Thanks Michael for reminding me of that. Rob Endres, Radio City Music Hall chief projectionist, describes it as follows:
There were two kinds of single strip 3-D films in wide release. The “over/under” variation used for wide aspect ratio films such as “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein” and Arch Obler’s “The Bubble”. (Talk about blurring distinctions: even though those films had an aspect ratio similar to “Scope” technically they were flat.) The 3-D attachment superimposed the upper two-perf portion of the image over the bottom portion. With films made in the 1.37 ratio such as “House of Wax” and “The Stewardesses” the image, although “Flat” was actually two anamorphic images side by side with a slightly reduced frame height on the film. The 3-D attachment was in line with the anamorphic lens and put one of the images over the other. The 70mm 3-D release of “House of Wax” wouldn’t have been anamorphic since there was room on the frame to put to “Flat” images side by side.
posted on the Radio City Music Hall site by REndres on Jul 6, 2005
Rob, confusing does not even begin to describe it. Thanks for that info, I had forgotten about the side by side version. Although the frame lines on the “over/under” prints were fairly easy to distinguish, I heard of projectionists making splicing errors using the thin frame line between left eye / right eye and the actual frame line. I also remember the alignment of the two images was made easy by a loop we would run that would guide us through the superimposing of the left/right image by the turn of two thumbscrews on the 3-D attachment lens. I always thought the poloroid 3-D single print looked pretty good. I also remember the two print version of the 50s which was quite a bit better of course, that was also my first experience with 6k reels. There were however a lot of problems with the interlocking and print damage (safety film ya gotta love it)
Audiences got tired of the glasses and projection problems and so
3-D did not last very long. That red and green 3-D you see now and then today (spy kids) is dreadful, but I like the 70mm IMAX 3-D. Have you seen that baby in action?, two platters feeding the two 3-D prints to the IMAX projector at high speed is very scary to see.
In January of 1987 the Twin North and South became the Mid Plaza Cinema 6, it was quite an abortion. Originally two large houses, North and South, each house was divided into three auditoriums. A wall was built down the middle of each house and one of the two houses was then cut in half making three auditoriums each for a total of six. The original two projection rooms were used and an additional two booths were built downstairs for the two small auditoriums. (Are ya with me so far?) 70mm was kept in what was the South side in two of the new auditoriums, I recall “Silverado” and a “Star Trek” among others played in 70mm. The smaller auditoriums
3 and #6 had just 75 seats each. It was an independent theatre, the owner, who had a theatre or two in Manhattan,would enjoy stopping by on weekend nights to greet patrons (when was the last time you saw that). It did not last too long and eventually became a retail store, followed by a Multiplex which was built behind it by National Amusements.
Ok guys it’s time for the old man to have his say.
In November of 1952, “Bwana Devil”, the first commercial 3-D movie opened. That’s when we started calling 2-D films “Flat”.
Then in September 1953, CinemaScope came along and things got a little interesting, not everyone played “The Robe” in CinemaScope, there was a Flat version as well. We started labeling all
non-anamorphic prints flat, and all anamorphic prints scope, and it is still that way today. In the booth there was (is) no Panavision, Technorama, WarnerScope or what have you, every anamorphic print is scope, plan and simple. The only variation in the 50s was SuperScope
which required a different aperature plate, we labled those
RKO-scope. Some of the B'way houses filed special aperature plates and set maskings for some of the different anamorphic processes, but it was still Scope. Rob Endres, anything to add?
Well it opened fairly well with an opening day total of 21.8 million,
making it the 7th largest opening. “Batman Begins” did 15.1, but “Star Wars” had a 50 million opening day. It will do ok, but not the summer blockbuster the industry needs right now. I don’t see it beating or coming close to last years “Spider-man 2”
Well it opened fairly well with an opening day total of 21.8 million,
making it the 7th largest opening. “Batman Begins” did 15.1, but Star Wars had a 50 million opening day. It will do ok, but not the summer blockbuster the industry needs right now. I don’t see it beating or coming close to last years Spider-man 2
From Richard Roper:
At last week’s premiere of “War of the Worlds” at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York, guests had to surrender cell phones and handbags to security personnel.You know, because of the whole piracy thing. Even though you can’t get more than about 30 seconds of grainy video with your camera phone, and you’d have to be a blithering nincompoop to take out a personal video camera at a major premiere and attempt to point-and-shoot at the screen for two hours.
