Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
118 people
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Scroll down on here, there are some Radio City programs for sale
http://www.the-forum.com/whatsnew.html
One of my big disappointments was that Gance couldn’t make it to New York. Bob Harris had suggested that he would have Gance autograph a “Napoleon” poster for me and that would have certainly been one of the highlights of my career. Bob walked out on stage after the second night’s screening with a phone. Gance’s nurse woke him up so he could hear the applause. It was certainly one of the most memorable moments I had at the Hall.
Gance was alive at the time of this screening and though too ill to attend(that would have been something!) I believe they hooked up a sound system so he could hear it. When he heard the applause at the end he said “It’s too late.”
Michael, “Napoleon” was never done in 70mm at the Hall in the time I was there. There were a lot of press items that were simply wrong because they didn’t understand the process. I saw Larry Shaw of Boston Light & Sound who supplied the interlocking equipment yesterday, and we discussed “Napoleon”. Larry remembered bringing in the three 30' fast folds for the second showing of the film we did. And as I mentioned above, we did one set of screenings with the above mentioned Milan Orchestra on 35mm mag film interlocked to the 35mm print. I talked to Bob Harris about the Cinerama Dome’s presentation, and the triptych could have been in 70mm there. Check with Bob or Larry or Chapin Cutler at B.L. & S. for details, as they did the “Napoleon” screenings in the States and in Italy (the British screenings used a score by Carl Davis and were done somewhat differently with all of the projectors running at “silent” speed). I was Head Projectionist at the Hall for all of the screenings we did of “Napoleon”, and was in the booth for every one of them. It may have run somewhere else in N.Y. with a 70mm triptych at some point that I wasn’t aware of, and again Bob Harris will have the details. I have some great photos that Chapin’s wife took during the second run we did of the film which include a shot of the booth from the orchestra during the triptych with light coming from all three projector ports and another of the picture on the 90' screen. Perhpas some day they can be posted on this site.
For me, one especially memorable event at Radio City Music Hall was on July 7, 1983. That night the restored/reconstructed “A Star is Born” (George Cukor, 1954) had its gala first presentation in New York. The place was packed to the rafters. Some celebrities in attendance were Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft, James Mason, and Lillian Gish. It was a thrilling class act.
Re my continued effort to sort out the “Napoleon” format question… What follows is a timeline with key (and often contradictory) passages from articles and books, as well as the dates of the Radio City Music Hall engagements of the film (including recently found details for a THIRD engagement at RCMH).
“Tickets have gone on sale at the Radio City Music Hall boxoffice for the Jan. 23-25 screenings of Abel Gance’s ‘Napoleon.’ Final reel of the epic, originally shown in 1927 in a three-screen format, will be shown in 70mm Triptych Polyvision.” (The New York Times; Dec. 10, 1980)
“ ‘Napoleon’ will be shown in 35 millimeter, with the final section in 70 millimeter Triptych Polyvision.” (The New York Times; Jan. 5, 1981)
Radio City Music Hall engagement, Jan. 23-25, 1981.
“As with the London Film Festival presentations last year, final reel was shown using three synchronized 35mm projectors, rather than the transferred-to-70mm version that distributor Images Film Archive reportedly is planning for future exhibition of the film” (Variety; Jan. 28, 1981)
“And the last reel of the 1927 film was presented in 70mm to duplicate the widescreen techniques pioneered by Gance at the time of the Paris premiere.” (Millimeter; Feb. 1981)
“Coppola flew in from Rome yesterday to supervise the recording, which was dubbed onto the film’s six-track Dolby Stereo score last night at Gomillion, a state-of-the-art postproduction house in West Hollywood.” (The Hollywood Reporter; Sep. 29, 1981)
“Premiering a print reportedly tinted and toned to director Abel Gance’s original plans, ‘Napoleon’ will be projected on a new 90 foot screen at Radio City Music Hall during its return engagement Oct. 15-18 and Oct. 22-25. Carmine Coppola will also reprise his role conducting the 60 piece American Symphony through the score he created.” (Variety; Sep. 30, 1981)
Radio City Music Hall engagement #2, Oct. 15-18 & 22-25, 1981.
