Category Archives: Brian Trenchard-Smith

Brian finishes his tour through Cinerama by regaling us with tales of How the West Was Won.

The second dramatic film shot in three-panel Cinerama, this sprawling all-star western epic came too late to save the process, which was being replaced by a simpler single-lens system. Many action sequences were shot normally and converted to three-panel. By the time  the brand-new Cinerama Dome in Hollywood opened in 1963 its initial “Cinerama” attraction, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, had been made entirely without the three-panel process the theater was built to showcase. Great score by Alfred Newman.

Click here to watch the trailer.

Who is it? It’s Brian Trenchard-Smith! What is it? It’s This Is Cinerama!

Back in the days when moviegoing was an event, the Roadshow Attraction was a special audience-pleaser designed to run for months in the same theater with reserved seating and, naturally, increased ticket prices. Of all the big-screen processes designed to lure audiences out of their living rooms and away from the dreaded picture tube, Cinerama was the most elaborate, requiring three projectors, a huge curved screen and multiple soundtracks to “put you in the picture”. Numerous popular Cinerama productions followed, mostly travelogs, until the format was replaced by Ultra Panavision in the early sixties.

Click here to watch the trailer.

Read More… New at TFH: Brian Trenchard-Smith on THIS IS CINERAMA