Cinerama
Holiday (1955) + Cinerama
South Seas Adventure
(1958/Flicker Alley Blu-ray w/DVD Sets)
Picture:
B & C+ Sound: B- & C/B- & C+ Extras: B Films:
B
After
not being seen by hardly anyone worldwide, Flicker Alley and the
current Cinerama organization continue to save, restores and
rerelease the huge big screen format films that put their name on the
map and made widescreen filmmaking a permanent feature of worldwide
cinema. This time out, we get the Robert L. Bendick/Philippe de Lacy
co-directed Cinerama
Holiday
(1955, the second-ever Cinerama film) and Cinerama
South Seas Adventure
(1958, the fifth-ever (and last regular stand-alone) Cinerama film
with five directors, working out much better than the 1967 comedy
version of Casino
Royale,
which also had five directors and bombed).
Cinerama
Holiday imitates some of
the same things that made This
Is Cinerama (see link
below) a success from the black and white monophonic opening piece to
visiting traditional places to the grand big-land ending trying
scenes with amusement park ride-like thrills. However, it is when it
is trying to do something new from some new humor to amazing footage
of Switzerland, Las Vegas, San Francisco, New England, New York City,
the original Mona Lisa at The Louvre in France and we some skiing
sequences ht are so terrific that their influence cannot be
overstated.
The
story (complete with flat acting from fun couples) is that a Southern
U.S. couple goes to Europe and a European couple comes to America.
That MacGuffin works just fine, but the real star is the ability to
see the world in a way we never did before and to be honest, really
never have again because even with 70mm, IMAX 70mm, Vista Vision and
other great large frame formats, along with really Ultra High
Definition HD video, Cinerama is a one-of-a-kind experience that has
no equal and captures things like nothing else. That is why these
films are all classics, more than worth saving and long overdue for
revival.
Not
to be outdone is Cinerama
South Seas Adventure
which arrived the same year as the competing Cinemiracle film
Windjammer
and the hit Todd-AO 70mm hit version of the musical South
Pacific (reviewed on
Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) so 1958 was a big year for
ocean-going escapism. Going to places like Hawaii, Tahiti, New
Zealand, Australia and Fiji, nature is explicitly captured here like
few films ever did (I wondered how clean many of these locales still
were; how unspoiled might they be or are we destroying them) and this
comes with a history lesson that includes some parts by Orson Welles.
By
this time, the cinematographers figured out the best compositions for
the format after every visual angle and trick they could come up with
had been done in the early films. Their influence on widescreen
filmmaking is also hard to overestimate and are all exercises in pure
cinema that endure and will hold up for centuries to come.
Both
films run over two hours and are must-see experiences for any serious
movie fan, though those who love travel, nature, history and
documentaries should add these to their must-see lists as well.
The
1080p 2.59 X 1 digital High Definition Smilebox (capturing the shape
of the 180-degree screen) image transfer comes from the original 35mm
6-perf-per-strip camera negatives that have almost completely faded
(Eastmancolor stocks) and were originally processed by Technicolor
labs. Though dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor versions of the film in 70mm or 35mm
reduction prints might have been produced somewhere in later reissues
(1962 or later), that could not be confirmed for any market and no
prints exist openly (meaning they are in lost vaults, private
collections or forgotten storage) so both films had to be
painstakingly reconstructed from the fading negatives.
This
time around, both were scanned digitally by Image Trends, who did the
same for Warner Bros. on the 1962 MGM hit How The West Was Won whose
original negative and camera materials were in great shape from
proper storage. Like
This
Is Cinerama
(1952) and Windjammer
(1958, see links below) previously restored and rereleased by Flicker
Alley and the current Cinerama Company, these are orphan films and
the fact that any image was left after over a half-century is
amazing.
As
the featurettes on each release will show, the 35mm materials had all
kinds of problems and to say the age of the materials used was in bad
shape is being nice. Nevertheless, all parties involved did an
amazing job of cleaning, repairing and saving both films against the
odds and color was brought up to the range and look you would get
from Eastmancolor of the time. Despite some painstaking work to
remove additional flaws (fading, scratches, misalignment of the three
panels and much more), you still have some issues with both films,
but the scanning is so good that you cannot see the seam lines all
the time. Hard to believe these were almost lost films, but now they
are saved as well as they can be. The
anamorphically enhanced DVDs on both do not look bad for the format
and work, but are no match for their Blu-ray counterparts.