But here’s the beauty part. The New York Times reported that among those who had to check their personal belongings were actors Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins — who has an extended cameo in “War of the Worlds” — and the film’s director, Steven Spielberg.
That’s right. They took away Spielberg’s cell phone.
Unbelievable. That makes about as much sense as frisking Donald Trump as he enters Trump Tower, asking Hugh Hefner for ID at a party at the Playboy Mansion, or making sure Bono isn’t sneaking in a tape recorder to a U2 concert.
When you’re taking away Steven Spielberg’s cell phone at a premiere of a movie DIRECTED BY STEVEN SPIELBERG, you’re not just doing your job, you’re following the orders of monumentally silly people.
The award for best coverage of the wake of a landmark theatre goes to Dave and Shade. Thanks guys for the great memorial, I appreciate the time and effort.
Yes, CConnolly, you are nuts :))
But we can never have enough people who are as committed as you are about saving our theatres.
I wrote about the seating and other conditions at the lane as it was on my last visit which was a few years ago. Much has no doubt changed since then. Perhaps someone familiar with the New Dorp area has more recent information.
Garth, allow me respond to your post.
Initially, the Moses brothers were resistant to install CinemaScope.
Cost was a big factor and the attitude was one of wait and see.
Finally in the summer of 1955 when it was clear CinemaScope was not going to go away and we were passing on a lot of films, The decsion was made to at least buy the lenses and upgrade the projectors to “Fox Sprocket”. Because of the procedium restrictions, the screen would be only slightly larger in width, and we had to remove the title travelor curtain to allow for as much width as possible.
Basically what we had was a full CinemaScope ratio projected in a letterbox type image. It was called by some as SqueezeScope. Our first movie was “Love Me Or Leave Me”. I can still remember the sandwich board outside the theatre reading “Coming Soon, CinemaScope"
THe lighting was at times distracting whenever the side light panels on each side of the screen were left on. A practice only appied when the house was full.I don’t recall the ceiling motif of the planets being any cause of distraction. As for the sound, we never upgraded to mag stereo and the amplifier was only 50 about watts.
Robert, fun looking at those ads, thanks!
It also reminded me of how in the 60s, the ads no longer carried tags like Roadshow or 70mm stereophonic sound. Of course
“Funny Girl” should have read, “Presented in washed out 70mm blow up. I’m not bitter, I prefered the 70mm to 35mm, even the blow ups. I just wished there had been more movies shot in 70mm.
Still, the Criterion was a great place to see a roadshow. Would you happenen to have any "10 Commandments” ads or from any during the fabulous 50s?
Warren, as a marquee changer in my teens I can tell you it was an art to fit movie titles on some marquees. A lot of thought and creativity went into the great marquees of yor. In addition, they had to be changed on time. Just like the mail, come rain, snow,
wind, earthquakes or floods. That marquee had to be changed.
You recall correctly Warren, in 1964 Hamlet played in Electronvision in just under 1000 theatres, with the New York run lasting just two days. The 3 hour and 20 minute running time permitted only two shows a day, and was shot live with 15 cameras. By the way, as the story goes it was Burton who, unhappy with the quality, and controlled distribution, pulled the film, never to be shown again. There are some reports of the film playing in some U.S cities for almost two weeks.
Yes Bill, I can remember all those great Variety mispellings. it got a bit strange, but fun, when people would use them in their everyday language. Ahh show folk, just a bunch of wild and crazy people.
Robert, thanks for that memory,I was at the Big A Amityville when GWTW played. We had continuous shows every day in four track mag sound. I believe most of the L.I theatres played it that way, although the Central had no mag capabilities, HUGE wall to wall screen however.
I never saw Lucas, but he may have played a role in the Dolby installation at Cinerama. Someone, shocked at the engagement being presented in 35mm mono, went to the Cinerama’s owners, Consolidated theatres on Oahu, and convinced them to install Dolby.
Oh by the way Bill, I don’t think George would have sat thru his movie the way we were running it in 35mm with mono sound.
I did run a lot of movies for celebs in Hawaii, as well as private screenings at the home office screening room. Jack Lord (Hawaii 5-0) often held private Sunday morning brunch screenings for his celeb pals.
