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Posted: |
Jul 21, 2010 - 8:10 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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..........Add the Hollywood Paramount to your horizontal vistaVision projectors list, too, Ed. Apparently at least STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND and TO CATCH A THIEF played there in horizontal VV.
I doubt it. "Strategic Air Command" played horizontally at The Stanley-Warner Theatre in Beverly Hills which is the only theater in Southern California to be officially listed as having horizontal projectors. Sadly, many years ago that great theater was demolished, replaced by a parking lot.
The Hollywood Paramount (now Disney's El Capitan) is where I saw "House of Wax" in 3D in 1953. The special Natural Vision quad projector setup remained there until at least 1955. The projectors could also be operated independently for conventional projection. "Bwana Devil" also played in 3D at that theater......
OK. I've just located some newspaper sections from my collection covering the vistaVision period we're discussing, and have them in front of me.
1- First is a xerox copy of an ad from an industry trade paper of the period. It looks like it might be Motion Picture Herald from the typeface. It's a promo/ad article about the premiere of STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND at the New York Paramount Theatre, with photos of the premiere crowd and the theatre marquee. We know the New York Paramount had horizontal vistaVision projection for this engagement, and the marquee says, in big type, "Spectacular Presentation of VistaVision on the World's Largest Theatre Screen."
2- Two ads for the Los Angeles presentation of STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND. Ed is correct about this---it DID premiere at the Stanley Warner Beverly Hills Theatre and in horizontal vistaVision. The ads say, "Hear it in Perspecta Stereophonic Sound---a history making presentation in VistaVision. Live it....on one of the world's Largest Curvilinear Theatre Screens....." This is obviously mid-1950s show-biz double-speak for the non-technical audience which doesn't know what the heck horizontal vistaVision is.
3- An ad for TO CATCH A THIEF opening at the Hollywood Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles in August 1955. This ad says, "Hear it in Perspecta Stereophonic Sound and See It Now on our big New Curvilinear Screen!"
4- Surprise! Surprise! An ad for THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS at the Hollywood Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles, opening in June, 1955. This ad says, "Hear it in Perspecta Stereophonic Sound and See It on our big New Curvilinear Screen!"
5- Several ads for other vistaVision films opening in Los Angeles in the same period. RUN FOR COVER, playing at the Orpheum-Downtown and Hollywood-Hollywood and other chain runs, WE'RE NO ANGELS, playing exclusively at the Egyptian-Hollywood, and THE FAR HORIZONS, playing at the Orpheum-Downtown, the Vogue-Hollywood, and the Picwood-Westwood and selected drive-ins. None of these engagements make mention of Perspecta or Curvilinear Screens and we can pretty safely assume they are all standard 35mm vistaVision prints.
6- I also pulled two sheets referring to the WHITE CHRISTMAS and TEN COMMANDMENTS engagements in Los Angeles. WHITE CHRISTMAS premiered at the Stanley Warner-Beverly Hills and added the Paramount-Downtown to its playdates the next day. Neither makes mention of anything unusual about the screening presentation. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS played its exclusive hard-ticket roadshow engagement at the Stanley Warner-Beverly Hills in 1956, and, again, nothing unusual is mentioned about the form of its presentation.
In terms of all this, I think we can deduce that, sometime after its normal screening of WHITE CHRISTMAS in 1954, the Stanley Warner added horizontal vistaVision and Perspecta Sound to its booth for the STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND presentation in April, 1955, combined with a newer and larger screen. At a short time after that (in mid-1955) the Paramount-Hollywood also added horizontal vistaVision to its booth, as well as a new, larger screen on the stage, so that it could show THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS starting in June, 1955. My personal impression is that by 1956, the Stanley Warner did NOT run THE TEN COMMANDMENTS in horizontal vistaVision, so those projectors may well have been shipped over to the Paramount-Hollywood (Paramount's flagship house) to enable the SEVEN LITTLE FOYS and TO CATCH A THIEF presentations earlier. Or Paramount may have rustled up a couple of projectors from somewhere else for these screenings at the Paramount-Hollywood, one of their key US theaters.
Until strong negative proof otherwise develops, I'm going to believe that the Stanley Warner AND the Paramount Hollywood, simultaneously or independently, provided horizontal vistaVision engagements in Los Angeles during this exciting mid-'50s period.
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Posted: |
Jul 21, 2010 - 9:23 PM
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By: |
Ed Nassour
(Member)
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I just discovered some interesting info on a theater forum discussing horizontal projection of Vistavision. After someone mentioned horizontal projectors were installed at the Radio City Music Hall for the premier of Paramount's "White Christmas," someone added the following info:
The machines we had at Radio City were installed just for that premiere, and taken out after the run. They didn't have soundheads on them, so they were interlocked with the end two 35mm machines. According to Ben Olevsky, who was head projectionist at the time, they almost didn't use them and then decided the picture looked so good they had to. He said you could hear them running when you got on the Executive elevator and it reached the 2nd Mezzanine. Since they were outside the main booth in spotlight booths, the spot ports which were open had to be draped with duveteen to quiet the projector noise during the feature.
