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Author Topic: New HOW THE WEST WAS WON on DVD is great Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 09-11-2008 03:38 PM                        I am glad I had the opportunity to see all of the three strip travelogue Cinerama films including WINDJAMMER which was actually filmed in Cinemiracle but presented in Cinerama at the long defunct Princess Theatre in downtown Honolulu in the fifties. The Princess was a very majestic theatre with a very high ceiling and a huge lobby with sitting capacity of over a thousand in a sloped stadium configuration. The theatre closed long before MGM produced and released the first two non travelogue films, THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM and HOW THE WEST WAS WON. In order to show these films, Consolidated Theatres which was locally owned at the time had gutted their neighborhood theatre, the Pawaa and re constructed and refurbished it with three strip projection Cinerama. The theatre was renamed "Cinerama" and it was a beautiful house The first film about the Grimm brothers was entertaining in great part due to the fact that it was in three strip Cinerama but the film itself was not very good. The 2nd film, HOW THE WEST WAS WON however was awesome! I took my mother and my father to see it and up until this day, I still remember how wonderful the film was in Cinerama. I had planned to see it again before it had ended it's Hawaiian road show engagement but did not and I still regret it today. I did get to see HOW THE WEST WAS WON again almost a year later in 35mm and it was dreadful and so was the first DVD that was struck from that format. After wishing for a restored version on DVD preserving the full scope of the original three strip image, it had finally became a reality this week when Warner Brothers Home Video released HOW THE WEST WAS WON on both DVD and Blue Ray with restored picture and color as well as it's full three strip projection aspect ratio. The movie is presented on two discs on DVD and the wonderful documentary, CINERAMA ADVENTURE about the Cinerama process on a 3rd disc which was produced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science. The documentary featured a lot of scenes from most of the Cinerama films in Smilebox, a video recreation of the movies presented on the curved screen. The process is very impressive and I like it! HOW THE WEST WAS WON is in letterbox only on DVD but the entire film is in Smilebox on the Blue Ray version. Because I do not have a Blue Ray player yet, I bought the Ultimate DVD box set but I also purchased it on Blue Ray to enjoy it's Cinerama recreation when buy a player very soon. My brother has a player and a Sony 1080i big screen HDTV set and I will watch the movie in Smilebox with his family this weekend. Beside the movie retaining it's full Cinerama three strip aspect ratio, the horizontal lines on the screen due to the multiple projection method has been removed and this makes the film more enjoyable to watch on a home theatre screen. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-11-2008 05:33 PM                     Claude, The Actual Cinemiracle projection process also got rid of the annoying join lines by bouncing the left and right panel images off mirrors. The light fell off the edge of the mirror creating an almost invisible join area on screen. In addition Cinemiracle also lowered the density at the edges of the images where the images joined so as not to get a double light level stripe at the join either. Sad that Cinerama sacked the better of the two projection systems! There was a guy that worked for us for a long time whose father was head of projection at Cinemiracle. Mark  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 09-11-2008 05:42 PM                        Mark, I believe the first and only film in Cinemiracle, WINDJAMMER had it's world premier at the Gauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on April 8, 1958 Theatre and played there for 36 weeks. In addition to seeing the movie at the Princess in Cinerama , I recall seeing again years later at the Queen Theatre here in Honolulu in 70mm. Come to think of it, I did not recall seeing any distracting horizontal lines on the print. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Doug Willming Film Handler Posts: 45 From: San Antonio, TX, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 09-12-2008 12:20 PM                        I agree, this is the type of film Blu-Ray was made for - incredible picture, looks like it was shot yesterday. Amazing job of cleaning it up and softening the join lines. This film has been on DVD for some time in a horrible non-anamorphic version; watching this is like seeing the film for the first time. The SmileBox effect is really cool at replicating the "fish-eye" distortion curvature of a Cinerama screen, although you need a big TV or projection unit to really appreciate it. As for the film itself, yes, it's corny in spots, but there is some incredible spectacle and production value that just isn't done anymore - I know there are many of you out there more interested in seeing Ironman 2, but HTWWW is a must-see as a part of movie history. The Cinerama documentary and commentary on the film are very interesting as well.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 09-14-2008 03:31 AM                     There is a pretty interesting review of How the West Was Won at the DVD Beaver web site, complete with screen shots of both the standard letterbox and smilebox versions of the show. The review can be found here. I was skeptical of how the smilebox version could play. But after looking at the screen shots, it seems like the smilebox version could actually be pretty enjoyable to watch.