We spend some time in the Million Dollar Theatre in "The Five Heartbeats" (20th Century Fox, 1991). It's the story of five guys in a Motown-style 60s vocal group from Harlem. Thanks to Jon Olivan for noting the use of the theatre in the film. At the time, he was in charge of negotiating the deals and managing the shoots for Ira Yellin, then the owner of the theatre. He notes that the Million Dollar was standing in for a theatre like the Apollo.
In this shot it's before a rehearsal for a talent show. The film features Robert Townsend, Michael Wright, Leon, Henry Lennox, Diahann Carroll, Harold Nicholas, Tressa Thomas, John Canada Terrell and many others. Robert Townsend directed. The cinematographer was Bill Dill. Jon notes that it was a low budget production. We don't get any wide shots of the theatre auditorium. What extras they could afford were moved around from shot to shot to make the narrower shots represent a full theatre.
The MC onstage the evening of the show.
The crowd favorite the Heartbeats are trying to beat.
A look to the balcony.
The Five Heartbeats onstage at the Million Dollar.
See the pages about the Million Dollar Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres site. It's at 3rd and Broadway and dates from 1918.
A subtitle says this is the Howard Theatre in Washington D.C. It was shot at the Wadsworth Theatre, on the Veterans Administration campus in West L.A.
See the page about the Wadsworth Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres site for more about the building.
It's unknown what town we were supposed to be in for this shot but the guys are at the Los Angeles Orpheum, 842 S. Broadway. See the pages on the Los Angeles Theatres site about the Orpheum Theatre.
At the Fox Theatre in Detroit in 1986, so a subtitle says. Actually we're back at the Million Dollar.
This is noted as being the Uptown Theatre in Philadelphia. It appears to be another scene shot at the Wadsworth.
At an unidentified venue for the last concert sequence of the film. The subtitle says we're at the Beacon Theatre in New York in 1972. It certainly isn't the Beacon.
A look off left at the "Beacon."
On IMDb: "The Five Heartbeats"
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