This is interesting, so they didn' t have to remove one of the SUPAs to install the Vista machines. None of the pictures I've seen of the Kalee machines had more than two SUPAs visible in the background, and I wasn't sure if there was room for the third one.

Do you remember what lenses they were using for the Technirama, were they just the standard Kalee Varamorph, or were they something special?

Are you sure about the date for this? '60s sounds too late. I can't remember the dates for Technirama, but I think it finished in the early '60s, I would have expected any demonstration to be in the early days of the process. Also, until this equipment was removed, and the Vic Xs installed, the Odeon would not have been able to show 70mm, there would not be room for SUPAs, Vistavision and 70mm to all be installed at the same time. Do you know when the Vistavision equipment was removed? Once the SUPAs were removed, it would, in theory be possible for the Vistavision and 70mm equipment to be installed at the same time, so the Odeon could run just about anything which was around at the time, except Cinerama, but I have seen no photographs which show this, and I suspect that the Vistavision was removed at the time that 70mm was installed. I would be surprised if the Odeon did not install 70mm until the '60s, it normally seems to be one of the first places to get any new technology, which becomes available.

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I have altered my last post to read late 1950s which would be more correct.

It was a quick visit to the projection room due to the number of people attending, so I cannot remember many details such as lenses etc.

I would assume the Kalee VistaVision projectors were removed when 70mm was first installed, if not before.

Acording to the Widescreen Museum, it started in 1957, and finished in 1968, except for 'The Black Cauldron' in 1985.

The booklet '70mm Super Definition Cinema', which was being sold by the 70mm people from the Netherlands at the Bradford Widescreen a couple of years ago, gives the dates for Super Technirama 70 as 1959-1967. If Technicolor were demonstrating horizontal projection of Technirama at the Odeon. I would have expected it to have been around the time of the first releases, in 1957, and certainly before the introduction of Super Technirama 70, in 1959. Surely horizontal projection was dead by this time, wasn't it? Or were Technicolor making a last desparate attempt to revive it in the '60s. This seems unlikely.

Yes, of course. It's a long time to think back now as well, I was being born at about the time of that dmonstration!

You really can't beat large format original photography. It's a pity that none of the systems from the '50s lasted very long. With the exception of very limited recent use, even 5-65 has been gone for longer than it was in use. Vistavision and Technirama were even shorter lived, and Cinemascope-55, and the various late '20s processes, only lasted a year or two.

Large format productions from the '50s and '60s can still look very good today. With todays improved lenses and film stocks, 65mm could look even better; Hamlet was absolutely stunning, probably the best of the recent productions, but Baraka and the 65mm scenes from Little Buddha were close. I didn't see Far and Away. Sadly, no-one seems to be interested in doing it any more.

Even 35mm reduction prints can look very good, except on the largest screens, so cinemas which are not 70mm equipped also benefit.

The former ABC Shaftsbury Avenue (now Odeon Covent Garden) still retains all the four DP75's but now one for each of the four screens.
only Screen one could run 70mm these days.

The DP70's from the NFT have been removed as there I was to led to belive a spares/cost issue.

The Empire sadly only has two of the DP70's in place and there is doubt how long these will stay in the future.

Curzon Mayfair is still equiped with a DP75.

Plaza Vistavision.

I don't have a picture of them, but confirm Century projectors were installed when as the Paramount Theatre, one Century Projector I did see a few years ago, almost complete stored in Miami.

Yes, I have the book too. Paul Rayton of the Hollywood Egyptian theatre, a real 70mm film buff, asked me for the article I wrote.

Those where dual guage projectors were installed, but were never able to run 70mm. i.e. they never had the plates, lenses, sound systems etc. At one time Rank installed Vic. 8s in most of the Odeons, but there was no intention of most of them ever running 70mm. I think NFT2 is the similar. Considerable cost would be involved to fully equip these for 70mm.

Those which were fully equipped to run 70mm, and may have done so in the past, but which are now no longer able to to so, for example due to having converted to platters and installed 35mm only ones, or fitting film cleaners, automation readers and similar devices which are not designed for 70mm, and cannot be bypassed, or fitting new sound systems which are not 70mm capable. The amount of work needed to restore 70mm capability to these installations, and the cost inlolved, varies greatly, from the trivial, removing a few badly positioned 35mm rollers installed for platter use and running the 70mm with changeovers on the two machines, to those where people seem to have gone out of their way to ensure that any future re-instatement
of 70mm would be very difficult and expensive, and would probaby require complete re-equipment. I even saw one case where building work would be needed, as the film passed through a narrow gap in some new structural steelwork, and there wouldn't be room to feed 70mm.

