When "Petulia" starring Julie Christie and George C. Scott was booked for its first run in the Los Angeles area back in 1968 at the Picwood Theater in West Los Angeles, this short documentary film from the Netherlands was shown to pad the program, something that is now done with commercials and those previews for ultra-violent upcoming "attractions" (Ha!), with the sound pumped up to a truly deafening level.
I went back, probably three times more, to the Picwood, which had a gigantic screen, and paid full-price admission (a pittance back then, compared to today, even adjusted for inflation), once with a group of friends whom I had somehow convinced to attend the theater to see this documentary only, to again stare in amazement at this phenomenon. It was shot in 70mm. and color, of course, from a variety of moving conveyances, including jet planes, motorboats, automobiles, ice skates affixed to platforms powered by wind-driven sails, and so forth. Without any spoken narration but with a very apt music score, it was an amazing overview of a remarkable compendium of what Holland has to offer - art, history, natural scenery, its industries, canals, harbors - you name it. The credits seemed to indicate that the government of the Netherlands had sponsored this project with the special participation of the Dutch air force (which included fantastic shots from jet planes as they descended through broken cloud cover onto the massive sunlit fields of tulips, segueing into shots of the masterpieces of Piet Mondrian on museum walls.)
This does not appear to have been transferred to video, at least for American audiences, and its splendor would be absolutely diminished on even the largest widescreen TV, but it was a movie-going experience I shall never forget.
