TCL Chinese Theatre
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Uploaded on: August 14, 2017
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Gala world premiere on April 8th, 1958
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Thanks CC for this great ad. It must have been something to see this giant curved Cinemircle screen with curtains in 1958 at the Chinese Theatre. My THS friend Ted Gooding was there and he has told me many stories of the giant curtain when It opened so slow and the sounds of the ocean waves thru the many surround speakers around the Fox Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood CA USA. While the new tall Imax screen now in place is nice, I wish I could have seen the wrap around curve that The Cinemiracle screen produced with all 3 projectors coming from the new downstairs projection booth with mirrors.
As we all know, much of this production was filmed in 35mm…probably scope. I first saw it at the Opera House in Chicago. The ONLY movie I ever saw there. BIG screen, but boring production.
My goodness this was nothing more than a 35mm cinemascope blown up?! That’s all Cinemiracle was?
Almost all of the interior scenes of the ship were 35mm…either scope or flat. A lot of the action scenes in HOW THE WEST WAS WON was shot in 35mm scope.
Don’t think those heavy Cinerama cameras wouldn’t sink those small boats. The railroad log car scenes were in 35mm scope (those scenes somewhat more grainy than 3-camera Cinerama. All of these facts have already been in print.
And, as we all know, Cinerama and Cinemiracle could be shown in either 3-booth or single booth with mirror arrangements. Our Strand Theatre showed the Cinerama films (after the booth change to Cinemiracle) with the Cinemiracle mirror arrangement,. thus having a slighter visible join-line than with Cinerama.
I admit an error. Our Palace Theatre played Cinerama. During this period, the Strand installed Cinemiracle equipment and a bigger curved screen than the one already in place (the Strand was one our many “roadshow” houses. Therefore, the Strand didn’t play Cinerama until after the “Windjammer” engagement.
I know this is a little late but I just read some of the comments about 1st run & neighborhood. Here in Boston especially in the 40’s-60’s 1st run was downtown Boston. Neighborhood was in outlying districts. Any place that wanted 1st run had to be 25 miles from downtown Boston. We did have 2nd & 3rd run houses right downtown, namelt he Pilgrim, Center & Publix which eventually became porn. The Pilgrim would occassionall be 1st run, namel the Tingler because they were the only one that would electrify their seats, It did great business even though it was in the seediest part of Downtown Washington st. We had many big 1st run theatres that were not exactly downtown st such as the Cheri, Capri Nickelodeon Paris Fenway, and Charles. These were even hard ticket reserved 70mm houses mostly owned by the notorious Sack/USA chain which eventually became Lowes houses(Not E.M. Loews).