A link to a cool “Star Wars” memory article: View link
Thanks Michael for that very informative article.
I was in Hawaii at the time and was very agravated by the fact that we opened the picture in two locations, both in 35mm with mono
sound. The prints were SVA but we did not have Dolby processors for the playback. Later in the run, a Dolby CP100 was installed at the Cinerama. As you know “Empire” and “Jedi” did play in 70mm six track at the Cinerama.
RobertR mentioned Electronovision and if anyone wondered what the heck that was, in 1965, two competing versions of Harlow’s bio were in production, Harlow, Paramount Studios' version was photographed in 35mm widescreen color. The Magna Pictures rendition of Harlow, which was released first, was photographed in black-and-white Electronovision, which was a live TV style kinescope type production. The Electronovision Harlow was more of a curiosity than a movie and was pulled from its few bookings quickly. Soon after, along with few kinescope prints, the Electronovision cameras became part of video-movie history.
StereoVision was a new attempt at 3D which only required one camera and one projector. The left/right images were on a single 35mm frame, one above the other. A specal lens was required to fit over the prime projection lens to super-impose the two images together on the screen. Many theatres rented the lens along with the movie, however United Artist’s projection and sound tech Joe Kelly had them made up and purchased them for his theatres. Many UA theatres had these lenses in the booth ready for up coming releases but the
3-D fad died quicker than it did in the 50s.
Thanks Bill for the great memories. I used to save those programs
but no longer have them. I am sure all of us are mentaly transporting ourselves to the great lobby where we would sit and read the programs.
Ross, Patrick and Brian, now that I have retired after over 50 years in theatre exibition, Cinema Treasures has become my main connection to those wonderful years, as well as my main source of information, keeping me current on what’s been happening in the industry I have worked in and loved for so many years. I have made a lot of friends here and had enjoyed sharing memories and trading stories with a wonderful group of people. My thanks go to you along with my best wishes for continued success.
Thanks Michael for reminding me of that. Rob Endres, Radio City Music Hall chief projectionist, describes it as follows:
There were two kinds of single strip 3-D films in wide release. The “over/under” variation used for wide aspect ratio films such as “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein” and Arch Obler’s “The Bubble”. (Talk about blurring distinctions: even though those films had an aspect ratio similar to “Scope” technically they were flat.) The 3-D attachment superimposed the upper two-perf portion of the image over the bottom portion. With films made in the 1.37 ratio such as “House of Wax” and “The Stewardesses” the image, although “Flat” was actually two anamorphic images side by side with a slightly reduced frame height on the film. The 3-D attachment was in line with the anamorphic lens and put one of the images over the other. The 70mm 3-D release of “House of Wax” wouldn’t have been anamorphic since there was room on the frame to put to “Flat” images side by side.
posted on the Radio City Music Hall site by REndres on Jul 6, 2005
Rob, confusing does not even begin to describe it. Thanks for that info, I had forgotten about the side by side version. Although the frame lines on the “over/under” prints were fairly easy to distinguish, I heard of projectionists making splicing errors using the thin frame line between left eye / right eye and the actual frame line. I also remember the alignment of the two images was made easy by a loop we would run that would guide us through the superimposing of the left/right image by the turn of two thumbscrews on the 3-D attachment lens. I always thought the poloroid 3-D single print looked pretty good. I also remember the two print version of the 50s which was quite a bit better of course, that was also my first experience with 6k reels. There were however a lot of problems with the interlocking and print damage (safety film ya gotta love it)
Audiences got tired of the glasses and projection problems and so
3-D did not last very long. That red and green 3-D you see now and then today (spy kids) is dreadful, but I like the 70mm IMAX 3-D. Have you seen that baby in action?, two platters feeding the two 3-D prints to the IMAX projector at high speed is very scary to see.
Yes Warren I would agree, it had to be the Roxy. Nothing Knef said, other than the chorus girls kicking, sounded like RCMH.
