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Topic: CDS-Equipped Theatres

Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 08-11-2003 06:15 AM

Quote:

quote:
Ehem....Age isn't necessarily horrible and by the standards of the day (1939), FANTASIA was one of the most daring and inventive cinema works to ever come out of the Disney studios. It INVENTED technology to present stereo sound a decade before its time. And the animation was astonishing, again for its time -- nothing like this had ever been attempted before.

Don't forget the British engineer Alan Blumlein, who successfully demonstrated a stereo variable area system in 1936, three years before Fantasound. The only difference between his system and Dolby A-type was that it didn't have any noise reduction of 2x4 matrix. The principle was exactly the same. Read all about it!

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 08-11-2003 02:15 PM

quote:
Theatres That *Were* Equipped To Play Cinema Digital Sound

I've come across some new information which can be added to the list, including the UA Pavilions in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I was surprised to find during my research that fairly large markets such as Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Houston, and Toronto do not appear to have had any CDS-equipped theatres. And in the Washington, D.C. area, the only location I could find info on was the one on the list from Bethesda, Maryland. Those markets, in most cases, played the CDS titles in 70mm-mag versions instead.

Re the Criterion Theatre in New York. Does anyone remember which theatre Final Approach played at? I don't have immediate access to any New York Times microfilm. Is it possible that Final Approach played in CDS at the Criterion, which may explain the difference of opinion expressed in this thread concerning that theatre's CDS status?

For those interested and for clarity, a revised list appears below. Thanks, everyone, for mentioning the theatres equipped for CDS that weren't present on the list from the first post of this thread. I hope everyone's memory is sharp. [Smile]

A dependency on memory, rather than documentation or published data, is the number one enemy of research/historical projects of this type.

Theatres That Were Equipped To Play Cinema Digital Sound (CDS) 1990-1992

Europe

BELGIUM
Brussels: Kinepolis (two screens)

DENMARK
Copenhagen: Imperial Bio
Copenhagen: Palads

FRANCE
Paris: Kinopanorama

GERMANY
Munich: Kinema

SWITZERLAND
Lausanne: ???
Zurich: ???

UNITED KINGDOM
London: Odeon Leicester Square
London: Odeon Marble Arch
West Thurrock: UCI Cinemas
West Thurrock: Warner Village Cinemas

.

North America

ARIZONA
Scottsdale: UA Scottsdale Pavilions

CALIFORNIA
Century City: AMC Century 14 (two screens)
Corte Madera: Pacific's Cinema
Emeryville: UA Emery Bay
Hollywood: Mann's Chinese
Hollywood: Pacific's Cinerama Dome
Hollywood: Pacific's El Capitan
La Mesa: Pacific's Grossmont Trolley
Lakewood: Pacific's Lakewood Center
Lakewood: Pacific's Regency 8
Marina del Rey: UA Cinema
Newport Beach: Edwards Newport
Pasadena: Pacific's Hastings
San Diego: UA Horton Plaza
San Francisco: UA Coronet
San Francisco: UA Galaxy
San Rafael: Regency
Santa Ana: AMC MainPlace
West Hollywood: GCC Beverly Connection
Westwood: GCC Avco (two screens)
Westwood: Mann's National
Westwood: Pacific's Crest
Westwood: UA Coronet

COLORADO
Denver: UA Continental

FLORIDA
Miami: UA Cinema At The Falls

GEORGIA
Atlanta: Cineplex Odeon Lenox Square

MARYLAND
Bethesda: UA Theatres Bethesda

NEW YORK
Manhattan: Cineplex Odeon Ziegfeld
Manhattan: Loews 84th Street Six
Manhattan: UA Gemini Twin

TEXAS
Dallas: UA Plaza
Ft. Worth: UA Hulen

VIRGINIA
Richmond: UA Midlothian

.

