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Adam Fraser www.pinestheatre.com

The distributor hires special equipment and a team of installation/operation personnel and they tour with the movie.

"Let's get this show on the road" (when used literally) = "Roadshow."

~Manny (not just for breakfast anymore.)

Road show presentations was a special exclusive showing of a film in a major city and tickets were obtained exactly the same way as concert tickets are sold today. All seats were reserved and you were able to buy tickets weeks in advance and select the seats you want. Road shows have been around for a very long time. "GONE WITH THE WIND", "DUAL IN THE SUN", "QUO VADIS". "SAMSON & DELILAH" and "THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH" are some of the earlier ones I remember when I was a kid. All of the earlier 70mm films with the exception of Disney's "SLEEPING BEAUTY" were all presented as road shows starting with "OKLAHOMA' and followed by "AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS" and so many others. THe last road show presentation I remember was "TORA! TORA! TORA! in 1970. All of the Cinerama films and the last two from MGM were also road show pictures. All road show films started with an overture. Than there was the entre'acte, a music segment after the intermission and music when people left the theatre. The music track was on opaque film and played behind a closed curtain. One of the pet peeve I have when these wonderful road show pictures are released to home video are those stupid titles cards that reads "OVERTURE" during that segment, "ENTR'ACTE" during the intermission music and "EXIT MUSIC". These title cards were not part of the original theatrical presentation and I feel it only takes away the mood of the film in my opinion. After the film had completed it's reserved seat engagements, it was released to regular theatres at popular prices a few months later. When the film went into general release, some projectionist did play the film exactly as the way they were presented during it's road show engagement because all general release prints were not edited except for some films such as "IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WONDERFUL WORLD", "THE ALAMO" and a few others when their original running time was cut to accommodate exhibitors who wanted to schedue more shows during it's general engagements or for some other reasons. If the management and the projectionis lacked true true showmanship, all of the opaque footage with the music and the intermission title card was removed and the film was presented without any pause. The Waipahu, my favorite neighborhood theatre in my home town always played road show films exactly as the way they were originally presented and this made me very happy.

-Claude

Roadshow version:

70mm 6-track mag
No trailers, no rolling stock
Overture music
An intermission
Entr'acte music
Extended version of Blue Danube walkout music for several minutes after the end of the credits
Limited release with hard ticketing/reserved seating
Theatre program booklets available
Usually some sort of related display in the lobby

Regular version:

35mm 'scope
Optical sound (I guess there were mag/op prints too)
Trailers and/or rolling stock
No overture
No intermission, hence no entr'acte music
Blue Danube music cuts off right after end of credits
Wide release, general or open seating, no reservations
No theatre programs, no lobby displays

This is just one example. For other films I'm sure the differences were different.

Paul

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All of the titles you had mentioned were indeed road show releases except two. I am almost positive that "CAROUSEL" and "THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI" were put into general release by both Fox and Columbia Pictures. Both of the movies played at the once beautiful Waikiki Theatre at standard prices and I remember seeing "BRIDGE ON THERIVER KWAI" with friends the 2nd week it had opened. I also remember seeing "CAROUSEL" at the Waikiki. By the way, "CAROUSEL" was the first film photographed in CinemaScope 55 but never publicly shown in that format anywhere and so was the other R&H musical filmed in that format, "THE KING & I" . "THE KING & I" was also put into general release and was shown at the Kuhio, our road show theatre in Honolulu at that time.

-Claude

It would not be uncommon, especially back in 1950s, to see people dress up for a showing, even on a Saturday afternoon. Since roadshow engagements were limited to your larger cities, I am sure that a lot of people may have had to travel an hour or two to see the film.

My favorite roadshow engagements included:

One would usually be greeted by an uniformed usher and escorted to seats. There might be a free "Playbill" type program, and usually a larger program was available in the lobby. The picture would usually start with an overture, with slightly dimmed lights and a closed curtain. Then the performance would start with the lights dimming completely out and the often huge image taking over the screen.

There was almost always an intermission, with Entr'Acte music played usually a minute or two before the picture restarted, and exit music played after the picture ended (also like a traditional Broadway musical). So, going to a roadshow presentation was a REALLY big deal. People planned these visits around birthdays and other holidays.

Almost all 3-Strip CINERAMA presentations were Roadshows. With the first one THIS IS CINERAMA, they even used the trick of having a very bland overture, then starting the presentation with Lowell Thomas on a very small screen. When Lowell said, "THIS IS CINERAMA" the giant screen kicked in, the full stereo started up and away it went. In 1952, this was an amazing thing.

Roadshows died out in the '70's, as the movies moved to the suburbs. It's something a lot of us miss.

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When the Cumberland4 opened in the early 80's it featured for a while the largest auditorium as a hard ticket policy and was called LaReserve

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A very interesting note about "HAWAII" that you had mentioned as one of your favorite road show films. My late father was a professional carpenter when the movie was photographed on the Waianae coast here on the island of Oahu and he helped build the sets. When the film was completed, United Artist felt that the picture was too big to have it's world premiere in Honolulu and I think the first showing was in New York City at the Rivoli. Not only did Hawaii not get the world premiere, the 70mm equipped Kuhio Theatre ran a 35mm print with a monaural optical soundtrack during it's road show engagement in Honolulu. I understand that the film was released in 70mm during it's road show engagement and there were also four track mag stereo prints available in 35mm. If that was not a 'kick in the pants', I dont know what is.

During intermission, which occurred right after Lawrence crossed a desert, entered the officer's club and orders "Two Lemonades", I used to drain both sides of a five-gallon bubbler full of lemonade.

I loved running that movie.

We ran Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm with a Ballantyne Pro 35/70, Potts 35/70 platter, Strong lamphouse in ORC orange? (Might have been a prototype) We had a CP200 with Hafler amps (They kept blowing over the years), JBL speakers (unfortunately with homemade surrounds) we used to sub bass cabinets for the left and right extra channels. And finally, I am ashamed to admit, we had to use a magnacom for the lens.

The Ballantyne has gone to projector purgatory and was replaced with a Century JJ. The Haflers have all died and were replaced with QSC MX1500s. The platter keeps ticking over and the speakers are the same. I hear that they upgraded the surrounds to JBL 8340s when they installed SDDS.