This Is Cinerama

The writer Bill Bryson once described watching This is Cinerama as one of the most enjoyable two hours of his life. Moreover it was as close to experiencing time travel as it was possible to get. Unfortunately, "This is Cinerama" contains scenes of cultural content such as opera and ballet which may be distressing to persons of an attention span of five nano seconds or less. The wheel has come full circle and the process lives on in State of the Art flight simulation systems for military and civil applications.

I remember seeing "This Is Cinerama" in Detroit in 1953, the second city in the US to get the installation, after New York. Mine was a balcony seat, and that was a disappointment. The picture appeared as though projected on top of a huge ball. Also, the vertical strips composing the screen often wiggled a bit, perhaps do to air currents or drafts in the theater. Maybe this problem was not noticeable to those in orchestra seats. The lesson learned was that I would pop for the more expensive orchestra seat for future productions, a couple of which I saw and thoroughly enjoyed. "How the West Was Won," being presented at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood this fall, has always been on my list to see in the three-strip format. Have ticket; will be there.

While John Harvey's Dayton, Ohio print of THIS IS CINERAMA certainly showed its age in terms of wear and tear, the color on that print (in dye-transfer process from a 1961 re-print) showed no age at all, and is superior to the newly printed Cinerama Dome print (off the aging and somewhat faded camera negative).