This Is Cinerama

I am one of the lucky ones and certainly one of the very few of my generation to actually experience Cinerama in it's truest form. Here in Seattle there is a terrific philanthropist by the name of Paul Allen (maybe you've heard of him?). Lucky for us, he purchased the dilapidated old Cinerama theater downtown. Lucky for us he restored the old Cinerama projection system and screen as well as wiring for digital presentation (besides adding a sound system with no equal among public movie houses). Lucky for me they decided to show a Cinerama film festival with four of the original seven Cinerama movies. Although this was not the first to be shown it was the first restored print I saw after two originals. What a spectacle this must have been back in 1952. No wonder it was the box office king that year. I would certainly have sent all my neighbors and coworkers to see it if I could. First half was a little slow and meandering but it would have kept a '52 audience' attention. What was really special were the aerial views of our beautiful country to "America the Beautiful", et al. How patriotic! Way to go to all involved with the festival, the theater and Vulcan Enterprises (Allen's Co). Now I know why I would like to make movies. If only I could get Paul to bankroll a Cinerama feature for the 21st Century!

I sat in the same theater (the Pacific Cinerama Dome on Sunset Blvd. in L.A.) on the same date as mk4 of Long Beach, but I'm happy to say I didn't see the same film; nor did I hear any murmurs of disappointment on the way out. At the screening I attended, when Lowell Thomas proclaimed, "Ladies and gentlemen -- this is Cinerama!" and the screen expanded to full size as the rollercoaster began, the audience burst into spontaneous applause. And there was sustained applause during the credits at the end.

This was my third viewing of "This Is Cinerama," having previously seen it at the Esquire in Sacramento in 1963 and the New Neon in Dayton, OH in 1996, and it was far and away the best. (I also saw the disappointing one-strip reissue in 1972 -- which should have been called "This Isn't Cinerama" -- but that doesn't count.) The folks at Arclight Cinema, or whoever is directly responsible for restoring this landmark film, are to be congratulated for having done everything exactly right.

The print at the Dome -- or prints, I should say -- were virtually flawless; I saw only a brief green emulsion line in the right frame for about a minute during the first "Aida" sequence, a very slight blue cast to some of the Cypress Gardens shots, one or two seconds of white speckling, and a single cracked frame during the Venice scene. Otherwise, the film was absolutely flawless, the 1950s Technicolor brilliant, vivid, and stunning. Yes, the seams between the frames were there, but that's a given with Cinerama, like black-and-white photography in many movies or subtitles on foreign films. More important is how the seams were managed by the projection apparatus and operators -- the picture was absolutely ROCK-STEADY, and I was pleased to notice none of the "rippling" that was always noticeable in a Cinerama film when someone or something crossed the seam. I don't know how they managed it, but the Cinerama picture never looked this good before.

As the title clearly implies, "This Is Cinerama" is nothing more or less than a demonstration of the process (which is why the single-frame 1970s reissue was such a dumb idea), and it took people to places they probably couldn't go themselves; travel was not nearly so common or so wide in 1952. Besides, even if someone did make it to La Scala in Milan, how many of them would actually have a chance to stand on stage among the performers? True, the choice of segments, and to a certain extent the narration, reflect middlebrow attitudes of 1952. Deal with it. If that makes "This Is Cinerama" look kitschy or dated now, it's as much a limitation in the eye of the beholder as in the film.

Lowell Thomas says in the prologue, "We truly believe this is going to revolutionize motion pictures," and the truth is, it did. Hollywood flirted with wide-screen processes in the early 1930s, then quickly gave them up. But after "This Is Cinerama," the wide screen was here to stay (and now it's even taking over television!). For that matter, so was stereophonic sound (a term that was actually coined for "This Is Cinerama"). Today it is a rare and cheap movie indeed that isn't shot for the wide screen and recorded in stereo. Cinerama itself may not have survived -- it was, after all, cumbersome and expensive -- but its influence was absolute, and continues to this day.

The restored screenings at the Pacific Cinerama Dome show why, and Arclight Cinemas have done a tremendous service in preserving and reviving the Cinerama experience. I look forward to seeing more (particularly "How the West Was Won," easily the best of all Cinerama movies), especially if they are presented as faithfully as "This Is Cinerama."

