CATCH A CLASSIC
Cinerama 70th Anniversary
TCM, Beginning at 7 p.m.
Tonight, Turner Classic Movies marks the 70th anniversary of Cinerama, the widescreen process that used three projectors to cast motion pictures onto a giant, deeply curved screen. Cinerama was among the novel techniques developed by the movie industry at the time to keep audiences coming to theaters in the face of increasing competition from television. Starting with its initial title, This Is Cinerama, which debuted
Sept. 30, 1952, Cinerama’s first decade of usage produced travelogues and documentaries. Only two films with stories were produced using the original, three-strip
Cinerama process, and both of those will be airing on TCM this evening. While even the best of modern TVs cannot replicate the full Cinerama experience, it is easy to see why these epic productions were chosen to be presented in that immersive manner. Up first is 1962’s The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (pictured), producer/ co-director George Pal’s film that combines biography and fantasy to tell the story of Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm (Laurence Harvey and Karlheinz Bohm) interspersed with fanciful presentations of some of the classic fairy tales the siblings collected. Following this is the TCM premiere of the 2021 documentary short Rescuing a Fantasy Classic, which details the daunting technical effort that went into restoring Brothers Grimm in its original Cinerama format. After that is the second and last story-based feature to have been produced in the three-strip Cinerama
format, also from 1962 —
West Was Won. Boasting three directors — Henry Hathaway, John Ford and George Marshall — and a large cast including John Wayne, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, Karl Malden, Spencer Tracy and more, this Best Picture Oscar-nominated film tells the story of America’s westward expansion through five stories set between 1839 and 1889.