“Is there a commercial market for a four-hour silent film at firstrun theatres? Universal Pictures thinks so. That’s why it is going ahead with plans to launch Abel Gance’s 1927 epic film, ‘Napoleon’ July 16 at L.A.’s Cinerama Dome, followed by exclusive openings at major houses in N.Y. and 10 other cities in October. What L.A. audiences will see is a 70mm six-track Dolby print of ‘Napoleon,’ one of 10 70mm prints Universal plans to make at a cost of close to $20,000 each. Instead of the live orchestra, this time, ‘Napoleon’ will have a prerecorded score composed by Carmine Coppola, conducting the Milan Philharmonic Orchestra. Universal will also strike about 25 35mm prints for other cities.” (Variety; July 6, 1982)
Radio City Music Hall engagement #3, Oct. 14-17, 1982.
The 70mm Blowup Films; Napoleon: 1981; “Wide Screen Movies: A History And Filmography Of Wide Gauge Filmmaking” (McFarland, 1988)
1982: Napoleon; “Presented in 70mm”; Widescreen Review’s The Ultimate Widescreen DVD Movie Guide (2001)
1981: Napoleon (with notation that author attended 70mm screening at RCMH in ‘81); “The Moviegoing Experience, 1968-2001” (McFarland, 2003)
Another case of too many cooks spoiling the soup. If they had any sense at all they would simply say to guys like REndres, here’s our movie do your magic and play it the way it should be played.
I remember during the technical rehersal for “Hello Dolly” at the Rivoli, the Fox guys were running around playing with the sound, the lights, even the curtain which closed to late leaving a white sheet, the sound seemed loud enough to be heard across the street from the theatre. Some of us complained, and Rivoli management said, “don’t worry guys let the Fox guys have some fun, after they leave we can set up everything the way we know it should be” Which is what we did.
It’s hard to recogize a Rockette if she’s one part of a 36 segment worm (although the legs are the same). One of the issues with the sound on “Black Cauldron” was that the preceding film “Return to Oz” was mixed with three channels behind the screen, and left and right surround channels. Walter Murch who is one of the top sound designers and editors to this day was the director, and he was very aware of sound issues. “Black Cauldron” was mixed as a standard six channel 70mm print with five channels behind the screen. The problem was that Disney had brought in a sound system for “Oz” that only had three channels behind the screen, so that when the dialogue was panned across the screen there were holes in the coverage where the additional channels would have been between the Left and Right and Center speakers. The speakers on the Choral stairs were actually the Altec A-7’s which were usually used for the house 70mm sound system behind the screen. Disney and Murch set the levels which were loud. The musicians complained about the bass level they had to listen to when they were in the pit waiting to come up for the stage show. (We found that Walter had boosted the bass equalization all the way for “Oz”, and corrected that for “Cauldron”.) If you thought “Cauldron” was depressing, you should have seen “Oz” — a very dark version of an Oz story.
I did the Radio City tour this weekend, first time I’ve been inside since about 1977. Was it my imagination or did the giant mural become faded when it was cleaned?
Another question, was the theatre originally built with a sprinkler system or was that installed some time later? The guide didn’t know.
From what I remember the Rockettes had the opening number and were not in any way incorporated into the show. They seemed tagged on at the beginning. I rmember it was a very dreary stage show and The Black Cauldron was very violent. Huge speakers had been placed on the side risers for the earsplitting Dolby. An usher told me parents were complaining about the film. A very depressing evening.
There was definitely a stage show with “Return To Oz”, and “The Black Cauldron”. The same stage show was used for both films and was rather controversial. Disney had four-walled the house (our paychecks during that time came from Disney, not Radio City) and didn’t want to use the Rockettes in the show they were producing. The Rockettes' union leadership could be quite active in pursuing the girls' interests and protested. Finally Disney did use them — as segments of the worm from “Alice In Wonderland”! I think they also appeared in the finale. Disney didn’t try to do a show without them after that, and they were in the “Disney’s Magical Moments” show they produced to accompany “The Lion King”.
