Hoyts Esquire Theatre 238 Bourke Street, Melbourne, VIC - 1959 - “The Miracle of Todd-AO"
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1959 - “The Miracle of Todd-AO" - Screening with South Pacific was a featurette called “The Miracle of Todd-AO". A short film demonstrating the new 70mm widescreen Todd-AO system.
After a prologue that shows all that the eye can see through the Todd-AO wide angle lens, we take a ride in a roller-coaster, fly over the canyons of the Grand Teton Mountains, ski in Sun Valley, and follow a motorcycle chase through the San Francisco.
South Pacific screened with “The Miracle of Todd-AO" from (Feb 1959 to Nov 1961) that’s 146 weeks for a total of 1873 performances.
South Pacific at the Esquire was the first 70mm production to screen in Melbourne. This required a new larger screen (less curved) and a new wall to wall proscenium. A special stage curtain was installed featuring a motive of hibiscus flowers. The rake was steeper & the floor of the projection booth had to raised. Hoyts installed Philips DP70 projectors with Ashcraft lamp-houses.
Print wear * - It took three prints of South Pacific to complete the season, the first screened 946 performances, the second 795, and the third finished with 132 performances.
Todd-AO - Nothing better - In this writers opinion The roller-coaster ride in “The Miracle of Todd-AO" could be compared favourably to the one in “This is Cinerama”, because there are no join lines to cause distraction - In one word Exhilarating
Contributed by Greg Lynch -
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Todd-AO was a great 70mm curved screen system. But after Mike Todd died they let theatres show the system in any 70mm screen flat or curved. This took away the exclusive nice curve It had at first. They brought in the 70mm print of ‘South Pacific’ to the UA Alexandria Theatre in San Francisco and ran It on a almost flat screen and advertised It as Todd-AO. UA was running out of roadshow 70mm cinemas in SF as just up the street on Geary ST The UA Coronet Theatre had a true deluxe original curved Todd-AO screen used for ‘Oklahoma’ and other Todd-AO productions. The Coronet was torn down many years ago when UA was money hungry. The old UA Alexandria still stands in very bad shape.