Going to the Movies
In the week of April 14, 1946, if New Yorkers wanted to catch a new movie, they had to head to midtown Manhattan. First-run movies opened at only one theater in each city back then before working their way down the food chain of neighborhood theaters. The major studios all owned flagship theaters in the Times Square area but some of the palaces were independent, including the biggest, Radio City Music Hall. The studios also owned the major neighborhood chains, splitting markets. In New York, Loew's, which owned MGM, and RKO operated the top tier of neighborhood theaters.
Some movies settled into long first-run engagements. On the week of April 14, Hitchcock's “Spellbound” was wrapping up a 23-week run at the Astor while “Saratoga Trunk” was entering its 21st week at the Hollywood. Both movies starred Ingrid Bergman, who topped most major polls as the most popular female star of the time. Bing Crosby was the number one male star. His latest, "The Road to Utopia," co-starring Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, was wrapping up an engagement at the Paramount.
Most of the first-run houses had 1500 seats or more and the two largest, Radio City Music Hall and the Roxie, could seat about 6000 customers for each show and also accommodated standees. A ticket at a first run house in Manhattan was relatively expensive, costing from 80 cents to $1.20 ($9.00 to $13.50 in 2009 dollars), about two to three times the national average, and was sometimes even higher for a special engagement. The Globe, for instance, that week had a top price of $1.50 (more than $16 in 2008 dollars) during Easter weekend for the premiere of Walt Disney’s “Make Mine Music,” probably compensating for the lower- priced admission price for children who would be expected to make up much of the audience.
Many of the first-run theaters had live shows. Radio City Music Hall and the Roxie had the most elaborate while the Paramount was the place to go to see the biggest names. Big bands were the headliners at most of the theaters, sometimes incorporated into a vaudeville format with comedians and novelty acts.
Costume dramas like "Saratoga Trunk," "Dragonwyck," "Devotion" and "Kitty" dominated the screens with musicals not far behind. The studios had stockpiled a lot of both during the war years to fill the screens after the war while they had a chance to assess the postwar national mood through audience research. They were placing their bets that moviegoers would want to see big budget westerns, like the Technicolor remake of "The Virginian" opening that week. Also notable among the openings was Danny Kaye's latest, "The Kid From Brooklyn." Hollywood-produced war dramas and horror films had all but disappeared but the suspenseful crime dramas that would come to be known as film noir were still being churned out along with romantic melodramas aimed at female audiences. Action films targeting young males were a secondary genre back then, playing better in the neighborhoods than in first run. New foreign films had returned after a wartime absence. The one getting the most attention was Rosselini's gritty war drama "Open City."
The main attraction at the neighborhoods was "Adventure," starring Clark Gable and Greer Garson. It was the first postwar movie for Gable, who had been a dominant leading man before the war. While he was away, Garson had become one of the biggest female box office draws. "Gable's back and Garson's got him," was the advertising slogan.
First Run Pictures at The Midtown Movie Palaces