On Christmas Day I took the subway to 54th Street and 6th Avenue to see the Steven Spielberg movie War Horse. The Ziegfeld is actually the second theater by that name. The first was built in 1927 and named for Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, who built it with financial backing from William Randolph Hearst. The theater's first Broadway show was Rio Rita, and its second, and most famous, was Show Boat. NBC leased the theater in the late 1950's and broadcast the Perry Como show from there. The theater was also used to present the Emmy Awards for 2 years. Despite public protests, the Ziegfeld was razed in 1966 to make way for a skyscraper.
In 1969, only a few hundred feet from the original, the new theater opened as a single screen movie house. With 1,131 seats, the Ziegfeld is the largest single screen theater in New York and is the site of film premieres and gala events.
The halls of the Ziegfeld were filled with glass cases of theater memorabilia. The picture above is the display case featuring Lillian Lorraine, who was best known for her beauty and was probably the most famous of the Ziegfeld Folly girls in the Ziegfeld Follies.
War Horse, the movie, is based both on the children's novel first published in 1982 and the 2007 stage adaptation. Set in rural England and Europe during the First World War, War Horse is the story of the remarkable friendship between a half-thoroughbred, Joey, and young Albert, who tames and trains him. The film follows Joey as he is sold to the Cavalry and moves through the war, changing the lives of those he meets, from British cavalry to German soldiers to a French farmer and his granddaughter.
the movie trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRf3SfeMRD4
