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Saturday Matinee: A Switchback Railway (1898)

Posted in Amusement ride, film, video, tagged La Marcus Thompson, roller coaster, roller coaster history, silent film, Switchback, Switchback Railway on April 21, 2012| 2 Comments »

La Marcus Thompson’s Gravity Switchback Pleasure Railway debuted in 1884 in Coney Island on the site where the Cyclone thrills today. Film footage doesn’t exist since the Kinetoscope wasn’t invented until the 1890s, but this documentary short by British filmmaker R.W. Paul shows patrons at an English fairground enjoying a Switchback Railway in 1898. We love the little boy running up to see the coaster and hope that he got a chance to ride!

Thompson’s 1885 patent was titled “A Roller Coasting Structure” and his gravity-powered ride which took its inspiration from a mining railway is known as America’s first roller coaster. In Coney Island, the first cars seated passengers sideways and went 6 miles per hour over 600 feet of undulating track. When people waited on line for up to three hours to ride, a reporter for the New York Sun proclaimed that “Coasting” was all the rage in Coney this season. As for the nickel ride: “It combined the effect of seasickness, imparted by the primeval swing, with the rush of a runaway ice wagon on a down grade; but besides all this there is a feeling of sailing through space which is elsewhere unattainable without the assistance of a balloon.”

By 1888, Thompson had been granted 30 patents and had built at least 20 roller coasters in the U.S. and 24 more abroad including several in the U.K., according to Robert Cartmell’s The Incredible Scream Machine.

Engraving of La Marcus Thompson's Switchback Railway in Coney Island on Opening Day, June 13, 1884

ATZ Review: Love Never Dies in a Phantasmal Coney Island

Posted in film, video, tagged Andrew Lloyd Webber, Coney Island, Love Never Dies, musical, Phantom of the Opera, review, theater on March 7, 2012| 3 Comments »

The Beauty Underneath from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies, Australian Production. Photo via Facebook.com/LoveNeverDiesAU

In 2010, when Love Never Dies premiered in London and was expected to open in New York, our first thought was the sequel to Phantom of the Opera would bring tourists to Coney Island, where the musical is set. Imagine people coming out of a Broadway theater humming “The Coney Island Waltz” and being lured out to the real, live Coney to trace the Phantom’s footsteps. It could still happen, thanks to a new film version of the successful Australian production of the musical. According to the recently debuted Facebook page Love Never Dies: Broadway, “It is destined for Broadway, so stay tuned for news!”

ATZ went to see the first-ever U.S. showing of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies on the big screen last week. The film of the critically acclaimed Melbourne production will be shown again in theaters across the U.S. on Wednesday, March 7th at 7:30 pm and a DVD will be released on May 29.

The musical is set in 1907, ten years after the fire at the Paris Opera. As the impresario of “Mr Y’s Phantasma,” a vaudeville extravaganza in the heart of Coney’s Electric Eden, the Phantom commands a phalanx of gorgeously costumed–okay, we’ll say it–phreaks! A trio of them are sent to greet Christine, who has traveled from Paris with her husband Raoul to sing an aria for Phantasma’s closing show of the season. What she doesn’t know is that it is the lovesick Phantom who has paid a fortune for the command performance.

Bathing Beauties from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies, Australian Production. Photo via Facebook.com/LoveNeverDiesAU

The Phantom fled here with the help of Madame Giry and her daughter Meg, the ballerina turned “Sweetheart of the Midway.” Meg is delicious in “Bathing Beauties,” a saucy stereoview card brought to life. She also has one of the best Coney lines ever: “Well, here’s the way it works on Coney Island: They make you pay for every little crumb.” But we can’t tell you why without giving away the ending. The twists and turns of the story are over the top, but the haunting melodies, high-caliber performances and lavish costumes and sets kept us entranced.

The set design is a marvel of catwalks that resemble roller coaster tracks and a tent that reveals a whirling carousel. One of our favorite scenes is “The Beauty Underneath,” in which the Phantom takes Christine’s 10-year-old son on a tour of his phantasmagorical world. Set to the throb of electronic rock, the song asks “Have You Ever Yearned To Go, Past The World You Think You Know? Been In Thrall To The Call Of The Beauty Underneath?” Human curiosities writhe inside glass prisms as the lights of Luna Park-like towers and rides glimmer in the background.

Video of the Day: The Coldest Thing on Coney Island

Posted in film, video, tagged Coney Island Polar Bear Club, Jim Muscarella, New Year's Day, Polar Bear Plunge, winter swimming on February 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »

This short film produced by Coney Island Polar Bear Club member Jim Muscarella celebrates the joyous spirit of the club’s annual New Year’s Day swim. This year, sunny skies and temps in the 50s drew the largest number of participants in the club’s history. But the coldest thing on Coney Island, according to Muscarella’s film, is going for a winter swim when air temps are 10 degrees and under and water temps are under 35 degrees. Brrr! Well, maybe next year–it’s February and temps are still in the 40s and 50s.

Founded in 1903, the Polar Bear Club is also the oldest thing on Coney Island says Chief Polar Bear Dennis Thomas in the film: “We’re happy to be a Coney Island landmark. The Coney Island Polar Bear Club is the oldest winter swimming club in the country. We’re older than the Parachute Drop and the Cyclone and anything else you see here.”