Years ago, I acquired a bunch of vintage photos from New York City. 1949, in fact - 76 years old! Among those photos were some very neat (and scarce) night photos from Times Square, showing off some of the amazing and huge signs for various movies. I'll share a few of them today, and maybe more in a future post.
With all of the lights constantly flashing in various patterns, a long exposure would have been required to get everything lit up at once. That didn't happen here, but there are still some pretty amazing examples of the sign maker's art. At the Loew's State, "Command Decision" is playing. Released in 1948, it starred Clark Gable, Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, and Brian Donlevy. The film's major theme is the emotional toll on commanders from ordering missions that result in high casualties, the effects of sustained combat on all concerned, and the nature of accountability for its consequences.
The Philco sign to the left was notable for showing simple animated scenes, it must have been a real technological marvel for the time - you'll see another photo of this in a future post.
In this view, we can see some of the familiar old neon signs for products like Kinsey whiskey and Ruppert beer, Chevrolet, and the famous Camel cigarettes sign that changed over the years, but always had a character blowing smoke rings (I think I can see a puff of smoke?), I wish we could see that one more clearly! To the right, the New York Theatre is showing "Two Thrill-Packed First Run Hits", including "The Feathered Serpent" and "Blazing Across the Pecos", both featuring cowboy Charles Starrett.
You can't help noticing the big sign for "Joan of Arc" starring Ingrid Bergman; I tried to figure out which theatre this was, but am not sure; the red LONDON might be the name of the theatre?
IMDB trivia had this tidbit: To promote the film Joan of Arc (1948), the studio placed an eight-story-high figure of her in white plastic armor in New York City's Times Square, at a cost of $75,000. That makes it sound as if they built a giant statue of Joan, but it's clear that they were referring to this sign. It's pretty spectacular! FYI, $75,000 is the equivalent of almost one million dollars in today's Moonbucks.
According to Wikipedia, the film is a straightforward recounting of the life of the French heroine. It was Victor Fleming's ("Gone With the Wind", "The Wizard of Oz") last directorial effort, and was, unfortunately, a box-office disappointment.
If you have liked seeing these, let me know and I'll share more!
16 comments:
Major-
When movie theatre marquees really meant something-!!
The 'London' refers to the London Shoe store. Joan of Arc played at the Victoria Theatre, in Times Square. It premiered there on Thursday, November 11, 1948.
Thanks, Major.
Wow, I'm stunned that they would go to all the time, materials, and expense to make these temporary signs! All that metal construction! All those light bulbs (and wiring)! For a movie that would play for a couple of months(?).
I wonder how the Philco 'light animation' was achieved? I guess you'll tell us more about that in "a future post", but, dammit Janet, I wanna know now! ;-)
That could be a smoke ring above the Camel sign. Let's just say it is so we can all feel happy about ourselves! I Googled "The Feathered Serpent". It's a Charlie Chan movie (1948).
Joan of Arc may not have done well at the box-office, but they sure got their money's worth with that sign!... Or maybe not. A million dollars ($75,000) for a temporary sign? The movie itself cost around 4.6 million to make (I Googled that too). Sounds like MGM was tossing money around like there was no tomorrow. No wonder it was a box-office disappointment; they couldn't possibly recoup all their expenditures, with ticket prices being what they were in the late 1940s.
Yes please. More marquees. Thanks, Major.
Oops, I goofed. It wasn't an MGM film. It was made by Sierra Pictures; which I never heard of before.
I’m thinking that bit of IMDB “trivia” is just a bit suspect. I have not been able to find a single picture of an eight-story statue of anything in Times Square. That would be somewhere between 64 and 80 feet tall, depending on how you define a “story,” for comparison, the tallest turret on Sleeping Beauty Castle rises only 77 feet above its swan-infested moat. The closest thing I could find was a 50-foot temporary plaster statue called variously “Purity” or “Defeat of Slander” erected by the Tammany Hall political machine in during the ekection season of 1909.