The Caribbean

PUERTO RICO
San Juan: Plaza

[ 08-19-2003, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: Michael Coate ]

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 08-11-2003 03:17 PM

Leo wrote:

quote:

Don't forget the British engineer Alan Blumlein, who successfully demonstrated a stereo variable area system in 1936

The same idea was re-invented as 'Photo Stereo', in the '50s

The Blumlein material still exists, Dion Hanson runs prints of it in his 'Fantastic Formats' lectures. A standard sound head will read it, and a Dolby analogue CP will handle it if fitted with a simple link card to route Lt in to L out, and Rt in to R out, in place ogf the Cat. 150.

The material is purely expermental, mainly consisting of men dressed in white lab coats walking across the set whilst counting, but there is a short sequence of an amateur dramatic production.

Alan was a prolific inventor; I believe he was sadly killed during the war, at quite an early age.

Fantasound was a far more sophistcated system than anything that had gone before it. There's quite a lot of information on it in the Widescreen Museum, including photographs of the equipment, and it makes interesting reading.

We don't seem to be doing too well with preserving early stereo soundtracks:

Fantasound: Lost. Existing elements are derived from problematic magnetic transfers made in te '50s, and alterd since then in an attempt to restore the damage. It s difficult today to know what it actually sounded like at the time, and, of course, very few theatres ever presented the film in stereo.

1951 Festival of Britain 3-D film stereo tracks: Lost.

1950s Warnerphonic tracks from various 3-D films: Lost.

The Cinerama tracks have survived better than most, but I'm not sure if complete copies of all of them still exist.

I don't know the fate of the early Cinemascope tracks.

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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 08-11-2003 07:22 PM

I believe FINAL APPROACH played at the Gemini. I recall checking it out carefully as I was going to NYC about that time, and it had just closed there (I was going at Easter time.)

Should have been in the Jan-Mar 1992 time frame.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 08-11-2003 11:12 PM

Didn't "Final Approach" have its first limited screenings in the fall of 1991? I remember seeing NY and LA ads for a short engagement then (I'm not 100% positive, but I'm pretty sure the film played at the Gemini Twin). IMDB shows a 7/24/1991 French date that seems wierd given that's not the time of Cannes.

"Final Approach," unfortunately, is a weirdly done bad film that I found to be a crashing bore. I remember the teaser trailers proclaiming the film to be the first film to have 100% of its audio digitally recorded. The "Coming Attractions" show E! used to play movie trailers repeated that one frequently. The thing I found funny was the "wide" release date being push back farther and farther. And then it just disappeared off the radar scopes. Did this flick ever get any more than a couple prints and bookings made?

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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-12-2003 12:37 AM

Frank, the print I saw had to have been either optical or magnetic in general release. The music was often jarringly de-synched (although I still had a strong imprint of the original to make a finer judgment than a general audience), & I still believe the performance was poor. It felt like it was wearing a straitjacket, which in a sense it was, when it was just trying hard to follow the '39 performance - which did not have any constraints. I give lots of room to new interpretations of things, & I'm a big silent film fan & enjoy different accompaniments, but that version of Fantasia barked louder than a neighbor's dog. I remember actually being angry at the show afterwards, it was that big of a mess.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 08-12-2003 12:46 AM

quote:
Didn't "Final Approach" have its first limited screenings in the fall of 1991?

I have some notes indicating the Los Angeles engagement began December 4, 1991. I'm unsure if L.A. was the first U.S. city in which the film ran. In other words, it certainly may have opened earlier than December 1991.

This December 4 run was a one-week exclusive at the UA Coronet. I think it played the Cinerama Dome at some point, as well...though I cannot recall if it was before or after or at the same time as the the Coronet run.

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Dick Vaughan
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1032
From: Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 08-14-2003 05:18 PM

Stephen

Photos of the PPT hybrid projector you mentioned incorporating all the various sound heads can be seen in a thread I opened some two years ago in Film Handlers Forum called "Complicated Threading Path"

Brad also posted photos of a working set up which was pretty scary

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 08-15-2003 01:28 AM

quote:
Films in CDS
Flatliners
For the Boys
Universal Soldier

quote:
While these three titles were certainly announced for release in CDS, I think the verdict is still out on them actually getting released that way...at least in the U.S.

OK, I'll answer my own question.... Was recently sent this information.... This should also clarify when the 35mm version of CDS was introduced....

