La grande Rencontre

Imagine watching one of those old educational films you saw in grade school, except it's in Cinerama and it lasts 120 minutes (minus the intermission). This is how I felt watching "Windjammer."

I'm sure if you want to hear the plot, you'll find it in one of the other reviews. Though it's a true story, there is a certain amount of drama and performance as well. Of the fifty or so teenage boys recruited for the ship, we become somewhat familiar with about five to ten of them; these boys have a few scenes in which they converse in English. We also get acquainted with the crew and the mascot (a dog who steals a scene in the film).

But what really makes the movie succeed is that the drama is combined well with what is essentially part travelogue- beautiful cinematic scenes from both land and water- and part musical- really joyful music interspersed throughout. Frankly, it had as much musical motion picture entertainment as "Chicago" in my opinion (it's a compliment, I assure you).

So enjoyable drama, interesting documentary, good music and gorgeous cinematography... what's not to like? Alas, there are two negative comments:

The first is that in it's 50's innocence, it may be difficult at times to watch this film and not chuckle mockingly as a result of the hardened conditioning of today's popular culture and/or long nostalgically for it's time long gone.

The only other problem is that it has not been restored, and the print I saw (part of a Seattle Cinerama fest at one of the few remaining Cinerama theaters) was an original almost 50 years old. Because it's three reels synchronized on the screen, there were moments when the reel from one was noticeably more deteriorated than the others. And that made the illusion hard to manage. Also, "Windjammer," was truly meant to be appreciated in color; though a few scenes had some color in them, for the most part, the deterioration left it in black and white (and pink).

It's a 7/10. Overall, very entertaining but needs to be restored.

I recall having seen this movie in Dortmund/Germany in a big cinema which seemed to have been specially prepared for the occasion. It must have been in 1959 or 1960. I really felt "seasick" at certain passages of this movie, the impact of the stereo pictures and the sound was tremendous for me. It is not just this particular memory which makes this very movie dear to me (even though I never saw it again). This very movie is the reason for my introduction to, and consequently, love for, classical music. Grieg's piano concerto, practised by one of the cadets all the way from Oslo to America for a public performance there (under Arthur Fiedler - I recall his white dinner jacket when conducting) opened up this musical sphere to me forever. Up to this day this music and the Norwegian landscapes shown in the movie are closely connected in my mind. All this a "key event".

EL

Windjammer, the visual story of a cruise on the Norwegian school ship Christian Radich, is one of my favorite all time films. It combines a variety of elements, especially the sea and Norway into a piece of extraordinary entertainment. I have the book from the movie and I have the music, but neither I nor anyone else, as far as I know, can ever see it again. It was produced as three films by three cameras and shown with three projectors as the process Cinemiracle. From what I have found out, the originals are destroyed. Whether they could have been combined onto one video tape is also questionable. But from this film I developed a great interest in Norway. Even though I do not have any Norwegian blood in me, I am a member of Sons of Norway. I have visited Norway but missed the Christian Radich which was out to sea. I have friends in Norway and I love Norway even when it is cold and gray. Hopefully I shall return to Norway, step aboard the Christian Radich, or maybe even ride it before the wind. Of all the films I loved not available for viewing, this is definitely the one I miss the most.

This was released in southern California at Grauman's Chinese Theater where its three-projector and massive screen requirements were provided at an expense that would probably never be reproduced today. I doubt that the IMAX system is anywhere near as complicated and the specially built theaters for its presentation are possibly less expensive to construct, adjusting for inflation, than what was done at the Chinese.

The opening scenes on an ordinary size screen were a suspenseful buildup to what was eventually revealed: a seemingly infinite opening of the drapes to a dizzying crow's nest view of the storm-tossed Christian Radich Windjammer as it left Oslo's harbor for its voyage. The Cinemiracle three-camera system (which involved a complex setup with mirrors and other technical details too numerous for an amateur to recount here) and the three-projector theater presentation, with full stereophonic sound, was an amazement in its time and I have not been as impressed with my recent visits to IMAX theaters to see the usually less interesting subjects designed to wow us today. The kinetic feeling imparted to the late-Fifties audiences who saw this film was easily more realistic than anything that IMAX has attempted.

Some years later, after the initial release, at the Cinerama Dome Theater on Sunset Blvd. (which was never set up to show three-projector films, since "Cinerama" was by then a single camera process, generally shot with 70mm Panavision cameras) a return engagement of "Windjammer" was advertised. I told a film-loving friend of mine, who had not seen its original release, that we ought to attend a showing. Imagine my disappointment when all that was shown was the middle panel, leading to some really strange sequences when seascapes were blank for an extended period of time as the Christian Radich proceeded from the unseen left panel, across the middle one, and off onto the unseen third panel on the right! I really didn't understand why they didn't edit this version so that only the action in the middle panel was shown, but that would probably have required some tinkering with the soundtrack, something that the people who had gotten their hands on this curiosity were seemingly much too cheap to do. Anyway, I convinced my friend that we were wasting our time and, after complaining in the lobby to a representative of the Cinerama Dome's management about what was undeniably a rip-off, we went up to Hollywood Blvd. and saw a first-run film, probably shot in CinemaScope or one of its equivalents. Less than a week later the ads for "Windjammer" in the LOS ANGELES TIMES movie listings carried a tiny disclaimer that the film was not being presented in its original format. IMDb.com information on this film seems to indicate that the 1962 re-release, under the Cinerama Corporation's aegis, was an anamorphic presentation, but what we saw at the Cinerama Dome was nothing more than a reproduction of the original negative's center panel and there wasn't anything wide about it.

Obviously the original negatives were not preserved, since a major studio was not involved in the production, and so its eventual transfer to video (which was, for example, accomplished with M-G-M's three-camera/projector Cinerama extravaganza, "How The West Was Won" with clearly visible demarcations to the left and right of the center panel, which were much less obvious in the Cinemiracle process, by the way) is now something that is lost in the mists of movie-going memory.

I saw this movie at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco when I was 12 years old. It was the first movie I ever saw and has remained a vivid impression. How or where can I get a copy so I can share with my family and see if my memory is as good as I think?