screens or thunderous ugly Dolby speakers on the choral stairs.
And Bill if there’s anyone I envy it’s someone who saw 2001 at the Capitol. Perhaps the ultimate movie experience? Though seeing it at the Rivoli in ‘76 was pretty stupendous. I was completely floored.
Very odd that for the big 50 for Dr. Z there hasn’t been much of a flurry. Nobody thinks about it anymore though for many years it was considered a classic? No listing of premiere engagements? No restored print theatrical showings? It deserves better. Though I do think it was a crime not filming it in 70MM. Penny wise pound foolish.
Great ad from near the end of the Music Hall’s golden age era of a movie and stage show presentation house. There was a real excitement to going to see a Christmas show back then.
I avoid Times Square like the plague now.
Too heartbreaking to see what has been destroyed from the 80s.
If I went back to the 60s it would even be more so.
A film like this normally would have played the Music Hall. Guess they didn’t think it was good enough or maybe because it was a 20th Century Fox film.
The important question is what was the movie?
Thanks for the recent pics of the Rivoli at twilight in the early 60s. Wish I had been around then to go to these roadshow movies. I’m sure I would have gone multiple times.
Going to a multiplex to see contemporary movies does absolutely nothing for me. A DVD at home will do fine.