Radio City Music Hall... 1st movie shown...

Item # 578626

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January 12, 1933

THE NEW YORK TIMES, January 12, 1933

* Radio City Music Hall... Rockefeller Center
* Movie theater opens
* The Bitter Tea of General Yen

This 38 page newspaper has under "THE SCREEN" on page 20, a two column heading: "Radio City Music Hall Shows a Melodrama of China as Its First Pictorial Attraction", which tells of the first motion picture film to be played at this famous entertainment venue. Other news of the day. Rag edition in very nice condition.

wikipedia notes: The Music Hall opened to the public on December 27, 1932 with a lavish stage show featuring Ray Bolger and Martha Graham. The opening was meant to be a return to high-class variety entertainment. The new format was not a success. The program was very long and individual acts were lost in the cavernous hall. On January 11, 1933, the Music Hall converted to the then familiar format of a feature film with a spectacular stage show which Rothafel had perfected at the Roxy Theatre. The first film was shown on the giant screen was Frank Capra's The Bitter Tea of General Yen starring Barbara Stanwyck and the Music Hall became the premiere showcase for films from the RKO-Radio Studio. The film plus stage spectacle format continued at the Music Hall until 1979 with four complete performances presented every day.

Radio City has 5,933 seats for spectators; it became the largest movie theater in the world at the time of its opening. Designed by Edward Durell Stone, the interior of the theater, with decor by Donald Deskey, incorporates glass, aluminum, chrome, and geometric ornamentation. Deskey rejected the Rococo embellishment generally used for theaters at that time in favor of a contemporary Art Deco style, borrowed heavily from a European Modern aesthetic style, of which he was the foremost exponent at the time.

Category: The 20th Century