Moving Picture World (Jan-Feb 1927)

February 5, 1927 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 445 Curing the Judge (Continued from page 410) the schoolmaster. On Saturdays there was just the feature and the vaudeville, and it was not long before the sidecards announced “Bell and Brooks. Musical Novelty.” The Judge squirmed in his seat as the act took the stage, for he recognized in the woman his seatmate of the night before. Apparently she recognized him, too, for she favored him with a bright smile that drew only a scowl from the puzzled Judge. For the finish of the act two chairs were set close to the footlights and Bell and Brooks, the woman dressed in the same clothes she had worn the night before, took their seats. With an easy gesture the man slapped his knee, sounding a musical note. The woman slapped her thigh and presently it dawned upon the audience that they were playing “Home Sweet Home” on bulb horns sewed into their garments. Long before they reached “no place like home” the audience was convulsed, for now they realized what really had happened the night before. The final touch was given when at the conclusion of the number the team rose to acknowledge the vociferous applause and the woman, smiling broadly remarked “You could play a tune yourself with a little more practice, Judge.” That’s why Bill Spriggins smiled over an eight dollar loss on “Hungry for Love” and was glad to break even on “The Night Freight,” both booked in by Henry Huff. Also it is why the Judge still regards the honking of an auto horn as a personal affront. B'Ut he slaps his own knee when he enjoys the show at the Idle Hour, and an engrossed testimonial hangs on the wall of Bill Spriggins office. Huff laughs every time he sees it. The Roxy Theatre (Continued from page 406) the plumpest. Two main features in the theatre’s unusual construction most impressed me, viewing it, as I did, in its then unfinished condition. One was that from every seat in the house, as well as mezzanine and balcony, the audience will seem to look down upon the stage. The other that struck me was that the patrons in the orchestra chairs will have no sense of an overhanging balcony, the impression being as if all the seats were banked back from the stage upon a single floor. This effect is attained, I was told, by the unusual arrangement of the mezzanine floor, where the de luxe divan deserved seats will be situated, the novel location of the battery of projection booths in the center of the mezzanine, and by the unique design of the balcony itself, which has been made possible by the ingenious plans of the architect in taking full advantage of the irregular shaped plot upon which the Roxy is built. The ground covered by the Roxy, by way of explanation, fronts 290 feet on the north side of West 50th street and 190 feet on the south side of West 51st street, with an irregular depth of approximately 200 feet. This dimensional peculiarity of the Roxy’s S. L. Rothafel ground plan, while it must have given the architect many sleepless nights, yet is doubtless responsible both for the above described effective arrangement of the Roxy’s auditorium and for the entirely different fashion in which the Roxy’s stage has been constructed. The latter, in form, is a huge wedgeshaped megaphone or triangle, with the proscenium arch as its base, the apex of which points away from the audience. There we find instead of the customary square cornered walls, which usually are to be found backstage, a single sharp-angled corner, like the small end of a cornucopia. One result of this odd formation is that the acoustics of the Roxy will be found to be remarkable. Every sound in front of the stage is accentuated and increased in volume for the audience by this peculiar construction. Illustrating this, Mr. Rothafel, who was standing beside a pile of lumber at the edge of the pit, where the 110-piece orchestra later will be electrically raised and lowered in front of the stage, and speaking in a tone but little louder than ordinary conversation, gave directions to one of the workmen in the topmost part of the bacony. The workman had to raise his voice somewhat to carry back and down to us, but he understood Roxy’s directions without difficulty, although they were given in an ordinary tone of voice. Backstage is a six-story building, where the private projection rooms, dressing rooms, club rooms, kitchen, tailor shop, etc., are located, a “city within itself,” as Roxy enpressed it. Here also has been installed one of the finest musical libraries in the city, with complete orchestrations of a wide variety of classical and modern music, filed where it is accessible at a moment’s notice. Its cost alone is stated to be in excess of $40,000. There will also be a miniature hospital, fully equipped, and with a doctor and nurses constantly available for the use of the Roxy employees, as well as the artists and the theatre’s patrons. The Kimball organ designed for the theatre will be installed in special soundproof chambers under the stage, the sound to come directly from the orchestra pit. This instrument, it is said, will have the properties of a symphony orchestra. Three sepa rate consoles to be played by three organists at the same time will be placed in the center of the orchestra pit on elevators. The main console has five manuals and pedal with two separate three-manual consoles controlling special divisions of the organ, allowing a range of musical production, it is claimed, never before attempted on any organ. A three-manual Kimball soloist will also be placed in the grand foyer. The radio broadcasting studio will contain the last word in modern equipment and will be, of course, an important feature of the theatre. For Roxy’s gang in the broadcasting room there will be a special broadcasting organ and in addition there will be a Kimball concert grand piano playable from the organ console, this equipment being used at all times in the special broadcasting programs from the studio. The Roxy is built of Bedford stone, terracotta and pressed brick, and covers an area of 52,250 square feet. Two high-speed elevators in the foyer, with a combined capacity of eighty people, will carry patrons to the balcony and a marquee along the length of the building will shelter patrons in inclement weather. The contemplated scale of prices at the Roxy is : Evenings, $1 orchestras, 60c balcony, and $2 divans. Matinee prices : 60c for orchestra, 40c for balcony, and $1 for divans. It is predicted by Roxy that the weekly box office receipts will be in excess of $100,000 gross, exclusive of war tax. Attractions will be run for from three to five weeks or longer, if necessary, thus requiring for the Roxy for a year a supply of super-features not to exceed twelve or thirteen. The opening attraction, it is currently reported, will be “My Country,” the George K. Spoor three-dimensional feature, which J. Stuart Blackton is now directing on the Coast, provided it can be made ready in time for the Roxy’s premier. In any event it will unquestionably be given its first public viewing at the Roxy, which, in addition to its other modern projection facilities, will be fully equipped to handle the three-dimensional films as well as a number of other screen innovations planned by Roxy, on his own account. As prefaced in this article, unless all signs fail, March is going to be a most important month in motion picture history as well as in that of Roxy himself. Gleanings (Continued from page 411) ing picture scene, was the new headliner at Hammerstein’s Paradise Roof Garden over the Victoria and Belasco Theatres, New York City, last week (June 21).” Here’s one that’s new to us : “When I was editing the ‘Virginia City Enterprise’, “says Mark Twain,” writing copy one day and mining the next, a superstitious subscriber once wrote and said he had found a spider in his paper. Was this good or bad luck? I replied to him in our ‘Answer to Correspondents’ column as follows : “Old Subscriber— The finding of a spider in your copy of the ‘Enterprise’ was neither good luck nor bad. The spider was merely looking over our pages to find out what merchant was not advertising, so that it could spin its web' across his door, and lead a free and undisturbed existence forever after.”