Hello!

Three reviews today . . . we’ll get to all these desirable Blu-rays one way or another.

A few weeks back the column floated an article about movie theaters in New York’s Times Square entitled We Wanna Go to the Mayfair and the RKO Palace!. CineSavant advisor and reviewer “B” explained that the Palace Theater was undergoing major renovations, but he didn’t go into detail.

The title for this one-minute CNN Style video magazine article, Watch Iconic Broadway Theatre Rise 30 Feet Above the Ground is basically self-explanatory, but seeing is believing. Time-lapse images show the entire theater being jacked up, in place, a full thirty feet. It’s pretty remarkable. I wonder if the architects and engineers were 100% sure it’s going to work, when they started those hydraulic jacks going. Built in 1913, the theater weighs 14 million pounds!

We also get a peek at the building next door that was once the Mayfair Theater, the one that had the multi-story poster space for new movies. It looks like it now has a similar wrap-around video panel, giant-sized. It’s on the left in the image just above. ↑

This reminds me of a weird dream I keep having. In it I have the millions to have experts jack my entire house off the ground, after which a reinforced concrete lower floor is built, 70% buried in the ground. Then the house is replaced, sitting back on top of the new concrete super-foundation. Underground parking!  Utilities all down there!  Unlimited storage space! (Dream on, Glenn.)

And we have yet another follow-up for last week’s review of the nifty horror item Dementia. I mentioned an old Saturday Night Live skit, a filmed piece, that I believed could have been inspired by the wailing Marni Nixon soundtrack to the John Parker film. I wrote:

The weird vibe may have been directly lampooned in a vintage skit-film seen on Saturday Night Live. In that skit a female motorist is terrorized by nervous, wailing singing. She traces it to its source — a woman shrieking into a microphone on the floor of her apartment.

I should have known that “B” would respond with all the info I could ask for: Quote “B”:

“Glenn: I coulda sworn this was from a Tom Schiller SNL short, so I was totally misdirected for a while.

It’s a Gary Weis SNL short called The Voice. SNL regular Laraine Newman (left above ↑ )  is the woman who tries to pick up her laundry without a ticket, and is plagued by a wild, haunting voice seemingly singing her inner thoughts. At the end she returns to her home and confronts a woman (Valri Bromfield) (right above ↑ )  ) loudly singing into a tape recorder.

This particular episode is from the show’s third season; the Chevy Chase/Billy Joel episode, airdate February 18, 1978. I just looked at it on Hulu; it might also be available on Peacock. It’s probably online somewhere, but I couldn’t immediately locate it. Best — B.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson