Hawaii Cinerama
1550 S. King Street,
Honolulu,
HI
96826
1550 S. King Street,
Honolulu,
HI
96826
11 people
favorited this theater
Showing 101 - 108 of 108 comments
Makes sense Charles, since it was about that time The Dome started gearing up for three strip again. Glad they made use of that equipment which collected dust for so many years.
I should also mention, Consolidated came to their senses and played “Empire” and “Jedi” in 70mm at the Cinerama. As a matter of fact 70mm came back in a big way during the early 80s with 70mm prints playing at the Cinerama, Waikiki #1 and #2, and Royal theatres Royal in Waikiki. Incidently, since Waikiki #1 did not have a Dolby processor, Universal made a special 70mm print of “ET” without Dolby encoding for that theatre. It was ther first movie to be loaded on the newly installed platter film transport system. A platter was installed because it was a one man booth and having to make changeovers running 70mm on both sides became a problem. Normally the 35mm prints were run off 6k reels holding about three 2k reels of film spliced together for about an an hour of film. 70mm reels could only hold one reel (18-20 mins) so one side and eventually both sides were platter converted. Soon,
Waikiki #3 also had a platter installed making it possible for one projectionist to run all three theatres.
Charles, Was the equipment moved after the theatre closed in Hawaii?I worked as a projectionist at the Hawaii Cinerama from 1972 thru 1982. The complete Cinerama projector in Able booth was still there, as was the magnetic 7 track sound reproducer in Baker booth. The projector heads from Baker and Charly had ben retro-fitted with standard 35mm projector parts and installed in Charly booth were they served as the two 35/70 projectors untill a platter was installed in late 1980s. The two projectors in Baker booth still had the words “Cinerama” on the glass doors. I ran the single strip 70mm version of “This is Cinerama” there in 1972. By the way, manwithnoname, you did not miss much, we showed “Star Wars” in 35mm Dolby optical stereo. The movie played day and date with the Kapiolani were it showed in 35mm with mono sound. Yikes! Another sore spot for me was, only the 70mm sound head clusters were installed, so the Cinerama never played 35mm four track prints. We would receive several 35mm magnetic/optical prints over the years and had to play them optical.
Pacific Theatres, owners of the Cinerama Dome in L.A. also owns the Consolidated Amusements chain in Hawaii, so the movement of equipment from this theatre to the Dome was basically an internal transfer.
Pacific Theatres, owners of the Cinemrama Dome in L.A. also owns the Consolidated Amusements chain in Hawaii, so the movement of equipment from this theatre to the Dome was basically an internal transfer.
The Hawaii Cinerama remained one of the cleanest theatres in Honolulu until its last day. We visited the Cinerama at least once a year on out trips to Hawaii. I remember the theatre manager at the theatre, He was a medium build gentleman and seemed to be a true Hawaiian. His warmth and friendliness as he greeted the patrons was unusual in this day and time. It will be one of those much missed theatres of the past. What a shame to loose such a beautiful and clean theatre, not to mention the large screen and excellant sound system.
Cinerama was the ONLY theater on Oahu that had a screen shaped as seen in the photo above. Cinerama was the hub of the 3 Star Wars movies which ran atleast a good year on each movie. In The 90’s Multiplexes where the thing to do and the survival single screen theaters began to look bleaker.
The Cinerama battled it out with unique ways to continue on but decided to bow out of the spotlight in 1999.
Shame to close this great theater. I watched “How The West Was One” there in the mid-1960’s at LEAST 10 times.