I couldn’t make it to Suffern this past Saturday due to family obligations, but really had intended to see, and hear, “The Great Escape” there. Can anybody say how the digital sound mix was?
Yes, do please go back to cinemasightlines and continue debating folks on the west coast also, as you have been doing recently on other c-treasures pages.
And I’ll end the off-topic discussion here myself by reminding you that you are again wrong. Not all early Cinerama theatres had “cinerama red” curtains, not even the very first one, the Broadway, which had “BLUE.” And none of the first thirteen US engagements featured all “seats, walls, drapes, and carpet” in “cinerama red.” Not a one. That came much later with the so-called “Super-Cinerama” styles.
Check out projectionist Steve Kraus' photographs of one of many totally boothless CineMiracle installations.
* And as for the AWSM, I’ll tell Marty you said “hi.”
* See you on the SightLines.
Yes, I remember my first time there (the original Orleans building), too. A 35mm 4-track engagement of “How The West Was Won.” They ran it really well including the overture, intermission, entr'acte, and walk-out music.
There are photographs of the Loew’s Capitol (Cinerama) auditorium online taken from the screen looking towards the rear. The booths are as obvious as polkadot elephants standing in the desert. And, besides, the two side booths had to jut out into the auditorium in order to maintain the correct lens-to-screen distance relative to the “Baker” projector. (If you read the patent application for the CineMiracle projection system, there’s an explanation of why this has to be so.) And I wasn’t writing about the speakers at the Capitol, just the booths, all three of them, large, obtrusive, and covered in red drapes. So obvious in fact that at the end of many performances of HTWWW the audience turned around and applauded the three visibly grinning projectionists.
Have new wider seats been installed? I was there before the renovation in ‘02 for “Die Another Day,” and the seats were a little too confining for my ante-1926 posterior.
Wasn’t talking about the LA National, but the Times Square one.
All stateside Cinerama installations up to the Claridge in Montclair had three separate booths on the orchestra floor or hanging underneath the balcony. You couldn’t help but spot them. Any installations where “they were barely noticeable” were brand new installs mainly during the MGM-C'rama period. There was not a single US Cinerama installation prior to that in which the three booths were not placed on or just above the orchestra floor and visible. Not one US house prior to the end of the Stanley-Warner era was a built-for-Cinerama venue with projectors out-of-sight, out-of-mind. CineMiracle installations went one step further and even had some setups with the 3 projectors placed outside of a booth at all in a crossover aisle.
And, as for surround speakers, I haven’t been in a new-built multiplex (at least on the East coast) where the wall units were not visible, but I’m sure there are some somewhere. I forgot to mention the purpose-built Showscan houses where surrounds and subs were in plain view of the audience.
Re: “…technology in a theatre should not – and need not – intrude on decor”)
I would say it all depends…mainly on the viewer’s sensitivities. Remember those giant Altecs literally sitting on top of tables for the initial Cinerama showings….all those big-enough-to-walk-around-in Sensurround units…the massive array of subwoofers at the Astor Plaza during MegaSound…the Rivoli, the Penthouse, the DeMille, the Criterion all had big-boy high-visibility wall hangers….the DeMille (from “Banglasdesh” on) had their 5 stage units hanging over the proscenium…the National initially had Bose901 units on its side walls until members of the audience snatched them down and took them home or sold them….and of course those three “intrusive” Cinerama projection booths (pretty darn hard to hide them)….the under-the-seat “Tingler” units from William Castle….not to mention his “Emergo” skeletons….I recall reading that as far back as “Fantasia,” the Broadway’s walls were simply covered up in loudspeakers for Fantasound….and those “plumbing” units on the back of the Warner’s seats during Smell-O-Vision…me, myself, and I have only found those darn plastic 3-D glasses of the fifties to be annoying. But, as I said, it’s up to the individual’s sensitivies.
Hi, this question is most likely directed at the wrong theatre in Amsterdam, but does anybody remember in which theatre “MAS*H” (1970) premiered? I saw it there, and can only recall a very large, though not Cinerama, screen. Thanks in advance.