While there is no mention of a plastic-clad St Joan, I did find a short snippet of a newsreel of the Times Square premiere that shows the lighted sign in action.
This is fun to see, and a nice change of pace. I’m going to see if “Feathered Serpent” is streaming on Amazon. They have a lot of the CC films.
Thanks Major!
JG
@ JB-
"It wasn't an MGM film. It was made by Sierra Pictures."
Yeah, that's just another production company. It was [really] a Walter Wanger Production, but shot-at and released-by RKO... that's where the money came from. (And who bought controlling interest in RKO in early 1948-? - that would be none other than Howard Hughes).
Those outrageously ostentatious marquees seen at first run houses all over the US were very common place in the 1930's and 40's - and to some degree, hung on for certain films right up through the early 1960's - in spite of the antitrust regulation known as the 1948 Paramount Consent Decree, resulting in the jettisoning of theatre ownership by the major studios. It's [frankly] been all downhill for indoor movie theatres (known colloquially in 'the business' as hardtoppers). OH. .. you're wondering what the name for drive-ins was - that would be ozoners. Mr. Exhibitor would have a much easier time these days had the big studios still owned their theatres...
Nanook, I wonder if Queen Victoria bought shoes at London Shoe before she saw “Joan of Arc”?
JB, I know, those signs are so over the top, it would be truly impossible to make anything like them today (they’d cost so much). I actually don’t know exactly how the Philco light animation was done, but some quick research hints that there was a little man living inside the sign. I’m pretty sure that the smoke ring is in fact a smoke ring! Clearly somebody thought that Joan of Arc was going to be a huge smash hit; ya gots Ingrid Berman, Victor Fleming, and Frank Blurf (of the Blurf dynasty of actors).
JB, I will never forgive you!
Chuck, I agree, there is no way that there was an eight story “statue” of Joan of Arc, and even that big sign is at best two stories high. Place it above the street by one story, and you have three stories. Oh well, that’s known as old fashioned Hollywood ballyhoo. There was a large plaster statue of George Washington at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, it was (supposedly) 60 feet tall, that’s pretty good. Thank you for the snippet of the newsreel showing the sign!
JG, I’ll bet “Feathered Serpent” is too scary, you should not watch it.
Nanook, even without the Paramount Decrees, I would assume that the advent of television would have severely impacted those beautiful old movie palaces (which it did anyway). It makes me sad when I go to downtown LA and see some of those former palaces being used as flea markets or churches.
Cool pix. I love to see these old photos of New York: so very glamourous. The area doesn't give off this same vibe, but you can see the bones of it for sure underneath the jumbo-trons and giant signs for Red Lobster or the M & M's store. The "theatre streets" still have ...for the most part...a twinkle light character. I was there a few weeks ago and I was "well...this is a still bit magical for an old cynic like myself". I just paid $350 a seat for a Broadway show...we complain about Disney Parks....you get the entire day there. The interesting thing is that the shows all still need to be underwritten to get produced, made and make a semblance of profit. I think Broadway is like the wine industry. You gotta love it and have a lot of cash to make it happen. I have a buddy that has a few acres in Napa, and churns out a few cases of wine a year....a labor of love He sells the majority of his grapes to other people, as do most of the small farmers. But back to Times Square, which I do avoid at all costs...unfortunately, if you are seeing a Broadway show you are subjected to it....it's not that it's so horrible, it's all the people "looking up" and in the way of a bulldozer such as myself. I'd like to visit the Times Square of the 30's and 40's....or even the 50's. The 80's were scary, the 90's got better, then Disney came in and there went the neighborhood :) Thanks Major!
