The CinemaScope Story

[nigelchamberlain]

The first CinemascopE films had the wider 2.55/1 aspect ratio which later changed to 2.35/1. The Robe had 4 track magnetic stereo sound. The quality was good but not a patch on 70mm Todd AO. I ran The Longest Day which was 2.55/1 CinemascopE, 4 track mag and B&W! The only one and it looked superb. Nigel

[brianmuhlingBUM]

Martin Hart! Always the genius in his presentation in the mechanics of the movie industry. Thanks Martin. 😊

[hebneh]

Theaters all had wide screens by the time I was going to the movies, and the difference in the picture ratio was made really obvious to me when I saw “That’s Entertainment!” In 1974. That film consisted of clips of old MGM musicals, so the image shifted between the older and newer sizes throughout. I remember the day I saw it very well because after I left the theater I went home and watched President Nixon resign live on national TV.

[jorgevillavicencio]

I was born in 1959 and since early in my childhood I was introduced to movies by a dear aunt who had was responsible for my interest in the art of film making. As a child I went to see all the Disney animated feature films, all in the square aspect ratios. Then one day I was taken to see Sleeping Beauty. I was completely mesmerized by the giant screen and stereo sound. To this day it remains my favorite of all animated feature films. Fox was a pioneer in all aspects of filmmaking. And who doesn't like the fanfare at the beginning of their movies.

[williamsnyder]

This is an excellent posting and certainly of interest to me as someone who studies film history. I grew up in the 1950s and I remember the excitement when both CinemaScope and VistaVision were created. To my child's eyes, CinemaScope seemed exciting while VistaVision films shown in my little neighborhood theater didn't seem ''wide screen'' at all. The irony of the wide screen boom, though, was that in the first three years of CinemaScope, three black and white flat screen films (''From Here to Eternity, '' ''On the Waterfront'' and ''Marty'') won Best Picture honors. And to make matters even more embarrassing over at 20th Century-Fox, the only two CinemaScope films ever to win Best Picture were made by rival studios: ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' at Columbia and ''Gigi'' at MGM.

[JoseMorales-lwnt]

Just seemed to make sense, in hindsight, that Bausch & Lomb would be the company responsible for the optical lenses that made these great films possible. They were the folks looking to help with the human vision for decades prior to their venture into Cinemascope.❤

[vangmx]

My hats off to Fox for making anamorphic films a success and I will always love the anamorphic look over flat lenses. Sadly, many movies today have moved on to digital cameras where the photographed picture is utilizing a Super-35 sized sensor for the 2.35:1 aspect ratio but luckily, more and more films are now being captured with anamorphic lenses to bring back that special and familiar anamorphic look.

[rizmid]

An evergreen classic movie shot with a marvelous technological achievement of its time which is still adored and remembered to this day!!

[JerryKJensen]

Excellent documentary on CinemaScope. I remember its introduction well.

[fromthesidelines]

7:41- Don Allen's "good luck charm". He narrated Allen's 1953 documentary, "The Sea Around Us", which won an Oscar as "Best Documentary Feature". From then on, he had Forbes involved in such films as "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", and appeared as the "Newscaster" in both versions of the 1965 pilot episode of "LOST IN SPACE".

[moosefactory]

I remember back in the 60's wondering how something on cellophane film could be broadcast over the airwaves. The only thing I could think of is having a live camera aimed at screen projection to allow broadcast. Little did I know that this idea had already been around for a long time and had a name. I also did not know about magnetic tape storage for broadcasting TV shows.

[MANTLEBERG]

The kids and techno geeks will never see a true techniscope film projected with carbon arcs, this was something else...

[fw]

My uncle took me to see 2001 A Space Odyssey in Cinerama. Amazing experience for a young SciFi fan. I lived in Clearwater, Fla and the only Cinerama theatre was in Tampa. Quite a drive to see a film but well worth it.

[derekd]

I was lucky to be working at a fox equipped cinema from 1978. We had 70mm & 4track magnetic sound along later with Dolby. We had to change the intermittent sprocket over to Fox-Hole for running 4track mag due to the sprocket holes being made smaller to accommodate the mag tracks. The projectors we multi convertible. Great times!

[The_Husband_of_Jane_Lane]

I briefly just watched this featurette. The Robe made history by being the first feature length film to be filmed in widescreen and cinemascope and it paved the way for more widescreen films for years to come. Without it, we won't have any widescreen films with anamorphic lenses like "Assault on Precinct 13".

[RobertR]

Nice documentary! I was born after widescreen was adopted, so I never saw the old Academy Ratio in the theater when I was a kid. In fact, I didn't see any 50s or earlier film in the theater, only on TV. Of course, I never paid attention to the ratio of the films I did see in the theater. A lot of films were done in the 1.85 ratio, so the cropping done to them for TV showings was relatively minor. It didn't occur to me that scope ratio films were being panned and scanned on TV. When I finally became aware of such things, the amount of visual information that was missing on TV was shocking. Now I would never accept anything other than the original aspect ratio being shown.

[Dog.soldier]

Studios also lost their theatre chains.. a big financial blow

[steve-]

When I was growing up in North Carolina in the ‘50s, movie theaters were the only places in our town with air conditioning. Homes, churches, and even department stores were not air conditioned. So we went to movies whatever the quality.

[gterrymed]

In the 1980s, the Majors started their own TV networks; in Philadelphia, we had FOX-29, WB-57, Paramount-17 .

[jaciboid]

They need to teach kids about this in school. This IS