Saw the World "Re-Premier" of "This Is Cinerama" yesterday at the Cinerama Dome, Hollywood. For the record, I also experienced it as a kid in '53 at Warner's Cinerama Theater in Hollywood, and at it's reissue at the same Cinerama Dome in 1972 (in single frame format...not three camera). It was a slightly unsettling occasion, as the roadshow ticket price of $11.00 promised a fully restored print, restored three camera operation, and two additional channels of stereophonic sound. I realized that the materials extant were rescued from a state of severe decomposition, but I was happy to plunk down my dollars for the good of the cause of saving three-camera Cinerama for movie posterity. Even as late as 1972, before IMAX and during the demise of 70mm, "This Is Cinerama" was still an exciting revelation, in spite of the kitsch and hokum of the Cypress Gardens sequences and some awkward ballet and church choir shots. The roller coaster opening still packed a wallop as this was before the roller coaster building boom and the numerous thrill rides (and thrill ride movies) that exist today (I maintain the the re-issue of this film in 1972 sparked the roller coaster building revival). But sadly, when viewed today, the Cinerama experience is woefully dated (in spite of the beliefs of the legion of Cinerama diehards who filled the Dome's 1,000 or so seats to 2/3's capacity). Shot in static camera lockdown, it plays like the early talkie musicals shot from the middle of the auditorium. The color in many of the sequences is atrocious, as it was even in 1952, and is especially apparent where three scenes are three distinct shades. The three strips would hardly ever synch-up for the showing I attended and many times exhibited glaring gaps between scenes. The roller coaster opening does not thrill the way it once did, because audiences have become jaded by even better filmed sequences done for IMAX...shot on hairier modern coasters much more thrilling than the ancient and now defunct "Atom Smasher" at Rockaway's" PlayLand. And the once highly touted Cinerama screen itself seems not as mighty as it once was, thanks to IMAX. I think many of the attendees yesterday were thinking they were really going to see something, but what they got was cornball narration, cornball dialogue and high-camp imagery straight out of a hermetically sealed 1950's can. I must say, that even for a battle tested cineast as myself, this material is tough sledding. But, in spite of all its shortcomings, this extravaganza does offer some tasty morsels for the film buff: glimpses of the Queen's Guards at Edinburgh Castle, some nice gondolier action in Venice and some crackling good camp in the form of the procession from Aida filmed inside the vast Milan opera house. We then end on a sweeping in-flight tour of the United States to the strains of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and "The Battle Hymm of the Republic." We can see where Walt Disney would borrow a lot of his material for a little TV show he would produce in a few years-"Disneyland"-from narrator Lowell Thomas (who "out-Walts Uncle Walt") in the black and white opening sequence on the history of the movies. Yep, Cinerama is the Grandaddy of them all, but like a lot of grandaddies, sometimes they are better off hidden away from view somewhere lest they shock the rest of the family due to their advanced state of dotage. The Arclight Company and Cinerama Dome say that if this re-release of "This Is Cinerama" is a success (it's only playing for one week), the majority of the seven productions in the process may be restored and exhibited. I'd go and see them, sure. But if the murmuring and disappointed crowd I saw leaving the theater yesterday has their say, I say to the folks at Cinerama: "Good Luck!"

I saw this at the Cinerama Dome and, like others, was hugely excited at the prospect of finally catching sight of the famous superwidescreen classic. I have nothing but respect and fascination for the careers of the makers of this film: Merian C. Cooper, Lowell Thomas and Mike Todd, Sr. But, well... honestly... for me it was slightly depressing. I'm so glad to have seen it after all these years of hoping someone would finally find a way to get it back in revival, but the film is still pretty much a stiff. Technically, in fact, I believe the Dome's screen was never wide-enough to accommodate the true Cinerama screen size. I sat about eight rows from the front and was not impressed, then switched to the second row after the intermission and finally found the immersion sensation so highly touted.

Overall I'd say this is form over content, with neither winning. The long-renown "seams" are as annoying as I'd heard they were from reports of the film going back to '52. Apparently only the Cinemiracle process that delivered only one documentary (in 1958) titled "Windjammer" supposedly eliminated or toned-down that problem (Cinemiracle was later bought out by Cinerama but the process and the movie have since disappeared as far as I know). But, okay, so what? It's still a film with a history of great impact when it arrived in 1952. Historically, it's a must see. No doubt about it.

But, the content itself? Well, you get a looooong build up from Lowell Thomas before the first Cinerama shot. In fact, Thomas pompously blathers on and on for about 20 minutes as we get the entire history of motion picture advancements up to Cinerama itself, all in 35MM. Finally the screen widens and we get the famous roller coaster bit. At last! But it is an all too brief opening thrill. What follows until intermission is an hour of shatteringly tedious, static shot sequences, of the Vienna Boys Choir, La Scala opera house, Long Beach Church Choir, a bullfight ring, then Spanish dancers. Possibly the dullest stuff you will ever witness on screen. Then, after the intermission, things pick up immediately with the Cypress Gardens sequence. Now you're talking! It's the success of THIS sequence that made the Cinerama film makers turn toward story-sightseeing scenarios for the future films in the format. In fact, with the America the Beautiful airshow spectacle that concludes the film, the entire second half could have been edited to immediately follow the roller coaster opening and you would have had quite an entertaining film. But it is what it is and it WAS a massive hit at the box office, playing for YEARS back in the fifties, not for weeks as films do nowadays. Great to have an opportunity to see it again, even if the seams and the dull handling of much of the content make it a chore to view at times.

Official launching of the film process developed by Fred Waller, a sort of more sophisticated version of Polyvision, the gimmick used by Abel Gance during the last minutes of his 1927 masterpiece "Napoléon vu par Abel Gance", during Napoleon's Italian campaign. To each side of the screen were added simultaneous projections, mostly of independent images, each tinted with one of the two colors of the French flag. Waller's Cinerama was a more evolved system, since the images from three projectors formed a single set of action. The two lines dividing the three projections were always criticized, but it cannot be denied that it was a great spectacle. "This Is Cinerama" is mainly a travelogue, starting with a roller-coaster ride to leave no doubt of the effect the system had on people when the camera moved. When it was static, there was no more difference from CinemaScope than size. Apart from the views of the United States, and Europeans locations, part of the film is integrated by pretensions of high art, like the boring section of Verdi's Aida. When somebody had the idea of "adjusting" the process to single-projection Cinerama, it faded quickly since the result was like any other wide-screen system on a huge screen. Films presented in single-projection Cinerama included, among others, "2001: A Space Odyssey", "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World", "Battle of the Bulge", "Ice Station Zebra", "Custer of the West", "The Hallelujah Trail", "The Greatest Story Ever Told," and "Circus World", but I also saw standard anamorphic 35mm copies released in Panama's Cinerama Lux Theatre, of "What a Way to Go!", "55 Days in Peking", "Cleopatra", "The Satan Bug", "The Cardinal", "Rio Conchos", "In Harm's Way," and many others.