Larry Roemer, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Written by Joe D on December 10th, 2008

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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.

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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.
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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.
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Larry Roemer wherever you are I salute you.