In all my years of searching for color shots of significant films playing in Times Square during the ’40s to mid ’60s heyday, I’ve never come across a full-color snap of the Capitol marquee during the run of From Here to Eternity. Until today, that is. An eventual winner of eight Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director / Fred Zinnemann, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor / Frank Sinatra, and Supporting Actress / Donna Reed), Eternity opened at the Capitol (B’way and 51st) without a premiere and on a sweltering weekend to boot. Plus the Capitol had no air-conditioning.
If I remember correctly, Kirk Douglas never once takes his shirt off in Billy Wilder‘s Ace In The Hole (’51). He was well-known, of course, for displaying his brawny physique in Mark Robson‘s Champion (’49), which had made him a star two years earlier. So the Ace in the Hole billboard marketing guy said “fuck it, let’s try and sell this cynical, bitter film about heartless journalism as a Champion reboot.”
