Roadshow Intermission?
Dear Gary, I read your review of The Blue Max in the August 2003 issue. This movie was among a lot of titles I had been looking for and waiting for since DVDs first started coming out. How disappointed I was when half way through it there was an intermission! Now, I see in your review you mention the disc includes the original "roadshow" intermission, whatever that means. I'm for having the movie just the way it was when I bought a ticket and sat down in the dark theatre and watched it for the first time. I saw this movie when it first came out, along with my dad, at the Liberty Theatre in Covington, Kentucky. I don't remember an intermission. I'm wondering, where did you get your information about an intermission and, just what is a roadshow intermission?
Jim White
Staff Writer & Research Editor Michael Coate Comments:
The “original Roadshow Intermission” is just that. The Blue Max was among a number of films released to movie theatres in a distribution process known as a Roadshow, more formally known as a Reserved Seat Engagement. That is, initially, films would be released in selected markets, and moviegoers could purchase their choice of seats in advance (at a higher than normal price). These engagements were treated like events. Program booklets were often made available, and the presentations would often include an overture and exit music and, during exceptionally long films, an intermission and possibly an entr’acte. During the 1950s and ’60s, many of the roadshows were presented in 70mm and/or stereophonic sound. After a roadshow engagement—typically a single, exclusive engagement in large metropolitan areas that often lasted for many months—a film was then made available to theatres citywide. I suspect you attended one of these “general release” engagements which frequently would not have included the roadshow presentation trimmings, such as the intermission. Based on your location in Covington, KY, for you to have attended roadshow presentations, a trip to Cincinnati, OH would have likely been required. These “big city”/”medium and small city” distribution differences could explain a common scenario where one person remembers an overture, intermission, stereo sound, etc, while another person doesn’t. Yet, both individuals’ memories may be correct. Films that were presented theatrically as a roadshow were for years routinely offered on television and home video formats without the roadshow components. For this reason, in our DVD reviews we like to point out the presence of the roadshow presentation elements, be they an original running time difference (if the film had been shortened for subsequent releases), overtures, intermission, etc. For more on roadshows, consult WSR’s Laser Magic special edition issue from 1998.
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