Sure, ante up for admission and transportation costs, and assure unlimited access to each auditorium running both flat and scope. Would be even better if you could provide the SMPTE test reel for a.r.’s for absolutely exact measurements, though I could get by with a simple “aspect ratio finder.” Wouldn’t need a sound pressure level meter, though. These ears haven’t begun to fail yet. OTOH, I’ve already “reviewed” most of the sites on these pages where I’ve visited although not in any official capacity, simply as a paying audience member who resents being hoodwinked by an ignorant theatre management and bamboozled by even more ignorant city magazine reviewers who apparently have too much tofu in their ears and eyes.
Why is it that nobody wants to cut to the heart of the matter when it comes to evaluating theatres? Aspect ratio? Screen illumination? Sound level and balance? These are the items that the recently departed Oscar-awarded John Pytlak wrote endlessly about from his Kodak offices and embodied in his motto “film done right."
Anybody can have digital surround sound A-chain equipment. I do in my living room…doesn’t necessarily make my living room an excellent theatre.
Why not point out the number of auditoria with common-width screen masking. I, for one, will demand of management that if it and its architects decide to willy-nilly chop off 10 to 15% of the screen image, that they also chop off 10 to 15% of the admission price…and the concession prices. Else, they will have 0% of my $upport.
Loss of memory cells here. Can anybody either verify or disprove the notion that a 70mm print of “Star Wars” played here either from the opening in May, 1977 or beginning at some point thereafter? Thanks
Terry: “Cinerama Stanley Warner was so upset that someone came along ‘National General’ and made a better Cinerama type system.”
That began way back in history. In brief: originally, the patents for the CineMiracle camera optical system were offered to Cinerama, Inc. which didn’t have the $ to pay (this was before the C'rama Inc, C'rama Prod., & SW-Cinerama trio was formed). On the projection side, R. McCullough of Nat'Gen'l who held the patent for a CineMiracle mirror-type projection had borrowed Act 2 of “This Is Cinerama” to run his projector tests. All was happy and Cinerama wasn’t too concerned about a future rival when, at the LA preem of “Cinerama Holiday,” Louis deRochemont, who had produced “C..Holiday,” got into a shouting match between the C'rama folks and the Nat'l Gen'l people and decided to take his next project over to the CineMiracle camp, claiming that the latter process was superior to what Cinerama could offer. This project is what eventually became “Windjammer.” When Cinerama’s 4th outing “Search for Paradise” tanked at the boxoffice, and “South Seas Adventure” was not yet ready for release, everybody concerned kissed and made up, and petitioned the Dept. of Justice to allow leased Cinerama houses to run non-Cinerama films, namly the CineMiracle “Windjammer” now “presented in Cinerama;” and over the next few years Cinerama incorporated a lot of CineMiracle’s innovations, particuarly on the projection side.
As for your next item, “…people brought the new DVD and didnt know about the preshow music,” in the Ziegfeld Theatre pages there’s a post about one customer at the “Lawrence” showing last year who complained to the
manager during the overture that the sound was on but there was no picture.
Three projectors…had to have 2 join lines. One join line means two projectors, and you could have seen that theatrically the same year in San Diego in “Thrillarama Adventure,” which, believe me, was singularly unimpressive.
Terry, I’ve been looking for decades for photos of the Chinese during the CineMiracle period, especially since whatever they had there was easy enough to remove in two days' time after “Windjammer” to make way for “Auntie Mame.” FWIW, one film technician reported on rec.arts.movies.tech some years ago that the downstairs booth at that time still had the floor plates in which the CineMiracle mirrors were fastened.
It certainly was! At the Philly Boyd the image was every bit as wide as the Cinerama projections, though of lesser height. Same for the NY Loew’s State, and I would certainly think the Hollywood Egyptian. Articles in “Variety” and other trades in late 1959 listed the engagements which utilized the anamorphic lenses,
Thanks, Mr. Apruzzese, hoping the audience was large enough to warrant more showings in the future.
I couldn’t make it to Suffern this past Saturday due to family obligations, but really had intended to see, and hear, “The Great Escape” there. Can anybody say how the digital sound mix was?
Yes, do please go back to cinemasightlines and continue debating folks on the west coast also, as you have been doing recently on other c-treasures pages.
