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The Best Of Cinerama -1963 (1 Viewer)

Strohmaier

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The Best of Cinerama was Merian C. Cooper’s last film work. We located the 7-channel sound of this title in Australia last year and also found a detailed continuity of the film in the old Cinerama files. Due to all of the past few years Cinerama restorations I have now been able to reconstruct this title exactly as Cooper and the editors had constructed it.

All the original travelogue sound efx. and music score was used but Lowell Thomas was brought in to record new narration for this1963 release.

Here is the trailer just finished for the film:


Lots of thanks have to go to John H. Mitchell who preserved the sound tracks and to Norman Karlin, one of the original Cinerama editors.

There is a good possibility that this will come out sometime in mid 2015 and I hope Russian Adventure and The Golden Head will also come out sometime in next year.

Thanks to all of you at Home Theater Forum for the support you have given to these Cinerama projects.
 

ahollis

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I haven't even begun my trips through Seven Wonders, Paradise, and Holiday, but I'm looking forward to this already.
 

darkrock17

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I thought this was going to feature It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World because of the year 1963. I forgot that Cinerama was first travel log type stuff before it became the big cinematic blockbuster widescreen process that its remembered for.
 

Strohmaier

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I guess I retire after Golden Head and Russian Adventure, more more Cinerama left.
 

mark brown

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Dave: How about tracking the elements and rights to some more obscure 70mm films like Porgy and Bess; The Big Fisherman, and some of the sword and sandal epics like Carthage in Flames, etc.?
 

John Maher_289910

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darkrock17 said:
I thought this was going to feature It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World because of the year 1963. I forgot that Cinerama was first travel log type stuff before it became the big cinematic blockbuster widescreen process that its remembered for.
Technically, IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD was filmed, not in Cinerama, but in Ultra Panavision 70. It was, however, projected on to the curved Cinerama screen. At the time, we referred to it as "fake Cinerama", because it was really nothing like the experience of the real thing. The only narrative films done in the process were HOW THE WEST WAS WON and THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM.
 

bruceames

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Thanks for all the work you've done on these. Watching Seven Wonders of the World and Searching for Paradise has really turned me into a Cinerama fan and I'll be buying everything that comes out in it.
 

Strohmaier

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mark brown said:
Dave: How about tracking the elements and rights to some more obscure 70mm films like Porgy and Bess; The Big Fisherman, and some of the sword and sandal epics like Carthage in Flames, etc.?
Cinerama does not have the rights to these. But I would love to do them, but have no energy left to chase them down.
 

Allansfirebird

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Strohmaier said:
Cinerama does not have the rights to these. But I would love to do them, but have no energy left to chase them down.
That's what interns are for! Or a good, long vacation to recharge the batteries.
 

Douglas R

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mark brown said:
Dave: How about tracking the elements and rights to some more obscure 70mm films like Porgy and Bess; The Big Fisherman, and some of the sword and sandal epics like Carthage in Flames, etc.?
There's also LAFAYETTE (1961) which I've never seen but would certainly like to. I first came across it during a family holiday in Belgium in 1962 where it was playing in 70mm. I and my parents thought of seeing it (they were film fans as well) but didn't when we saw it was only showing in the French language. Later, it opened in London for a brief run in Cinerama but again, I didn't get to see it for some reason.
 

Strohmaier

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For the record:

I have finished The Golden Head, Russian Adventure and Best Of Cinerama which are the last of the Cinerama Inc. owned titles.

All other titles mentioned in above posts do not belong to Cinerama, some are ABC titles that now rest with Disney such as "Custer Of the West" etc.
I can only deal with the Cinerama titles, unless some other company wants to hire me to do some of their titles.

David Sal said:
Dave, what's the status on Brothers Grimm?
The basic truth about Brothers Grimm

The ownership of both dramatic Cinerama titles HTWWW and Brothers Grimm is shared 50-50 between (formally MGM) now Warners and Cinerama Inc. As part of the major Cinerama revival efforts done starting in 2002 I have had first hand knowledge of the condition of all the Cinerama elements which include “Brothers Grimm” even though it has been vaulted at Warners. Since I represented the 50% owner of the title both Gunther Jung (also of Cinerama Inc. at the time) and I along with Warner’s Dick May (now retired) did several photo chemical tests at Crest labs in 2003 of the water damaged sections and the availability of the 0-neg elements. Yes there is water damage on the o-negs of several rolls due to an accidental water leakage many years ago in the MGM vaults. We found there were also several rolls of missing o-negatives, but we never got around to checking on the YCM masters to see if they were complete or not complete. We had found earlier that the Cinerama travelogues did not all have all complete sep masters as well, after all it’s a ton of film, think 9 rolls of YCMs = 1 roll of Cinerama time screen image.

Assuming the sep masters are complete then yes a restoration could be accomplished on “Grimm” however just imagine the expense of 9 B&W film frame elements (Y-C-M x3) to create 1 Cinerama color 3 panel frame on the screen.
Then if there were any shrinkage problems of the Y-C-M elements you would have one huge budget problem or the most expensive restoration/scanning job ever just to end up with digital elements such as we have done with the travelogues.

On our Cinerama travelogue restorations we were fortunate to have the Library of Congress 3-panel deposit Eastman color faded prints available to scan our missing sections and then rebuild back the color, however as I understand it that there are no 3-panel 6-perf IB prints of “Grimm” at LOC which could possibly fill in the missing and damaged areas.

There are other less expensive, but still somewhat costly ways to go; perhaps something similar to the recent Mad Mad world release could be done by incorporating -with lots of clean ups- The existing National Media Museums 3-panel IB print and the available undamaged 0-negs. Either way it would be costly. Warner Brothers would probably not let the source leave the lot for an independent like me tackle the job. It would all be internal at WB or thru their selected vendors. I understand that is their firm policy.
 

RichMurphy

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All other titles mentioned in above posts do not belong to Cinerama, some are ABC titles that now rest with Disney such as "Custer Of the West" etc.
I assume that SONG OF NORWAY also rests with Disney now. I thought I read years ago that some restoration work was being done on NORWAY by a third-party, but I may be mistaken.

NORWAY is one of my guilty pleasures. (yes, I realize that this wasn't filmed in real Cinerama, and I believe only was advertised overseas as being in Cinerama).
 

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