Playing on D-Day in New York City

For the 75th anniversary of D-Day, I'll be posting some ads for movies playing in theaters that week. Today it's New York City with ads from the New York Times. Below is an ad for RKO theaters. Passage to Marseille (with Bogart and some Devil's Island escapees fighting Nazis) and Buffalo Bill with Joel McCrea. Both had musical second features. Note the newsreel featurette "Eve of Invasion" playing with the movies.

Radio City Music Hall was showing The White Cliffs of Dover, with a plotline that encompasses both World Wars, accompanied by a "spectacular" live revue. At the Rivoli was Cecil B. DeMille's The Story of Dr. Wassell about a real-life war hero; the New York Times review says, "Imagine a De Mille war picture in New York on D-day!" Note the reference to the "latest invasion news broadcast from stage"--in a pre-TV, pre-Internet world, there was only radio, newsreels, and these live updates to keep up with the invasion.

Tender Comrade, a teary wartime melodrama with Ginger Rogers, was at the Capitol, with an "all-girl orchestra" providing live entertainment. I'm not sure when live acts quit appearing at movie theaters, but clearly they were still an attraction during the war.

Not all the movies were war-related; also playing first-run were Mr. Skeffington and Make Your Own Bed, and a second-run of Lady in the Dark.