1994:
THE LION KING … “Disney’s Magical Moments”
I don’t have any information on whether there were stage shows for Disney’s “Return To Oz” or “The Black Cauldron.”
“Mike: if you have access to a list of the shows which appeared with 70mm releases at the Hall, you might want to add the stage show that played with a re-issue of "The Sound of Music” which we did in the ‘70’s.“
1975:
THE SOUND OF MUSIC … “Star Spangled Rhythm”
REndres I remember that Sound of Music Print very well. I never liked roadshow movies at the Hall. I would have preferred to see them at a Broadway house. But that print was stunning and so was the sound. I can still hear that organ during the processional. I would have sworn it was the organ of the theater itself.
Mike: if you have access to a list of the shows which appeared with 70mm releases at the Hall, you might want to add the stage show that played with a re-issue of “The Sound of Music” which we did in the ‘70’s. The 70mm print we played became an archival print in the Fox library. I have a complete list at home and will try to remember to look it up if you don’t have it. (My list came from the Publicity Department, and has the names of the shows, but no details about them. It is inclusive however.)
“But what is desparately needed is a full list of all the stage shows that supported the movies at RCMH”
I can partially fulfill this request. Here are the stage productions that supported the 70mm engagements at Radio City.
Source: View link
1970:
AIRPORT … “Glory Of Easter” and “Potpouri ‘70"
DARLING LILI … "Ravel’s Bolero"
SCROOGE … "The Nativity” and “Cheers”
1972:
THE COWBOYS … “…and the Indians!"
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS … "Winter Cruise”
1973:
TOM SAWYER … “Glory Of Easter” and “Springtime Etc.”
1975:
GONE WITH THE WIND/2001/
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO/SINGIN' IN THE RAIN MGM fest … “It’s In Your Stars"
THE WIND AND THE LION … "Prelude ‘76”
1978:
CROSSED SWORDS … “Glory Of Easter” and “Springtime Carousel”
Re: Napoleon at RCMH. Mike, All of the presentations of Napoleon at the Hall were 35mm using all five of the Hall’s projectors. Projectors 1-3-5 were used for the triptych, and 2-4 for the rest of the film which was mounted on 4 6,000' reels; two for the first half and two for the second. Boston Light and Sound did supply the interlocking equipment (the Hall was the first time they did Napoleon, although later they travelled around the country and in some places in Europe with it.) I had a choice of three suppliers when we started looking at people who could do interlocking, and had worked with BL&S at Astoria Studios and was impressed with their work. They brought in their own projector motors with 3-D selsyns mounted on them. We swapped out the house motors on the interlock machines, and they had control for all three machines mounted on the motor bracket for the center #3 machine. When the crew took their dinner break after the load-in Larry Shaw and I swapped out the motors, and had three loops of target film running in sync on the three machines by the time the dinner break was over. The first time we did the show it was on the house sheet which limited the image to 70' for the triptych. We actually ran the first half material a little larger than the second half to give the biggest 1.33 image possible. Then we swapped lenses for the regular machines for the second half so that when we hit the triptych the center panel remained the same size. The next time we did the show, BL&S brought in three 30' wide fast fold screens, and put strips of screen material where the frames butted together in the center. This gave us a 90'+ image. The three screens were bolted together and flown on a pipe just upstage of our regular screen with the First Entrance house blacks used as side masking pulled open by the stage crew at the triptych cue. We never did the triptych in 70mm. When Bob Harris came in he brought the first 70mm test reel, and found that the lab had printed three separate panels rather than butting them together, so we never even tried it. We did do the show without the orchestra, but the track was 35mm mag run on dubbers (one of which had to be switched from the #2 machine feed to the #3 shaft encoder for the triptych. I also wired the sound changeover for that machine so that it would changeover to the #2 machine input so we could use two dubbers for both the regular and the triptych footage. I know of no other screening in New York which might have used the 70mm print, but maybe one slipped by me. I did see it projected that way at the Ocean State Theatre in Providence, R. I. (Formerly the Loews). Napoleon is still my favorite projection experience in 25 years at the Hall, even though a bit nerve wracking. You kind of figure if that triptych doesn’t come off after the audience has been waiting for it for almost four hours, they’re going to LYNCH you!