In January of 1987 the Twin North and South became the Mid Plaza Cinema 6, it was quite an abortion. Originally two large houses, North and South, each house was divided into three auditoriums. A wall was built down the middle of each house and one of the two houses was then cut in half making three auditoriums each for a total of six. The original two projection rooms were used and an additional two booths were built downstairs for the two small auditoriums. (Are ya with me so far?) 70mm was kept in what was the South side in two of the new auditoriums, I recall “Silverado” and a “Star Trek” among others played in 70mm. The smaller auditoriums
3 and #6 had just 75 seats each. It was an independent theatre, the owner, who had a theatre or two in Manhattan,would enjoy stopping by on weekend nights to greet patrons (when was the last time you saw that). It did not last too long and eventually became a retail store, followed by a Multiplex which was built behind it by National Amusements.
Ok guys it’s time for the old man to have his say.
In November of 1952, “Bwana Devil”, the first commercial 3-D movie opened. That’s when we started calling 2-D films “Flat”.
Then in September 1953, CinemaScope came along and things got a little interesting, not everyone played “The Robe” in CinemaScope, there was a Flat version as well. We started labeling all
non-anamorphic prints flat, and all anamorphic prints scope, and it is still that way today. In the booth there was (is) no Panavision, Technorama, WarnerScope or what have you, every anamorphic print is scope, plan and simple. The only variation in the 50s was SuperScope
which required a different aperature plate, we labled those
RKO-scope. Some of the B'way houses filed special aperature plates and set maskings for some of the different anamorphic processes, but it was still Scope. Rob Endres, anything to add?
Well it opened fairly well with an opening day total of 21.8 million,
making it the 7th largest opening. “Batman Begins” did 15.1, but “Star Wars” had a 50 million opening day. It will do ok, but not the summer blockbuster the industry needs right now. I don’t see it beating or coming close to last years “Spider-man 2”
Well it opened fairly well with an opening day total of 21.8 million,
making it the 7th largest opening. “Batman Begins” did 15.1, but Star Wars had a 50 million opening day. It will do ok, but not the summer blockbuster the industry needs right now. I don’t see it beating or coming close to last years Spider-man 2
From Richard Roper:
At last week’s premiere of “War of the Worlds” at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York, guests had to surrender cell phones and handbags to security personnel.You know, because of the whole piracy thing. Even though you can’t get more than about 30 seconds of grainy video with your camera phone, and you’d have to be a blithering nincompoop to take out a personal video camera at a major premiere and attempt to point-and-shoot at the screen for two hours.
But here’s the beauty part. The New York Times reported that among those who had to check their personal belongings were actors Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins — who has an extended cameo in “War of the Worlds” — and the film’s director, Steven Spielberg.
That’s right. They took away Spielberg’s cell phone.
Unbelievable. That makes about as much sense as frisking Donald Trump as he enters Trump Tower, asking Hugh Hefner for ID at a party at the Playboy Mansion, or making sure Bono isn’t sneaking in a tape recorder to a U2 concert.
When you’re taking away Steven Spielberg’s cell phone at a premiere of a movie DIRECTED BY STEVEN SPIELBERG, you’re not just doing your job, you’re following the orders of monumentally silly people.
The award for best coverage of the wake of a landmark theatre goes to Dave and Shade. Thanks guys for the great memorial, I appreciate the time and effort.
Yes, CConnolly, you are nuts :))
But we can never have enough people who are as committed as you are about saving our theatres.
I wrote about the seating and other conditions at the lane as it was on my last visit which was a few years ago. Much has no doubt changed since then. Perhaps someone familiar with the New Dorp area has more recent information.
Garth, allow me respond to your post.
Initially, the Moses brothers were resistant to install CinemaScope.
Cost was a big factor and the attitude was one of wait and see.
Finally in the summer of 1955 when it was clear CinemaScope was not going to go away and we were passing on a lot of films, The decsion was made to at least buy the lenses and upgrade the projectors to “Fox Sprocket”. Because of the procedium restrictions, the screen would be only slightly larger in width, and we had to remove the title travelor curtain to allow for as much width as possible.
Basically what we had was a full CinemaScope ratio projected in a letterbox type image. It was called by some as SqueezeScope. Our first movie was “Love Me Or Leave Me”. I can still remember the sandwich board outside the theatre reading “Coming Soon, CinemaScope"
THe lighting was at times distracting whenever the side light panels on each side of the screen were left on. A practice only appied when the house was full.I don’t recall the ceiling motif of the planets being any cause of distraction. As for the sound, we never upgraded to mag stereo and the amplifier was only 50 about watts.
