Tuesday, May 14, 2019

BILLY ROSE'S JUMBO


9 comments:

Chic Silber said...


This was the last production

at the Hippodrome before it

was torn down in 1939

Chic Silber said...


MGM bought the film rights

soon after this show opened

Eric said...

I once read somewhere that, when Billy Rose signed the contract with MGM, he insisted that the film’s main title read BILLY ROSE’S JUMBO, which is how it appears.

Roger Smith said...

Like CECIL B. DeMILLE'S...EVERYTHING HE EVER SHOT.

ToddP said...

If I have it right, The Hippodrome of Jumbo fame was on the corner of West 43 St and Sixth Avenue. After it was torn down, a huge multi-story parking garage was built there. The name on my parking receipts was: The Hippodrome. Just across the street from Stern Bros department store, just down the street from the editorial offices of The New Yorker, and a few doors away on West 43 Street from a small but lovely Norman Rockwell looking New York Fire House.
ToddPoint

Tony Greiner said...

Were the actors like Durante on a microphone? I don't remember the Hippodrome, but if it was a big arena style place, I can't imagine any of the dialogue could be understood without amplification...and this was before wireless mikes.

Chic Silber said...


Yes indeed Todd the Hippodrome

was located on Sixth Avenue

between 43rd & 44th Streets

Chic Silber said...


Early theaters both in the US

& the UK many of which are in

use to this day had (& have)

great acoustical properties

Even stage whispers could be

heard in the upper balconies

Performers knew how to project

both dialog & song lyrics so

they could be heard throughout

the theater but with today's

OVERAMPLIFIED digital sound

that's all history & modern

theaters have no such quality

Early Broadway & UK West End

theaters from the 20s & 30s

still offer such environment

Roger Smith said...

In Educational Theatre, we were taught PROJECTION, as CHIC points out. Projection is not yelling, it is delivering your lines, even stage whispers, so that they clearly reach that proverbial "Little old lady in the back row of the 2nd balcony". Getting it takes professional instruction and disciplined practice akin to circus work. On a recent ABC TV series, now cancelled, theatre friends of mine agreed Don Johnson was losing us with his understated delivery, while our friend from those days, Barry Corbin, in his co-starring role, projected his lines with effect. Barry is stage-trained.