The
film stocks were slowly becoming faster with each film and as an
example from Cinerama
Holiday,
the Vegas footage has massive range and captures the original adult
playground Vegas before its fall as captured in Scorsese's Casino
(1995, reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) that happens to
feature the last great footage of the original Vegas. The other
Blu-rays to compare to are the amazing releases in high definition of
the 1963 Elvis Presley vehicle Viva
Las Vegas!
And 1971 Technicolor James Bond film Diamonds
Are Forever,
which are both 35mm anamorphic Panavision shoots of the town with the
best color of the four films discussed here.
The
differences show the slight limits in the color on this Cinerama
version of Vegas, yet you can still see details, depth and character
the other films (Casino
was shot amazingly well in the Super 35mm format which uses less
negative frame than Panavision) that also gives a sense of the now
lost version of that place that no other format could ever deliver.
The comparisons are worth your time and study.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on both films on Blu-ray
sound as good as they are likely ever going to sound, sourced from
the original 7-channel stereo 35mm magnetic sources. There were some
matching issues since the soundtrack runs 24 fps (frames per second)
and all early Cinerama films ran their image at 26 fps, but that has
been corrected and further digital work done to help out. Only thing
that still sounds slightly off despite their best efforts is the
Orson Welles voice-over on his parts of Seas,
but it is clean. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 and lossy Dolby Digital
2.0 Stereo mixes on the DVD versions are not bad, but no match for
the DTS-MA lossless on the Blu-rays.
With
that said, Holiday
is slightly weaker, especially on DVD, but both have traveling
dialogue and sound effects recaptured properly in these upgrades and
music in scores (Morton Gould (who later scored Windjammer)
on Holiday,
the legendary Alex North on Seas)
and sung music on location also come on strong and wide-ranging.
Extras
with both releases include high quality reproductions of the original
pressbooks of each respective film, shrunken down to fit into the
Blu-ray cases and the DVD versions, while the actual discs add
Behind-The-Scenes Slideshow presentations for each respective film
and Restoration Featurettes on each film that shows what the Cinerama
format is, how bad the shape of the negatives for each film were in,
the special situations in fixing each film and how they were saved.
Holiday
adds its own 14 minutes Breakdown Reel that was played when the
system would break down, Return
To Cinerama Holiday
(2013, 6 minutes) clip, Betty's Scrapbook (11 minutes) has star Betty
Marsh looking at and discussing the content of a lost archival volume
on the film, 1997 Cast Interview (22 minutes) with the cast when the
film was re-screened for the first time in eons, Never Before Seen
Deleted Scenes from the film from the documentary Cinerama
Adventure
and 15 minutes of silent movies shot in Kodachrome on the set in
dubbed Bob
Bendick's 8mm Home Movies.
Seas
adds a
terrific feature length audio commentary track with Cinerama
historian David Coles and actress Ramine Seaman, The
Wake Of Captain Cook
(23 minutes) showing behind the scenes of this film by Director
Dudley, Family
Interview
(11 minutes) with Dudley's daughter Carol Dudley Katzka, Crew
Interview
(30 minutes) with Saul Cooper, rerelease trailer and a
restored version of a advertisement (4:38, lossy Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo only) for the automobile, the Renault Dauphine.
Shown
in the three-panel Cinerama format, it takes us to the factory in
France where the it is made and shows us the process from hot metal
to the final build of the car in a truly great ad. Those familiar
with the car and its famous black & white TV ad where Renault
shows off its two different car horns (one for the city, the other
for the country) should note that feature is never shown or discussed
here, but fans will want to see this piece too.
For
more Cinerama classics on Blu-ray, try these links:
This
Is Cinerama
(1952)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11900/Lawrence+Of+Arabia+(1962/Sony+Blu-ray+w/Gift
Windjammer
(1958, originally in Cinemiracle)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11987/Chronos+(1985/Image+Blu-ray)/Rescue+3D+(201
How
The West Was Won
(1962, MGM)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7637/How+The+West+Was+Won+(1962/MGM/Warner+Bl
-
Nicholas Sheffo
