Well, in this case, bigger isn't just better. It's qualitatively different. I never saw a film in Cinerama, though theaters showed the films not far from where I lived, but I did see Imax somewhere, once upon a time and it's enough to make your basilar membranes quiver.
This is a more or less straightforward look at the invention and gradual development of the complicated process of Cinerama shooting and projection. It involved three cameras and coordinated projectors. It was accompanied by septaphonic sound. There was nothing else like it in 1952 -- and that was the point.
Those damned television sets were slicing theater attendance in half. And what with the break-up of the studio system, the studios had to divest themselves of the theaters they themselves owned, which always assured the studios of a place where their pictures could be shown. The money was no longer pouring in and it was time for something new.
For a while 3-D movies were tried but they flopped. Most were duds anyway, with the exception of a few like "Hondo" and "Dial M for Murder." Cinerama was the next big attempt to transform the industry and bring back the audiences, but it was too clumsy and expensive for general use.
A couple of interesting points are made in this documentary. One is that the process originated during World War II as a way of providing an ersatz fully dimensional environment for training aerial gunners. The training modules were highly realistic and much cheaper than actually flying the gunners around. Later, the Soviet Union copied the process, or independently invented a similar one, called Kinerama and there followed a kind of megacinematic Cold War. (PS: Nobody really won.) The point is that it wasn't long -- wasn't long at all -- before Cinerama was incorporated into the military as a training or propaganda weapon.
The script of the first feature, as it was for all the subsequent documentaries, was utter cornball. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings "America the Beautiful" while the Cinerama camera sweeps over amber fields of grain. It offended no one. It couldn't afford to.
Also interesting is that the role of entrepreneurs and promoters were more important in the end than the engineers, technologists, and cameramen. The businessmen organized traveling circuses showing Cinerama in tents out in the boondocks.
For me, the most exciting parts of the film were about Paul Mantz, the legendary stunt pilot. He'd done everything that could be done with an airplane. From the early 30s until his death by accident during the shooting of "The Flight of the Phoenix," he smashed them up and looped them and wing-walked them. After a successful shoot in Africa, Mantz and his crew held a late-night party at which Mantz learned that a volcano was erupting some miles north of their location. The next morning, he flew his hung-over B-25 into the volcano. The engines, starved of air and clogged with ash, cut out but Mantz had enough air speed to ease the airplane over the edge of the smoking volcano where, in the fresh air, he was able to restart both engines.
The documentary is gorgeous and informative but it doesn't have the huevos of Paul Mantz.
This is a more or less straightforward look at the invention and gradual development of the complicated process of Cinerama shooting and projection. It involved three cameras and coordinated projectors. It was accompanied by septaphonic sound. There was nothing else like it in 1952 -- and that was the point.
Those damned television sets were slicing theater attendance in half. And what with the break-up of the studio system, the studios had to divest themselves of the theaters they themselves owned, which always assured the studios of a place where their pictures could be shown. The money was no longer pouring in and it was time for something new.
For a while 3-D movies were tried but they flopped. Most were duds anyway, with the exception of a few like "Hondo" and "Dial M for Murder." Cinerama was the next big attempt to transform the industry and bring back the audiences, but it was too clumsy and expensive for general use.
A couple of interesting points are made in this documentary. One is that the process originated during World War II as a way of providing an ersatz fully dimensional environment for training aerial gunners. The training modules were highly realistic and much cheaper than actually flying the gunners around. Later, the Soviet Union copied the process, or independently invented a similar one, called Kinerama and there followed a kind of megacinematic Cold War. (PS: Nobody really won.) The point is that it wasn't long -- wasn't long at all -- before Cinerama was incorporated into the military as a training or propaganda weapon.
The script of the first feature, as it was for all the subsequent documentaries, was utter cornball. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings "America the Beautiful" while the Cinerama camera sweeps over amber fields of grain. It offended no one. It couldn't afford to.
Also interesting is that the role of entrepreneurs and promoters were more important in the end than the engineers, technologists, and cameramen. The businessmen organized traveling circuses showing Cinerama in tents out in the boondocks.
For me, the most exciting parts of the film were about Paul Mantz, the legendary stunt pilot. He'd done everything that could be done with an airplane. From the early 30s until his death by accident during the shooting of "The Flight of the Phoenix," he smashed them up and looped them and wing-walked them. After a successful shoot in Africa, Mantz and his crew held a late-night party at which Mantz learned that a volcano was erupting some miles north of their location. The next morning, he flew his hung-over B-25 into the volcano. The engines, starved of air and clogged with ash, cut out but Mantz had enough air speed to ease the airplane over the edge of the smoking volcano where, in the fresh air, he was able to restart both engines.
The documentary is gorgeous and informative but it doesn't have the huevos of Paul Mantz.