International projectionist (Jan-Dec 1956)

How Old Is the Wide-Screen Idea? Much older than you think, says the following article reprinted through the courtesy of "Films in Review." By JAMES L. LIMBACHER I F THERE were to be a birthday party ■celebrating the advent of widescreen motion pictures, how many candles would be atop the cake? Two? Ten? No, fifty-nine. Like any new invention, motion-picture film was not at first standardized. William Friese-Greene's first movies were huge strips of celluloid; Pathe's film was 28 millimeters wide; the width of Biograph and Mutoscope's was 2.75 inches; and the Lumiere brothers' film had only one sprocket hole per frame. Thomas A. Edison made his movies on 35-mm, with four perforations per frame near each edge of the film. Chiefly because Edison sold more motion-picture equipment than anyone else, his film size and his screen size — 4 x 3 — became the worldwide standard. Also, we must remember that the early motion pictures were exhibited not in theatres but in stores, which were long and narrow. If movies had first been shown in theatres, the natural tendency would have been to make the image as wide as the theatre stage. First Circular Screen The first widescreen process dates back to 1896 when Raoul Grimoin-Sancon presented Cineorama, which consisted of ten projectors throwing ten images on a huge circular screen. Cineorama was later shown at the Paris Exposition, along with a wide-screen presentation by the Lumiere brothers on a screen 48 feet high and 53 feet wide. Americans first saw widescreen movies in the travelogs of Lyman H. Howe, who shot his films with a short focallength lens. The resulting pictures tended to envelop the audience and to induce an illusion of the audience being part of the action. Professor J. Louis Peck of France demonstrated a huge curved screen at the New York Rivoli in 1920 with scenes from Paramount's Everywoman. The critics were excited about the good focus and "the absence of eyestrain." In 1921 George W. Bingham ex hibited a wide-angle projection system he called Widescope, consisting of two films projected side by side and giving a double-width image. In the middle '20s the Germans introduced a 42-mm film called TriErgon, which had a premiere at the New York Cameo. Lorenzo del Riccio launched his Magnascope process in 1925 and it had more longetivity than any previous process. A special lens gradually "blew up" the film image to four times its regular size. The effect was spectacular and usually was reserved for the climax of the picture. The Magnascope lens was first used for the battle scenes in The Big Parade, and later in the climaxes of Old Ironsides, North of '36, The Thundering Herd, Chang, Twinkletoes, The Iron Horse and Wings. It experienced a 1948 revival in Selznick's Portrait of Jenny, and again in 1952 in his The Wild Heart (at the New York Paramount). Natural Vision, promoted by the late George K. Spoor and P. Berggren, used 70-mm film and was projected on two screens so arranged one behind the other as to give a stereoscopic, widescreen effect. The American, starring Bessie Love and Charles Ray, was shown in Natural Vision. In 1929, sans stereoscopic effect, it reappeared as Fox's Grandeur process. Why Grandeur Failed But for the arrival of sound, Grandeur might have become the new standard width for movies. However, theatre owners were spending too much money wiring their theatres for sound, and could not afford to buy projectors that handle 70-mm film. After three Grandeur films, Fox Movietone Follies of 1929, Happy Days and The Big Trail, Grandeur disappeared. Twentieth Century-Fox repeatedly announced they would revive it in "roadshow" presentations. Several other wide-film processes appeared simultaneously with the arrival of sound: Paramount's Magni-film (56-mm film) was used for You're in the Army Now in 1929; MGM's Realife (65-mm) for King Vidor's Billy the Kid in 1930; and Warner Brothers' 65-mm-film for Kismet in 1930 and The Lash in 1931. In France, Claude Autant-Lara and Abel Grance had introduced the "triptych screen" — three regular-sized screens, on the outer two of which were shown scenes supplementing the image in the middle. Autant-Lara used the process for Pour Construire un Feu ( 1925), and Gance for his monumental Napoleon (1927). A more radical departure was the process developed in 1928 by George Hill and an Italian, Professor Alberini, recently reported in Films in Review (October 1954). Its basic difference was that the film was shot and projected horizontally. Although impractical then, the idea reappeared 25 years later as Glamorama, and even more recently as Vista Vision. Exhibitors Protested After all these systems had run their course, Adolph Zukor of Paramount, speaking for the Producers Association of America, assured exhibitors they would be burdened with no more wide films. By mutual consent, the producers had called a halt. But experimentation continued. At the World's Fair in New York in 1939 the late Fred Waller presented Vitarama, which used 11 projectors strapped together to project an image on a curved screen surmounted by a quarter dome. Although Vitarama excited those who saw it, it was impractical for theatrical use. Or was it? Vitarama, without the dome, and with refinements, and only three projectors, emerged in 1952 as Cinerama! The success of Cinerama, the reintroduction of 3-D, and the competition of tiny-screen tv, made widescreen images on one film the great desideratum. The answer was "anamorphosis", the principle of which was patented as early as 1862 and demonstrated as early as 1898. When Dr. Sidney Newcomer projected his "squeezed" films in 1930 the film industry was not interested. When Professor Henry Chretien demonstrated a similar system a year later, Paramount optioned but did nothing with it. In 1937 Chretien exhibited his anamorphic system at the Paris Exhibition, but it mas not until 1952 that Spyros Skouras of Twentieth 26 INTERNATIONAL PROJECTIONIST • JULY 1956