Film Journal International (February 1991) included the article, "35mm CDS Debuts In Munich Multiplex," which mentioned the debut of 35mm-CDS in December 1990 with Flatliners.

Boxoffice (April 1991) included "Cinema Digital Sound: Making The Movies Come Alive," which detailed the U.S. debut of 35mm-CDS. "In December [1990], 35 and 70mm CDS prints for 20th Century Fox's Edward Scissorhands played in four markets in the United States."

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 08-15-2003 08:36 PM

William said: Frank, the print I saw had to have been either optical or magnetic in general release.

Very interesting. It would be fun to actually research this because I was under the impression that because the critics were so outraged that Disney had tampered with the original film (editing out the Deems Taylor segments and rearranging the sequences) that they pulled it almost immediately after its initial digital playdates. In fact, when I tried to book it right on the heels of the NYC Ziegfeld engagement, a Disney booker insisted that the Kostal version, even if he could book it for us -- which he couldn't because it was already "out of service"-- did not have any analog prints. According to him, it was only produced for the digital release and was not to play any analog engagements. Obviously he was misinformed (how unusual-a booker who doesn;t know anything about the inventory) seeing as how years later I wound up with an SR print, albeit by accident. And OF COURSE there would be an analog track for backup, ESPECIALLY for a down and dirty system with no proven track record.

Point being, it was such an embarrassment for the studio that right after the initial digital release, it was pulled from the release roster. To the best of my knowledge, there were never any mag prints made of this vision. Are you sure you weren't actually watching a digital interlock presentation? because I can tell you that watching/listening to the this version playing the SR track and not the digital interlock, the music matched the image almost a perfectly as did Stokowski's.

Frank

[ 08-15-2003, 10:39 PM: Message edited by: Frank Angel ]

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-16-2003 11:28 AM

Toronto's Uptown almost had cds for Dick Tracy but at the same time a labour dispute stopped the installation and it was shown in regular mag 70

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Paul Linfesty
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1383
From: Bakersfield, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 08-16-2003 11:55 AM

quote:
To the best of my knowledge, there were never any mag prints made of this vision.

The newly digitally-recorded FANTASIA made it's debut late 1983 with both Dolby-encoded 4-track mag and Dolby Stereo Optical prints in special engagements (in Los Angeles, it was paired up with Michael Jackson's Thriller). The actual playback in digital debuted in early 1985 in Los Angeles (Plitt Century Plaza) and NYC (Ziegfeld). A sound technician was on duty at all showings to run the audio end.

AT this time the film was quite widely across the nation that spring (widely for this film, that is) with both Dolby Stereo optical and a few Dolby encoded 4-track mag prints (probably made when this version was first released in 1983 in limited theatres).

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 08-16-2003 05:13 PM

quote:
The newly digitally-recorded FANTASIA made it's debut late 1983

Didn't this version debut in '82?

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Paul Linfesty
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1383
From: Bakersfield, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 08-16-2003 05:22 PM

quote:
Didn't this version debut in '82?

Perhaps. I think the L.A. first-run showing was in 1983, though. (Avco Westwood)

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 08-16-2003 05:56 PM

quote:
I think the L.A. first-run showing was in 1983, though.

I have a photocopy of the Theatre Directory from the San Francisco Chronicle showing Fantasia playing at the Northpoint (in "Digital Magnetic Stereo"). It's an undated ad (because the copy doesn't encompass the entire newspaper page), but one can determine the approximate timeframe by observing other movies listed in the directory, such as Quest For Fire (at the Coronet), which opened there in March 1982 (and certainly didn't play into 1983).

Some of the Disney historical/reference books list '82 as being among the film's many re-releases. It appears to have been in release from '82 through '84 and even into '85 (though some sources identify '85 as yet another official re-release in addition to the digital experiment screenings discussed in this thread), with different regions playing it at different times, rather than a single, saturation-type release. You mentioned L.A. getting it in '83, and I remember Phoenix, Arizona running it in summer '84.

So I guess my point is, despite the staggered playdates the earliest possible date should be considered the "true" date of the re-release, at least for a discussion of this type.

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