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 09-14-2008 02:40 PM                        I had the opportunity to go to my brother's house last night and watched the Blue Ray Smile Box version of HOW THE WEST WAS WON on his 52 inch 1080p set and what I saw was just awesome! Having seen the movie in three strip Cinerama in 1962, what I saw was the next best thing. We watched the movie in complete darkeness and it looked like we were actually seeing it on a curved screen because all that was visible was only the picture. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Caleb Johnstone-Cowan Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 593 From: London, UK Registered: Mar 2006 posted 09-14-2008 04:31 PM                     You may find this link interesting: 'Click' there's an article on a segment of a BBC News show called Click which looked at the restoration. I saw parts of the film on TCM and the print they used was atrocious, only saving grace was correct aspect ratio. Wish I had the equipment to watch this on. The link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7520000/newsid_7526100/7526103.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&news=1&bbcws=1 will get you to the video of the show.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 09-14-2008 07:12 PM                        Only way to judge the restoration work done on this film is after you had seen it on a large 1080p HD screen in Smilebox from a Blu-Rey disc and not from a Turner Classic Movie presentation on regular TV. After you done that, I am sure you will agree with me that it was superb! -Claude  |  IP: Logged Caleb Johnstone-Cowan Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 593 From: London, UK Registered: Mar 2006 posted 09-14-2008 09:42 PM                     The copy TCM used was the one before the restoration. Can't see smilebox ever making it to TV!  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-14-2008 09:52 PM                     Encore has been running HTWWW and it has a VERY wide ratio and the join lines do not resemble those that were part of the CinemaScope transfers that I saw on Laserdisc and such. It was NOT smile box but extreme letterbox. Another annoying artifact was the fisheye effect by seeing the image on a non deep-curve screen (that may be also corrected in a smilebox presentation). BTW...does anyone here know if HTWWW was at Cinerama's 26fps or 24fps, I forget. Steve  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-15-2008 08:17 AM                     I believe Brothers Grimm and HTWWW were both 24 fps. I remember reading someplace that MGM insisted on complete compatability with going to 35mm reduction. Interestingly the Smile Box system is not new, It was actually part of each VistaVision installation where VV Film was actually run horizontally. Paramount did much research into this and concluded that in a darkened room it did provide the same illusion as a deep curve screen. Mark  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 09-15-2008 02:04 PM                        Mark, A good friend who was a projectionist at several movie theatres in Honolulul once showed me a strip of VistaVision film in the horizontal format of Paramount;'s 1955 movie STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND. He got it from a friend who ran it in that format in New York City. Beside New York, and I am sure Los Angeles, where there many other cities that ran horizontal VistaVision prints? -Claude  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 09-15-2008 03:18 PM                     Two theatres in London were equipped, the Odeon Leicester Square ran 'Battle of the River Plate'; I think the other may have been the Paramount, Tottenham Court Road, but I'm not certain about that one. The Odeon had two Kalee Vista projectors, with three BTH SUPAs in between for normal 35mm. Photographs of this installation do exist; I think Hugh has some on his site. Yes, here's one, with one of the odd-looking SUPAs just visible behind the Vista machine. web page I saw a very faded reel of the 'Battle of the River Plate' print projected, without sound, some years ago. It still looked impressive; I'd like to have seen it in its original condition. It's a pity the process wasn't more widely used. I think the 'How the West Was Won' DVD is released over here towards the end of this month.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-15-2008 04:46 PM                     quote: Claude S. Ayakawa Beside New York, and I am sure Los Angeles, where there many other cities that ran horizontal VistaVision prints? Not sure on that and also not sure if any real data exists on that. Far as I kow L.A. and NYC were the only two that actually ran the film horizontally. There were ALOT of problems doing it. I was told they ran two prints simultainously at The Paramount in NYC in case one machine popped whilst on screen. The taper pins holding the intermittent sprocket to the star wheel shaft liked to pop out and or become loose. Steve Krams had many remnants of intermittents and the alumnium sprockets they used in his parts collection in Fla. Later on adapted Brenkert intermmittents solved this problem in the Century VV projectors. Mark  |  IP: Logged Sean Weitzel Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 619 From: Vacaville, CA (1790 miles west of Rockwall) Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-15-2008 05:10 PM                     Interesting to note, When Pacific Theaters remodeled the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood and built the Arclight complex a few years ago, the dome was outfitted with three restored Cinerama projectors that came from a Cinerama theater in Hawaii. The dome is now one of three theaters in the world that can currently project three strip films. The other US 3 strip theater is AMC's Seattle Cinerama. The Cinerama projectors installed at that location came from a Cinerama theater in Peru. The third theater is, of course, Pictureville in Bradford. I do not know the history of the Cinerama projectors at that theater.  |  IP: Logged

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