Trivium:
In the glory days a big city theater could -- had to -- fill thousands of seats several times a day, and a really big attraction could hold on for weeks or even months. Also, a big NY hit usually meant the studio could expect more bookings in wide release. So on a street with heavy foot traffic a huge display might pay for itself, but with the television age you'd see fewer and fewer electric spectacles. By the 60s, there might be an illuminated billboard, but ballyhoo had moved from the sidewalk to the airwaves. See greenbriarpictureshows.com for great stuff on how movies were sold (and junior gorillas should look up Disney in the site's archive).
"Artists and Models" opens with Martin and Lewis messing with a parody Camels billboard. Dean is touching up the paint, and Jerry is predictably entangled with the smoke-making tech.
Set pieces from "Joan of Arc" were rented out for years, and were used in Abbott and Costello's "Jack and the Beanstalk" in 1952.
"Feathered Serpent" was one of the last-gasp Charlie Chans from lowest-budget studio Monogram, home of the Bowery Boys. Strongly recommend sticking to the earlier Chans produced by Fox, starring Warner Oland or Sidney Toler.
Bu, I used to stay in a hotel not far from Times Square - far enough so that we weren’t in the thick of it, but it was nice to be able to walk to the theaters, or go the other direction to Central Park. We even walked all the way to Soho, which was a hike! But I got to send my niece a cool photo of the Empire State Building, so it was worth it. Like you, I don’t hate the whole Broadway scene, but I don’t love it either. It just IS. I always think off “The Office”, when Michael Scott is in NYC and says he always wanted to get an “authentic New York slice” of pizza, and he’s outside of Sbarro. I wanted to go to Ray’s, but there are so many places called “Ray’s” that I did not know which one was THE one. Imagine how amazing Times Square would have been in the 40’s and 50’s, truly the center of the world, so to speak.
DBenson, not to mention that a movie would last hours and hours, with the newsreels, short subjects, cartoons, maybe a nice double feature, etc. Your fifty cents could keep you entertained for half the day! I am aware of Greenbriar Pictures, one of my photos was used there many many years ago. I haven’t looked at it in a while, but it is an impressive endeavor. Interesting about the sets from “Joan of Arc” being used by Abbot and Costello, of all things. I’ve never seen a Charlie Chan film, OR a Bowery Boys film!
Major-
"I’ve never seen a Charlie Chan film, OR a Bowery Boys film!"
Oh... you haven't lived-!
And those 'smoke rings' were actually just steam - of which there was plenty of it, thanks to conEdison-!
I wonder if some of those sign elements like the letters were reusable. That Philco screen looks like a dot-matrix display, it must have had a huge machine to control the animation before digital computers.
I used to live just across the river from Manhattan in Hoboken, so I saw a bunch of Broadway shows in the 90s. I bought all of the tickets half-price through the TKTS office. I can't imagine spending the hundreds of dollars for a show now. Especially since so many of them seem like Branson, MO shows based on movies, TV shows, or music from a few decades ago. I think that's part of the reason Broadway hasn't really recovered from covid the way other live entertainment has.
The "Disney takeover" of Times Square made it kind of bland, but the state of it prior was so terrible and dangerous, I'm glad they did it.
Times Square is so crowded, no one goes there anymore.
Major, I forgot to say how much I liked these pics, please post more. Anything with old neon or advertising, with movies and shows, really brings out the GDB team knowledge.
JG
"Yeah, that's just another production company. It was [really] a Walter Wanger Production, but shot-at and released-by RKO... that's where the money came from. (And who bought controlling interest in RKO in early 1948-? - that would be none other than Howard Hughes)."
Nanook, I'm very surprised you didn't also mention WHO bought out RKO in 1957!
Major, please do post more of these. I always enjoy your fun field trips with everyone.
@ Lou and Sue-
Well, Desilu acquired the Hollywood and Culver City properties in 1957 from [the then] RKO General. As a studio, it was already dead.
DBenson, I watched “Charlie Chan and the Feathered Serpent” which I located on an obscure streaming service. I should have listened to your advice. I am taking notes now.
JG
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