Jackie Raynal

Carnegie Hall Cinema

Some Comments found on cinematreasures

The New York premiere run of Alain Resnais’ LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD, one of the great must-see works of the French new wave, was at the Carnegie Hall Cinema in early 1962 and constituted one of its finest hours. In the late 1980’s the new teeny-weeny adjunct Carnegie Hall Screening Room featured a continuing series of new Italian cinema, sponsored by RAI and SACIS under the heading “Cinema Italia Roberto Rossellini.” One of the highlights in that series was the N.Y. commercial premiere of the uncut four hour version of Luchino Visconti’s LUDWIG.

^{Gerald A. DeLuca on Mar 14, 2004 at 3:12am}

This was an excellent repertory house in the seventies and eighties and tied with Bleecker Street Cinema. Their schedules and notes on the programs were contained in “Thousand Eyes Magazine” printed on newspaper stock.

Carnegie Hall had many entertaining programs. Among them was a Marlon Brando festival. Every film the actor appeared in through the
late seventies was shown including obscure titles like “Night of the Following Day”. The copies were all mint with a number of ‘studio vault prints’ of pictures like “One Eyed Jacks” and “Mutiny on the Bounty” in blazing Technicolor. They also had a Hitchcock festival
and played double bills like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”. Technicolor prints of the Bond features were common too.

The screen was fairly large and the theater comfortable. A great rep house. I was sad when it folded.

^{Richard W. Haine on Mar 13, 2005 at 3:25pm}