So, too, was This Is Cinerama, the format’s introduction to the world. Hosted by journalist, media personality, and Cinerama investor Lowell Thomas, the film begins with a history of filmmaking that starts with its stone-age roots before getting to the one sequence no viewer of This Is Cinerama has ever forgotten: a real-time, stomach-dropping trip on a roller coaster. From there the film proceeds to Vienna, Edinburgh, Milan, and other locations before a short intermission, a visit to Florida’s Cypress Gardens, and then an aerial trip across the United States visiting landmarks both natural and man-made, set to patriotic music. It’s less a film than a demo reel, and at least part of what it’s demonstrating has become such a part of everyday life, it no longer seems novel: the miracle of stereophonic sound, spotlighted here with a performance by the Vienna Boys’ Choir. The sights of This Is Cinerama, however, remain a stunning demonstration of the power of moving a camera—or three—through space.
That can’t really be duplicated on even the largest home theater system, but the This Is Cinerama set—which includes both a Blu-ray and DVD edition of the film with a generous assortment of extras—offers a taste of the experience. Assembled by film editor David Strohmaier, it’s clearly a labor of love. (Strohmaier has also just released a restoration of Windjammer, shot in the rival Cinemiracle format.) Shown in the “Smilebox” format, a curved letterbox simulating the Cinerama screen that Strohmaier introduced with the How The West Was Won Blu-ray, it suggests some of the enveloping qualities of the Cinerama experience. The film itself remains a treat, albeit one whose pleasures vary in quality from segment to segment. The visit to the Vienna Boys’ Choir will probably only delight boys’-choir enthusiasts, and while the segment filmed at La Scala captures some of the enormity of the venue, it also doubles as a reminder as to why filmed opera has never really caught on. But the sweeping excursions to beautiful locales remain powerful, even if the home-video version, like Cinerama itself, can’t quite hide the seams. It’s impossible to line three projected images up perfectly, which creates a ripple effect at the points where the three images become one. Nothing ever solved that problem, which probably assured Cinerama would remain forever a novelty. It was hard to shoot and hard to show, and even when it worked, it never worked completely. But as follies go, it was a beauty.
Key features: Many, including an audio commentary, a “breakdown reel” of footage played when Cinerama inevitably encountered technical difficulties, and a tribute to the New Neon Cinema in Dayton, Ohio, which revived the format in the ’90s with the help of a Cinerama enthusiast who had set up a system in his home.