Those which are still fully equipped, and could run 70mm but which never do.

Those which still do, occasionally, run 70mm.

I can only speak for the uk, where there are many type 1 installations, possibly ruducing somewhat as new equipment is installed.

Type 2 are becomming more common.

There are quite a number of type 3.

Type 4 are very rare. The NFT still does the odd 70mm show, but not very often. The BFI london IMAX has done late evening shows of normal
films on part of the IMAX screen, a few of which have been 70mm. Bradford still does 70mm shows in the Pictureville, the last time I looked at their programme booklet a year or so ago they were probably doing more than anywhere else in the country. They too used to do 70mm evening shows on the IMAX screen, but I don't think they do now. There seems to be just about nothing now in the more conventional cinemas.

In recent years the following have been shown in London, other than at the NFT:

My Fair Lady - Restoration - 65mm.

Gettysburg - New - Blow up.

Titanic - New - Blow up.

Hamlet - New 65mm.

Vertigo - Restoration - Vistavision.

I think that's about it. I can't remember when the main West End theatres last ran a new 70mm release; has there been one since Hamlet?

There are a fair number of places in the uk which could still show 70mm, but I don't stt it happening any time soon.

As you say, maintaining a pair of elderly DP70s would have increased overheads both for spares inventory and staff provision. Also, much as I admire the engineering quality of DP70s, they really didn't make sense for the kind of films that cinema routinely shows: I'd say about 99% of them are 35mm and either silent or Academy. For one thing DP70s flicker like mad at low speeds.

NFT2 is 35mm-only because it is still licensed to run nitrate. Making the Vic 8s 70mm capable would mean interfering with the fire traps, magazines and liquid-cooled gates in such a way that would remove nitrate capability. I believe NFT1 lost its nitrate capability when digital sound pickups were first installed.

The 'problem scenes' you noticed in the Vertigo rerelease were probably the sequences where extreme colour dye fading was still evident, despite the very sophisticated son-of-Desmetcolour technique developed by Robert Harris and his technicians for producing a colour corrected negative. Surprisingly for such a famous film, the camera negatives were in a very bad state when work on the restoration started.

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Cheers, Thomas
www.in70mm.com
www.dp70.com
www.70mm.dk

Edinburgh Filmhouse. FH1 DP70's, fully 70mm capable and shows 70 as often as possible. FH2 DP75's. All the bits are there, no mag pre-amp, but would only need DTS70 readers to show 70mm DTS.
Glasgow Film Theatre. If I recall GFT1 has DP75's and is fully kitted for 70mm, and shows 70 occasionally.
ABC Edinburgh Lothian Road had 70mm, can't remember the mechs, prolly DP75. It was used occasionally in 70, but sadly the place was torn down last year.
Belmont, Aberdeen. Century JJ's. Can and does show 70mm.
Not so long ago we installed fully kitted JJ's in the former Odeon, Peterborough, mag, SDDS et all!

Thanks for posting the link, Thomas. It makes interesting, if somewhat depressing, reading. I wonder how many of these are still available in 70mm

Only a few releases a year until 1965, then it suddenly jumps to 14. Rather random variation after that, peaking in 1969, with 17, 4 in January alone; can't see that happening again. Major drop between 1974 and 1978, then suddenly back up again in 1979. Stays fairly stable until 1992, except for a peak in 1990, second-highest year, at 15. From 1993 it just dies, with nothing at all in 1995, 96, 99, 2000 and (so far) 2002.

Does anyone know if Dick Tracy was mag or CDS? If it was CDS was it the only such presentation in London?

The Last Action Hero is quite interesting, by this time SR-D and DTS were both well established in the West End, but not SDDS, I believe there were some early technical problems with it. This was at the time when most films carried only one, if any, digital track. Last Action Hero was a Columbia release, and would therefore probably have had SDDS, if anything. I remember thinking at the time that the main reason it got a 70mm release at all was probably that SDDS was not available in London at the time.

The list that I gave from memory was not too far off, I didn't know about Armageddon.

Does anyone have a list of 8-35 presentations in London, Vistavision or Technirama? I think we can be fairly sure that 6-55.625 was never publically shown.

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