AMERICAN YEARS - 1976 - IMAX (1 Viewer)

The first time I ever heard of or saw an IMAX film, was at The Living History Center in Philadelphia, PA, in 1976. At the time it housed the world's biggest movie screen, and a 48 minute IMAX film called, AMERICAN YEARS was produced, especially for the Bicentennial celebration and featured continuous showings of the film. It was very thrilling in both sight and sound. I can distinctly recall the sound of a galloping horse coming from behind us, in the theater, and the thrilling sight of the horse landing on the giant screen before us, as if it leaped over our heads. I saw the film a few times during the year or more it played, and would love to see it, again. But here's the thing. It is not listed as an IMAX film on any list of IMAX films I have ever found (yet it was greatly publicized at the time as being IMAX); nor, is it listed among the films of Francis Thompson (the producer/director) on IMDB!!! The most I found was an article about IMAX and the film in a Popular Mechanics magazine,
and a blurb on Johnson Wax giving $250,000 toward the $2 million budget to make the film; and, this photo that shows a brochure for the Center, with a still from the film on the cover. Anyone out there know anything of the whereabouts of this film?

Having followed the development of IMAX since it was launched in 1970, I can provide some additional information about American Years.

It actually has a co-director credit - Francis Thompson (who also produced it) with Ján Kadár, Slovak ex-patriot cinéaste. Unfortunately I’ve never been able to obtain a list of the full credits. A Google title search turns up a wiki page for Laurie Greenan, who was a researcher and associate art director for the production.

The release date was 30 April 1976, to coincide with the opening of the Living History Centre. At that time there only 5 IMAX-equipped cinemas in existence (Toronto, San Diego (dome), Haines City FL, Sandusky OH) and American Years had been just the 20th release in the format. Both the Living History Centre and American Years closed in June 1978 and I’ve never found any reference to indicate the film has been screened publicly anywhere in IMAX since then. It’s likely that no more than 2 or 3 of the 70mm prints were ever struck; if these still exist a good bet would be they are in the possession of IMAX Corporation. But I believe the film rights were retained by the City of Philadelphia municipal government, which built the Living History Centre and commissioned American Years.

A 35mm print-down was made, however, for use by S.C. Johnson & Son (who,as you note, were a corporate sponsor of the Philadelphia project) for screenings at their headquarters in Racine WI in the theatre structure that originally served as the Johnson Wax Pavilion at the the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair, where the Oscar-winning Francis Thompson/Alexander Hammid triple-screen film To Be Alive was premiered. American Years was first screened in Racine on 28 June 1976 and the film continued to be seen there for at least 5 years. There’s a good possibility they might still have a print.

Thanks for posting the reference and link to the article in Popular Mechanics magazine which I had not previously seen. The only “industry” report/review on the subject I’ve come across appeared in the issue of Variety dated 26 May 1976 (Vol. 283, No. 3) on page 18 under the heading “Problems of ‘American Years’” by Harry Harris.

I think the Philadelphis project was somewhat overshadowed by the Washington DC debut of IMAX at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum two months later on 1 July 1976 with the film To Fly! (which still screens there) - also produced by Francis Thompson.

I was actually in this film as a child, it was shot in part at Living History Farms in Des Moines , IA in 1975 . I have never seen the film but would be interested if a print is located. It was definitely an IMAX film as i have still photo's including the equipment cases clearly marked as such. I also recall the crew showing us pieces of the film leaders and talking about the size compared to 35mm.

John Maher_289910 said:

The first time I ever heard of or saw an IMAX film, was at The Living History Center in Philadelphia, PA, in 1976. At the time it housed the world's biggest movie screen, and a 48 minute IMAX film called, AMERICAN YEARS was produced, especially for the Bicentennial celebration and featured continuous showings of the film. It was very thrilling in both sight and sound. I can distinctly recall the sound of a galloping horse coming from behind us, in the theater, and the thrilling sight of the horse landing on the giant screen before us, as if it leaped over our heads. I saw the film a few times during the year or more it played, and would love to see it, again. But here's the thing. It is not listed as an IMAX film on any list of IMAX films I have ever found (yet it was greatly publicized at the time as being IMAX); nor, is it listed among the films of Francis Thompson (the producer/director) on IMDB!!! The most I found was an article about IMAX and the film in a Popular Mechanics magazine,
and a blurb on Johnson Wax giving $250,000 toward the $2 million budget to make the film; and, this photo that shows a brochure for the Center, with a still from the film on the cover. Anyone out there know anything of the whereabouts of this film?
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I saw this as a kid in 6th grade on a 2-day field trip to historical Philly. It was 1978 for me. I liked it so much I made my dad take me to see it, too. But I haven’t seen it anywhere since. The living history center was built for the bicentennial and closed when the visitors stopped coming in large numbers. The building itself was sold to Channel 12, PBS and the film has not been seen since. I’d LOVE to get a copy for my home theater.