RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM CINEMA RETRO'S ARCHIVES
Cinema Retro subscriber Rory Monteith kindly sent us this vintage photo from the New York engagement of 2001 - along with an original newspaper advertisement. Rory fills us in on the details:
That's the Capitol Theatre, which was a huge movie palace on Broadway &
51st Street, built in 1919. In the 30s and 40s it was the flagship
movie palace for MGM. Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz opened
there among many others (you already have a photo on your site of when
The Dirty Dozen was there). I think it originally sat some five
thousand people. In 1959 it was converted to a Cinerma showplace
(known
as "Loew's Capitol") with a screen that was 90' wide and over 30' high, but
unfortunately that necessitated the reduction in the number of seats to a
little over 1500 so everyone would have a good
view of the screen. Planet of the Apes had its world premiere there on February 8, 1968 and 2001
followed on April 3. (The theatre was demolished in September 1968. A real
crime.)
Here's a link to a short piece showing Kubrick at the
premiere:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bdKHuyhhyuM
Here's
an interesting article on Kubrick on the night of the premiere:
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2203079,00.html