Larry Roemer, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Written by Joe D on December 10th, 2008
Xmas is just around the corner so here’s a tale of holiday magic from the old days in NYC when I worked as a film cutter on all kinds of stuff. I needed some sound effects for a project I was working on, I made some calls, finally I found what I was looking for so I jumped into a cab and shot over to 45th st.
Night Falls On 45th St.
Back in the day everything was on 45th street, optical houses, editing rooms, sound transfer, you name it. Once I was on 45th st. , it was also at xmas time, Dec. 16th 1985. It was late afternoon, getting dark, cold, windy. I came out of the Optical House at 45 w 45th and heard sirens , I could swear I saw some guys in overcoats hurrying down the street, looking back and laughing nervously. That night on the news I found out Mafia don Paul Castellano had been hit at Sparks Steakhouse over on 46 th st.
Anyway, I headed over to Magno Empire, a small office in a big building, an offshoot of Magno Sound, a big sound mixing outfit. I go in and ask for Larry, an older gent comes out and goes to get my sound effects, a yong guy working there comes up and we start talking. “You know who Larry is?” he asks. ” Nah, who is he” I reply. “He directed Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.” the young guy answers. When Larry comes back,I tell him what a fan I am of the show, what a pleasure it is to meet him. Larry lights up like an Xmas tree, he invites me back into his den and we talk for a while. Finally I have to leave, back to work. Larry stops me. “You like Spike Jones?” he asks. “Sure.” I reply. “Here, you’ll love this.” Larry hands me a cassette of Spike Jones greatest hits that he’s put together. I noticed in the end credits of Rudolph that Ralph Friedman was a sound mixer on it. Ralph was the founder of Magno Sound, I guess he was throwing Larry a bone, giving him a gig at Magno Empire in his waning years, not much stop motion to direct in those days. I see on IMDB that Larry (in 1966, two years after Rudolph) directed a stop motion Ballad Of Smokey The Bear. This featured the voice of the great James Cagney.
Larry Roemer wherever you are I salute you.