This Is Cinerama

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.

Was the original Cinerama - with its triple cameras and triple projectors - really necessary? Probably not, but it's an undeniable part of movie history, and should be respected as such.

A now-obsolete (not to mention unwieldy and expensive) process, Cinerama was something I'd known about only from film history books and encyclopedias - there was no practical way of seeing Cinerama in its original form. I'd seen "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" as well as a revival of "This Is Cinerama" in the early 1970's, but in both cases the triple negatives had been reprinted onto a single strip of film. The results looked awful - it wasn't just the tell-tale lines of demarcation where the frames were joined, but also severe distortion caused by flattening out images originally designed for a deeply curved screen. The reprinted "This Is Cinerama" looked so appalling, I wondered what all the fuss had been about. (The only sequence that seemed to work was the legendary roller-coaster ride at the beginning.)

Thanks to The New Neon Movies in Dayton, Ohio, I have seen the past - and it works. Neon's manager, Larry Smith, revived Cinerama with a series of screenings beginning in 1996 that were made possible thanks to a projectionist and Cinerama "nut" named John Harvey who's been collecting Cinerama equipment, prints and memorabilia over the years. (He's put together a customized set-up that enables him to run the projectors and soundtrack reader single-handedly.) I saw "This Is Cinerama" in Dayton in January 1997.

"This Is Cinerama," which introduced the process, is basically a corny 1950s travelogue hosted by globetrotter (and Cinerama backer) Lowell Thomas, who hams it up nicely for this extravaganza ("Ladies and gentlemen ... this is Cinerama!"). Seeing the Cinerama process in all its flawed glory was a fascinating experience. At its worst, Cinerama looks exactly like what it is: three side-by-side projected images that frequently jitter in opposing directions, spoiling the effect. (Harvey's prints are also visibly worn and scratched.) But at its best, Cinerama offers a height of clarity and detail you can't get elsewhere, except maybe for IMAX films.

The opening roller-coaster ride was a wonderfully dizzying experience. But for me, one of the most spectacular sights in "This Is Cinerama" was a view down a street in Spain teeming with people - it seemed to go forever into the distance with amazing sharpness. (Cinerama's larger-than-life clarity was also evident in the other film I saw during my visit to Dayton, "How the West Was Won." During a scene set in a casino, I found myself staring into the frame, trying to pick up all the visual details I could.) The Neon isn't that big a theater, and yet the Cinerama image still looked awesome.

Only seven films were made in the original Cinerama process. I regard Cinerama movies the way I do 3-D films: I'm glad they were made, and I'm glad to see them in their original form - none of which is an argument for making new movies in either process, but it is an argument for preserving, not just the films themselves, but the experience of seeing them the way they were meant to be shown.

Thank you, John Harvey and Larry Smith. (And Fred Waller, Cinerama's inventor.)

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.

When shown as intended this showcase demonstrates the potential of the Cinerama systems, their limitations, and gives a glimpse of the world as it was in 1952 in spectacular show-biz style. It is a technically interesting and fun documentary. Viewable only on the big screen with three projectors, the real thing, not a simulation, ladies and gentlemen, Cinerama! Having just come from seeing it at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, I'm in the mood to hawk its virtues. It must be admitted that technological advances are rapidly bypassing this type of system, but it is a grand and brazen promotion that deserves to be dragged out periodically to show how it used to be done. As with any other art, seeing it in person IS the real thing. Great date movie. It includes Edisons short "The Kiss" and most of "The Great Train Robbery" as part of its introduction, to give us something with which to compare Cinerama, plus some history of the development of photography as a popular art. We start right off with a whiz-bang roller coaster ride, and proceed right on through the Triumph from "Aida", presented in wonderful operatic splendour by the company at the La Scala opera house. Boy did I go for that. After intermission we went to Cyprus Gardens to view its 1952-style wonders, including the famous Auquacade (a dance, stunt and comedy show on water skis). The grand vistas of our America (including industrial might) are displayed in spectacular fashion with edifying narration. Lots of fun stuff like that to show off the extra big, clear picture and a sound system of close to modern theatrical quality, at least to my ear. I was glad to have the experience, and am happy that this document exists.

I remember seeing "This Is Cinerama" in Detroit in 1953, the second city in the US to get the installation, after New York. Mine was a balcony seat, and that was a disappointment. The picture appeared as though projected on top of a huge ball. Also, the vertical strips composing the screen often wiggled a bit, perhaps do to air currents or drafts in the theater. Maybe this problem was not noticeable to those in orchestra seats. The lesson learned was that I would pop for the more expensive orchestra seat for future productions, a couple of which I saw and thoroughly enjoyed.

"How the West Was Won," being presented at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood this fall, has always been on my list to see in the three-strip format. Have ticket; will be there.