And I’ll end the off-topic discussion here myself by reminding you that you are again wrong. Not all early Cinerama theatres had “cinerama red” curtains, not even the very first one, the Broadway, which had “BLUE.” And none of the first thirteen US engagements featured all “seats, walls, drapes, and carpet” in “cinerama red.” Not a one. That came much later with the so-called “Super-Cinerama” styles.
Check out projectionist Steve Kraus' photographs of one of many totally boothless CineMiracle installations.
* And as for the AWSM, I’ll tell Marty you said “hi.”
* See you on the SightLines.
* And sorry, folks, for the diversion
Yes, I remember my first time there (the original Orleans building), too. A 35mm 4-track engagement of “How The West Was Won.” They ran it really well including the overture, intermission, entr'acte, and walk-out music.
There are photographs of the Loew’s Capitol (Cinerama) auditorium online taken from the screen looking towards the rear. The booths are as obvious as polkadot elephants standing in the desert. And, besides, the two side booths had to jut out into the auditorium in order to maintain the correct lens-to-screen distance relative to the “Baker” projector. (If you read the patent application for the CineMiracle projection system, there’s an explanation of why this has to be so.) And I wasn’t writing about the speakers at the Capitol, just the booths, all three of them, large, obtrusive, and covered in red drapes. So obvious in fact that at the end of many performances of HTWWW the audience turned around and applauded the three visibly grinning projectionists.
Have new wider seats been installed? I was there before the renovation in ‘02 for “Die Another Day,” and the seats were a little too confining for my ante-1926 posterior.
Wasn’t talking about the LA National, but the Times Square one.
All stateside Cinerama installations up to the Claridge in Montclair had three separate booths on the orchestra floor or hanging underneath the balcony. You couldn’t help but spot them. Any installations where “they were barely noticeable” were brand new installs mainly during the MGM-C'rama period. There was not a single US Cinerama installation prior to that in which the three booths were not placed on or just above the orchestra floor and visible. Not one US house prior to the end of the Stanley-Warner era was a built-for-Cinerama venue with projectors out-of-sight, out-of-mind. CineMiracle installations went one step further and even had some setups with the 3 projectors placed outside of a booth at all in a crossover aisle.
And, as for surround speakers, I haven’t been in a new-built multiplex (at least on the East coast) where the wall units were not visible, but I’m sure there are some somewhere. I forgot to mention the purpose-built Showscan houses where surrounds and subs were in plain view of the audience.
Thanks. I do recall a very large balcony, tho.
Re: “…technology in a theatre should not – and need not – intrude on decor”)
I would say it all depends…mainly on the viewer’s sensitivities. Remember those giant Altecs literally sitting on top of tables for the initial Cinerama showings….all those big-enough-to-walk-around-in Sensurround units…the massive array of subwoofers at the Astor Plaza during MegaSound…the Rivoli, the Penthouse, the DeMille, the Criterion all had big-boy high-visibility wall hangers….the DeMille (from “Banglasdesh” on) had their 5 stage units hanging over the proscenium…the National initially had Bose901 units on its side walls until members of the audience snatched them down and took them home or sold them….and of course those three “intrusive” Cinerama projection booths (pretty darn hard to hide them)….the under-the-seat “Tingler” units from William Castle….not to mention his “Emergo” skeletons….I recall reading that as far back as “Fantasia,” the Broadway’s walls were simply covered up in loudspeakers for Fantasound….and those “plumbing” units on the back of the Warner’s seats during Smell-O-Vision…me, myself, and I have only found those darn plastic 3-D glasses of the fifties to be annoying. But, as I said, it’s up to the individual’s sensitivies.
Hi, this question is most likely directed at the wrong theatre in Amsterdam, but does anybody remember in which theatre “MAS*H” (1970) premiered? I saw it there, and can only recall a very large, though not Cinerama, screen. Thanks in advance.
Sure, ante up for admission and transportation costs, and assure unlimited access to each auditorium running both flat and scope. Would be even better if you could provide the SMPTE test reel for a.r.’s for absolutely exact measurements, though I could get by with a simple “aspect ratio finder.” Wouldn’t need a sound pressure level meter, though. These ears haven’t begun to fail yet. OTOH, I’ve already “reviewed” most of the sites on these pages where I’ve visited although not in any official capacity, simply as a paying audience member who resents being hoodwinked by an ignorant theatre management and bamboozled by even more ignorant city magazine reviewers who apparently have too much tofu in their ears and eyes.
