Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World (Oct-Dec 1928)

32 EXHIBITORS HERALD and MOVING PICTURE WORLD November 17, 1928 Good Theatre KEEN-WITTED exhibitors with sharp eyes and long ears have been interested, even if in an off-hand way, in the art cinemas of New York. Week after week they have been reading about the Fifth Avenue Tlayhouse and the 55th Street theatre, et aL, and about pictures being shown there that they have never heard of or seen. They should know about the new one: the Little "Carnegie Playhouse, at 146 West 57th street, two or three doors away from Carnegie Hall, the center of symphonic music and culture in the Metropolis. This is the latest word, the dernier cri, in cinema modernism. * * * The entrance, small, is striking, with warm and brilliant colors and an impression of mirrored surfaces. A lengthy foyer, done in a modern manner, is hung with striking yet coherent and tasteful pictures, with here and there a friendly cactus plant. To the left is a card room, a small dance floor, a ping-pong room— all modern, all in warm colors, all daring in conception and brilliant in execution. A large and spectacular room, with chairs and benches and mirrors and free coffee and free cigarets, opens into the theatre. The theatre itself is a remarkable combination of modernism, taste and comfort Those who come to jeer at a theatre with pingpong and free coffee on the side remain to cheer. This is the new theatre and its only tie with the old is a piano-player lifted out ot the nickelodeon days of movies. Everything else, including the Fannie Hurst blurb on the program and the picture from Russia, is brand new. * * * This truly remarkable creation is the work of Germanic artists, Wolfgang Hoffmann and Pola Hoffmann. The entire heart of the theatre, even to its lighting fixtures, was done by these two. Nor is it their only monument. They designed the Ufa Palast in Berlin and other modern German theatres. * * * The place seats about 500 and is what Broadway technically knows as a "sure-seat house. Admission is 75 cents in the afternoon and $1.00 at night. Feature pictures are generally foreign; the opening bill was based on "Ten Days That Shook the World," made by the brilliant Russian, S. M. Eisenstein, who made "Potemkin." The place was stormed and police had to hold the opening crowds in hand. If you come to New York and want to see something modern in motion picture theatres, don't miss the Little Carnegie Playhouse. Pocket One place you ought to look, if you want to know what's going on in the motion picture industry, is Carl Lacmmle's righthand coat pocket. In the left he carries a small blue pad and pencil. In the right he carries dozens of notes made during the day, things to do and have done, mixed in with a fair sprinkling of bridge checks. „ NTKK VISCIIF.K MacLean — Comically, Vocally DOUGLAS MacLEAN'S latest venture in what has long been strictly MacLean humor, is finally in celluloid, as these stills from the picture indicate. Christie made "The Carnation Kid" for Paramount release, and Frances Lee, once only one of Christie's pretty girls, then a Christie star, is in this feature MacLean's leading woman. "The Carnation Kid" is the first Paramount-Christie talking picture. Ain't love grand! Douglas MacLean Frances Lee Surprise attack from the rear. Francis McDonald MacLean & ! i Explaining everything not so well— MacLean, Miss Lee and Charles Mailes.