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I can also remember seeing 'South Pacific' at the Odeon after queuing for some time.....got in after the film had started and clearly remember the first thing I saw on the screen as we entered the cinema and were being led to our seats was a Japanese fighter plane, guns blazing, filling the screen and coming straight for you; together with a lot of noise...

Then sat there and watched the rest of the film, enjoyed the intermission and then sat and watched the film until it reached the point that we had come in.......then left.

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It would be hard nowadays for youngsters to believe we did this, come in part way through a film and sit there till that bit came around again. But it was the norm.You got to the pictures at any old time, not like nowadays when you have to get there for the beginning [and all the trailers before it]

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I think that the original format of cinerama was its biggest weakness. Three projectors all had to be kept in perfect sync' and you could see the joints in the images especially on scenes with a lot of sky in the picture. They seemed to do pretty well scaling it down to one projector. I seem to remember 2001 a Space Odyssey was made in this format. I saw it at the ABC around 1969 and it was pretty impressive.

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  • 2 months later...

I went to the cinerama it had a large screen and three projectors but the films did not always line up and also you had a small gap down the edge in between the films, but it was a great experience to watch.

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I think the first film I saw was called Cinerama Holiday. It started with a small part of the curved screen showing a black and white view tantalizingly through gaps in the clouds looking at the alps below. Then as we approached a huge gap in the clouds it suddenly changed to the large screen and colour as we could all see down into the Alps. The sensation was such that everyone leaned forward in their seats.

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  • 3 years later...

I went to the Cinerama on the Forest site. They had a movie on that featured a switchback ride using 3 projectors. The screen was curved with the left projector throwing it's image to the right of the screen, the right project to left of screen and the centre as was. It was a totally immersive experience. To my way of thinking, the Odeon had the widest screen which was capable of taking Cinerama projection, but not to a curved screen. It was, however capable of taking Super Panavision movies. The 3 most memorable films I saw at the odeon were The Sound of Music (with mum), 2001 : A Space Odyssey and Star Wars Episode 4. 

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Welcome Ooworreewe.  You are right about some of those old widescreen films.  The technology is probably better today but for sheer spectacle they are hard to beat.  I grew up not far from you in Netherfield.  I hope you keep posting.

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Thanks, loppylugs. 24 years ago, I met an American guy at Photokina in Cologne, who told me he was (and probably still is) a cinema projectionist at a theatre in Los Angeles called 'The Egyptian'. The theatre went through a period of major refurbishment during the 90's ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grauman's_Egyptian_Theatre ) and I think even he would say that a good movie on the super widescreen would beat anything on offer today. I know we have iMax screens now but thus far have never sampled anything that's been made for iMax.

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Having just watched that Cinerama trailer on my computer screen (27" iMac) it still looked good even though you could still see the joins in the film. The last Cinerama movie I ever watched was a fantasy epic about the stories of the brothers Grimm. I watched it some years ago on my old 25" Toshiba CRT set. It was a peculiar sensation as the scenes shifted from one side of the screen to the other with the vertical joins moving accordingly. 

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I'm not even sure whether cinema's employ projectionists anymore.  The films are downloaded and run from a hard drive to a digital projector.  Just about anybody who can press a button can run it. No film threading to do anymore.

 

Turner Classic movies over here ran 'This is Cinerama' a year or two ago.  I watched it on my video projector.  Straight onto the wall about twelve feet wide.  The roller coaster scene was really good.  You could still see the joints in the images but they all fit together well and looked great.

 

I saw 2001 at the ABC.  They had a nice wide screen at the time.

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I still think the Odeon just a few yards away had the widest screen in Nottingham. I also went to the Elite Cinema on Parliament Street to see 'Earthquake' complete with some machine that, on cue' would vibrate the floor to imitate the vibrations of an earthquake. That movie starred Richard Roundtree who played Shaft in the movie of that name. 

 

 

Incidentally, most of Nottingham's cinemas have gone now. The Savoy on Derby Road is still operating, there is a multi theatre in what used to be Forman's printing works, now rebuilt and called the Cornerhouse. and the Showcase multiplex near the Clifton Bridge. 

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1 hour ago, Ooworreewi said:

 I know we have iMax screens now but thus far have never sampled anything that's been made for iMax.

Just south of the Grand Canyon N.P. is the small community of Tusayan. They have an IMax theatre showing Grand Canyon, The Hidden Secrets, made for IMax. It is spectacular.

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I've been to the iMAX at Bradford and the effect is spectacular if a little confusing. The films are short demonstration pieces, one being an aerial view flying across the landscape and then over the edge of the Grand Canyon. The view is unusual in that you appear to be looking straight down, laying on your stomach, but going over the edge  literally takes your breath away.

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I went to see How The I can remember going to see How The West Was Won on The Forest with my mum and dad. There was a bobsleigh film on first, made you feel you were actually on it. The screen was curved I think and in 3 parts?

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