May 1932 and lowered its admission prices. A fifth show was subsequently added, but this failed to increase the number of attendees. Post-vaudeville Movie palace use The last week of straight vaudeville at the Palace premiered July 9, 1932, featuring Louis Sobol. Afterward, the Palace instituted a mixed policy of vaudeville before a feature film, which continued for several months. The last vaudeville accompaniment took place on November 12, 1932, with Nick Lucas and Hal Le Roy appearing on the closing bill. Thereafter, the Palace was converted to a movie palace, showing films exclusively under RKO Pictures. The film-only policy was not initially successful because many major studios already operated their own theaters in Times Square. Theatrical historian Louis Botto said that "from the 1930s on, it was a constant struggle for survival" for the Palace, which frequently flipped between film-only, vaudeville/film, and live performance formats. The Palace reverted to a vaudeville-before-film policy on January 7, 1933, two months after it started showing films exclusively. The venue spent the next two years alternating between film-only and vaudeville-before-film formats. For fourteen years beginning in 1935, the Palace showed movies almost exclusively. The booking office in the Palace Theatre's office wing moved several blocks away to Radio City Music Hall. There was a brief return to a live revue format in 1936, when Broadway producer Nils Granlund staged a series of variety shows, beginning with "Broadway Heat Wave" featuring female orchestra leader Rita Rio. Among the films shown at the RKO Palace was the RKO picture Citizen Kane, which had its world premiere at the theater in 1941. In preparation for the 1939 New York World's Fair, RKO began to erect a marquee in front of the office wing in April 1939. The next month, RKO announced the Palace would be renovated. The alterations included renovating the outer lobby with black-and-white granite walls and the inner lobby with zebra wood and black marble walls. Additionally, aluminum and bronze frames were installed in the outer lobby. The work also included installing doors between the inner and outer lobbies. The renovations were finished in August 1939. Further renovations followed in the early 1940s, when some of the boxes were removed since they did not have a good view of the cinema screen. Attempted revival of vaudeville The RKO Palace was closed for a $60,000 renovation in early 1949. It received new seats and carpets;