If you have to ask you can’t afford them.
Ms Krupsak uttered the imortal line “the Music Hall will be torn down over my dead body”. Thanks to her and Mr Dryfoos this magnificent palace still stands.
Amidst all these fascinating posts on RCMH, for the record, may I add the names of former New York City Councilman Bob Dryfoos and former New York State Lieutenant Governor Mary Ann Krupsak. They led the fight to prevent the imminent demolition and make way for the landmarking that prevented RCMH from facing the wrecker’s ball in 1978.
I’m getting slightly off-topic here, but it relates to NAPOLEON.
I saw the film in Columbus OH, which was the second presentation after RCMH. The film was presented with live orchestra.
The film was shown using 5 projectors. Two temporary units were brought in for the great majority of the film. Those were placed in the 2 spotlight ports of the theatre. The final reel was projected with the 3 house projectors in sync. The house projectors were definitely 35mm, as this theatre never was equipped for 70mm.
I would be curious if RCMH used 5 machines during this presentation.
I believe the next screening with live orchestra was in Syracuse.
I’m not totally sure about this fact, but I believe Boston Light and Sound was a contractor on this job.
Nice to see the Music Hall beautifully featured in tonight’s Wheel of Fortune.
thanks
“my question is: i have heard that there was another engagement sometime later – either with 3 projectors, or in single projector 70mm – that used a massive screen, presumably the widest possible inside the proscenium. is this true?”
I’m aware of Radio City engagements of “Napoleon” during Jan. 23-25, 1981, and then a return run during Oct. 15-18 & 22-25, 1981. I’m trying to determine if there were any additional runs at Radio City or any other NYC venues.
When the 70mm version was about to open in L.A. in July 1982, VARIETY ran an article mentioning plans for a wider release of the film “at major houses in N.Y. and 10 other cities in October (1982).”
Re your question about the return run on a larger screen at Radio City: “Premiering a print reportedly tinted and toned to director Abel Gance’s original plans, ‘Napoleon’ will be projected on a new 90 foot screen at Radio City Music hall during its return engagement Oct. 15-18 and Oct. 22-25.” (VARIETY, “Napoleon In Tints At Radio City Encore,” Sep. 30, 1981)
I have collected a number of articles concerning the restoration of “Napoleon,” and they include a lot of contradictory details regarding the presentations and whether they were 35mm shown using multiple projectors, whether a 70mm print was used for the Triptych sequence, or whether a 70mm print with recorded sound was used for the whole presentation. I’ve communicated with Radio City projectionist Bob Endres and Bob Harris, who worked on the restoration, both of whom have supplied various bits of information but unfortunately there still is some confusion. Maybe Mr. Endres will chime in to this discussion.
Some folks have asked Bill Kallay and myself why “Napoleon” was not included in our “70mm In New York” article and historical list. Well, the basic answer is, we’d like to include it but are uncomfortable doing so until we can conclusively determine when and where it may have played in the NYC area in 70mm. Mr. Endres has informed us that his recollection of the Radio City run(s) were 35mm. Any aditional details on the matter are greatly appreciated.
Here’s a photo of RCMH’s CinemaScope screen and masking, taken upon its debut in Jan. ‘54. It comes from Theatre Catalog magazine, 12th edition, 1954-55, p. 266.
View link
The screen is fully exposed in this photo. The top mask moved downwards a few feet to produce a 2.5 ratio for Cinemascope. Side masks moved in several feet to produce a ratio of 1.8 for standard widescreen. At this time, RCMH still projected its newsreels and short subjects on its original-size 1.33 screen, roughly one-third of the surface seen here (you can glimpse its effect in Hitchcock’s 1942 “Saboteur” when Robert Cummings chases the villain across RCMH’s stage while a film is in progress). During newsreels, the framing arches were illuminated with dark-blue back-lighting to provide some visibility for patrons arriving or departing between the film and the stage show.
If you strain, you can also see a lamppost at each side of the proscenium, used as props for the Rockette’s spectacular Stage-door Johnny routine that accompanied “Knights of the Round Table” in Jan. ‘54.