Why is it that nobody wants to cut to the heart of the matter when it comes to evaluating theatres? Aspect ratio? Screen illumination? Sound level and balance? These are the items that the recently departed Oscar-awarded John Pytlak wrote endlessly about from his Kodak offices and embodied in his motto “film done right."
Anybody can have digital surround sound A-chain equipment. I do in my living room…doesn’t necessarily make my living room an excellent theatre.
Why not point out the number of auditoria with common-width screen masking. I, for one, will demand of management that if it and its architects decide to willy-nilly chop off 10 to 15% of the screen image, that they also chop off 10 to 15% of the admission price…and the concession prices. Else, they will have 0% of my $upport.
Thanks for the info, folks.
Loss of memory cells here. Can anybody either verify or disprove the notion that a 70mm print of “Star Wars” played here either from the opening in May, 1977 or beginning at some point thereafter? Thanks
sorry about that last snip of this posting…
Terry: “Cinerama Stanley Warner was so upset that someone came along ‘National General’ and made a better Cinerama type system.”
That began way back in history. In brief: originally, the patents for the CineMiracle camera optical system were offered to Cinerama, Inc. which didn’t have the $ to pay (this was before the C'rama Inc, C'rama Prod., & SW-Cinerama trio was formed). On the projection side, R. McCullough of Nat'Gen'l who held the patent for a CineMiracle mirror-type projection had borrowed Act 2 of “This Is Cinerama” to run his projector tests. All was happy and Cinerama wasn’t too concerned about a future rival when, at the LA preem of “Cinerama Holiday,” Louis deRochemont, who had produced “C..Holiday,” got into a shouting match between the C'rama folks and the Nat'l Gen'l people and decided to take his next project over to the CineMiracle camp, claiming that the latter process was superior to what Cinerama could offer. This project is what eventually became “Windjammer.” When Cinerama’s 4th outing “Search for Paradise” tanked at the boxoffice, and “South Seas Adventure” was not yet ready for release, everybody concerned kissed and made up, and petitioned the Dept. of Justice to allow leased Cinerama houses to run non-Cinerama films, namly the CineMiracle “Windjammer” now “presented in Cinerama;” and over the next few years Cinerama incorporated a lot of CineMiracle’s innovations, particuarly on the projection side.
As for your next item, “…people brought the new DVD and didnt know about the preshow music,” in the Ziegfeld Theatre pages there’s a post about one customer at the “Lawrence” showing last year who complained to the
manager during the overture that the sound was on but there was no picture.
to the
manager during the overture that the sound was on but there was no picture.
Three projectors…had to have 2 join lines. One join line means two projectors, and you could have seen that theatrically the same year in San Diego in “Thrillarama Adventure,” which, believe me, was singularly unimpressive.
Terry, I’ve been looking for decades for photos of the Chinese during the CineMiracle period, especially since whatever they had there was easy enough to remove in two days' time after “Windjammer” to make way for “Auntie Mame.” FWIW, one film technician reported on rec.arts.movies.tech some years ago that the downstairs booth at that time still had the floor plates in which the CineMiracle mirrors were fastened.
Question from the audience: can the CP-500 and CP-650 handle magnetic formats 40-41 and 42-43?
70mm AND 8-track stereo…somebody better rush over and tell Marty Hart his widescreen museum site is missing something :)
…and I didn’t think UA had any domestic 70mm prints of “Hawaii” released.
How can advance tickets for P&B be ordered?
Michael Coate is no longer associated with FromScripttoDVD, I understand. However, I’ll pass your note re “Sat Nite Fever” to him.
It certainly was! At the Philly Boyd the image was every bit as wide as the Cinerama projections, though of lesser height. Same for the NY Loew’s State, and I would certainly think the Hollywood Egyptian. Articles in “Variety” and other trades in late 1959 listed the engagements which utilized the anamorphic lenses,
Does anybody know if the print of THE GREAT ESCAPE which will be unspooling here Sept. 8 is 4-track mag or remixed to Dolby Optical?