And I found the following at 70mm.com:
Horizontal projection was seen in England the following year during June 1955, when a pair of Century horizontal projectors were installed at the Plaza, of Piccadilly Circus in London, to show Paramount's "Strategic Air Command" on a 43 by 23 foot screen.
So it appears one theater in England was equipped to show Vistavision horizontally. It used horizontal projectors built by British Gaumont-Kalee.
Doing more research I believe only "White Christmas" played horizontally at the Radio City Music Hall. Those projectors were removed after the film finished its run. The Paramount Theater in New York showed at least two Paramount Vistavision features horizontally before yanking the projectors.
By late 1955 a decision was made to cease all horizontal prints since they had to be made suing Eastman color print stock which didn't compare favorably with the Technicolor dye-transfer system which was used for Vistavision reduction prints. Tests were made between the two print formats which revealed the reduction IB prints had better color saturation. The increased image sharpness and better sound coming from horizontal prints wasn't deemed cost-effective so it was dropped.
And so far no documentation lists the Hollywood Paramount having horizontal projection capability.
I did find this on a tech forum:
The following theaters introduced horizontal Vistavision (sound-on-film) with "Strategic Air Command"...
Paramount (New York City)-This theater had six projectors in the booth at this time: three horizontal VV Century projectors and three Simplex XL's for Cinemascope-whew! Screen 36 by 65 feet.
Stanley Warner (Hollywood)-4/28/55
Stanley (Philadelphia)-5/5/55
Saenger (New Orleans)-5/6/55
Capitol (Washington D.C.) 5/12/55
State-Lake (Chicago) 5/12/55
Imperial (Toronto) 5/12/55
Penn (Pittsburgh, PA) 5/19/55
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Posted: |
Jul 21, 2010 - 9:58 PM
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By: |
Ed Nassour
(Member)
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I'm surprised you're essentially denying the studio's logic in running either of these films---top Paramount product---in horizontal vistaVision---in Hollywood---the home of Paramount Studios, the home of Hollywood's technicians, the home of Technicolor's lab where the prints could be easily made, and particularly at a time when Paramount was convinced of the efficacy of its process over CinemaScope and wanted to convince others in the local industry.
Well, Hollywood was and still is more of name coined to describe the location of the entire film industry. Hollywood is not a real self-incorporated city. MGM was housed in Culver City, but still stated on their end title credit that the film was produced in Hollywood. 20th Century Fox's main studio was and still is in West Los Angeles (now Century City). Republic was located in Studio City. Warner Brothers and Walt Disney were and still are in Burbank.
One of the most prestigious theaters was the Fox Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles.
Most of the studio moguls lived well outside of Hollywood favoring the posh surroundings of Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and Brentwood so I doubt they'd demand a theater in Hollywood be equipped for horizontal projection. But the Warner Beverly Hills which was closer was equipped.
But more importantly, by the mid-1950s, Paramount execs decided to drop horizontal projection. I saw "The Man Who Knew Too Much" first run at the Hollywood Paramount and can say without reservation that it was shown in conventional 35mm Technicolor. Had it been shown horizontally the sound would have been striking since the film would have ran at 180 fps. I distinctly remember the sound not being spectacular in any respect. This is something that bugged me about Paramount films. Their music tended to sound either muffled or worse, shrill. After enjoying the wonderful realistic sound that came from magnetic stereo, when it came to features made by Paramount, their tracks sounded lousy.
In talking with a film historian I know, he believes the two horizontal projectors installed at the Warner Beverly were pulled sometime in 1955 and then stored somewhere. He feels only "Strategic Air Command" played horizontally in Los Angeles.
Back to the Paramount Hollywood. "Gunfight at the OK Corral" (1957) played there first run and not using a horizontal print. I know since I saw the film there not once, but three times! I loved the Tiomkin's score. They ran a Technicolor IB print which had vivid colors not obtainable back then with Eastman color print stock which had to be used with horizontal prints.
Finally, by the 1950s the Hollywood Paramount Theater was no longer owned by Paramount Pictures. The 1948 anti-trust ruling that ordered studios to divest themselves of theater chains meant the Hollywood Paramount could show any film from any studio. They ran Warner's "House of Wax" in 3D. Over the years I saw lots of films there from many studios. So Paramount Studios could not force the Hollywood Paramount to install horizontal projectors. The irony here was the Warner Beverly Hills got the installation.
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And how's the search for THE WARLORD going?
Yavar
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One thing at a time....got 4 other scores lined up first....
Wow, that's awesome, James. At one point it was looking as if you were going to do just a few more "musts" and then call it quits because you didn't think anything else would have a big enough draw. I'm so glad you're going to keep going with your excellent re-recording series well into the future. After all, *somebody* has got to keep MorgBonnStrom's game up and it sure as heck doesn't look like it's going to be Varese or Intrada any more...
Are any of those four other scores for Prometheus (or another label) like The Alamo was, or are they all for Tadlow?
Yavar
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