Robert, fun looking at those ads, thanks!
It also reminded me of how in the 60s, the ads no longer carried tags like Roadshow or 70mm stereophonic sound. Of course
“Funny Girl” should have read, “Presented in washed out 70mm blow up. I’m not bitter, I prefered the 70mm to 35mm, even the blow ups. I just wished there had been more movies shot in 70mm.
Still, the Criterion was a great place to see a roadshow. Would you happenen to have any "10 Commandments” ads or from any during the fabulous 50s?
Warren, as a marquee changer in my teens I can tell you it was an art to fit movie titles on some marquees. A lot of thought and creativity went into the great marquees of yor. In addition, they had to be changed on time. Just like the mail, come rain, snow,
wind, earthquakes or floods. That marquee had to be changed.
You recall correctly Warren, in 1964 Hamlet played in Electronvision in just under 1000 theatres, with the New York run lasting just two days. The 3 hour and 20 minute running time permitted only two shows a day, and was shot live with 15 cameras. By the way, as the story goes it was Burton who, unhappy with the quality, and controlled distribution, pulled the film, never to be shown again. There are some reports of the film playing in some U.S cities for almost two weeks.
Yes Bill, I can remember all those great Variety mispellings. it got a bit strange, but fun, when people would use them in their everyday language. Ahh show folk, just a bunch of wild and crazy people.
Robert, thanks for that memory,I was at the Big A Amityville when GWTW played. We had continuous shows every day in four track mag sound. I believe most of the L.I theatres played it that way, although the Central had no mag capabilities, HUGE wall to wall screen however.
I too loved that ad. Any more Robert?
Bob, like most nighmares most of us would rather not remember anything about it. Just be happy you did not see it.
I never saw Lucas, but he may have played a role in the Dolby installation at Cinerama. Someone, shocked at the engagement being presented in 35mm mono, went to the Cinerama’s owners, Consolidated theatres on Oahu, and convinced them to install Dolby.
Oh by the way Bill, I don’t think George would have sat thru his movie the way we were running it in 35mm with mono sound.
I did run a lot of movies for celebs in Hawaii, as well as private screenings at the home office screening room. Jack Lord (Hawaii 5-0) often held private Sunday morning brunch screenings for his celeb pals.
A link to a cool “Star Wars” memory article:
View link
Thanks Michael for that very informative article.
I was in Hawaii at the time and was very agravated by the fact that we opened the picture in two locations, both in 35mm with mono
sound. The prints were SVA but we did not have Dolby processors for the playback. Later in the run, a Dolby CP100 was installed at the Cinerama. As you know “Empire” and “Jedi” did play in 70mm six track at the Cinerama.
RobertR mentioned Electronovision and if anyone wondered what the heck that was, in 1965, two competing versions of Harlow’s bio were in production, Harlow, Paramount Studios' version was photographed in 35mm widescreen color. The Magna Pictures rendition of Harlow, which was released first, was photographed in black-and-white Electronovision, which was a live TV style kinescope type production. The Electronovision Harlow was more of a curiosity than a movie and was pulled from its few bookings quickly. Soon after, along with few kinescope prints, the Electronovision cameras became part of video-movie history.
StereoVision was a new attempt at 3D which only required one camera and one projector. The left/right images were on a single 35mm frame, one above the other. A specal lens was required to fit over the prime projection lens to super-impose the two images together on the screen. Many theatres rented the lens along with the movie, however United Artist’s projection and sound tech Joe Kelly had them made up and purchased them for his theatres. Many UA theatres had these lenses in the booth ready for up coming releases but the
3-D fad died quicker than it did in the 50s.
Thanks Bill for the great memories. I used to save those programs
but no longer have them. I am sure all of us are mentaly transporting ourselves to the great lobby where we would sit and read the programs.
I assume due to Spielberg’s lake of interest in digital, War of the Worlds will be a film presentaion?
Ross, Patrick and Brian, now that I have retired after over 50 years in theatre exibition, Cinema Treasures has become my main connection to those wonderful years, as well as my main source of information, keeping me current on what’s been happening in the industry I have worked in and loved for so many years. I have made a lot of friends here and had enjoyed sharing memories and trading stories with a wonderful group of people. My thanks go to you along with my best wishes for continued success.