Anyway what an impressive experience, huge screen, and fantastic movie theater! Now, years later, I'm wondering if I had the rare treat of seeing real horizontal VistaVision?
What do you projection historians think?
I know that Boston Light & Sound had at least one VV projector in their collection.
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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
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Bob Throop
Gaumont-Kalee, which had its factory in Leeds, Yorkshire (which was also a temporary home to the film pionner L.A. Le Prince) was among the world's largest projector manufacturers until its takeover by the Rank Organisation in the mid-50s. They made the decision to concentrate heavily on VV following a deal between Rank and Paramount which was struck in (if memory serves me correctly) 1956. This had both a positive and a negative outcome - the positive one was that quite a few British films were shot in Vistavision, and even today look amazing when printed onto normal 35mm, but the down side was that the eventual failure of VV finished Gaumont-Kalee. The last conventional 35mm projector they made, the GK-37, is still in service in quite a few (mainly independent) cinemas, which speaks volumes for the design and build quality of these mechs, given that there is hardly any service infrastructure left for them.
Eventually Rank cut their losses, closed G-K down and started importing Cinemeccanica projectors from Italy, which remain the standard issue in Odeon cinemas to this day.
History aside, I'm still surprised that very few of the G-K VV machines seem to have survived (I've never heard of a complete working model). I can only presume that the initial production run was very small.
L
As I said in my earlier post Kalee only produced 4 Vistavision projectors. All 4 were as far as I know installed in London's West End. After the removal of the projectors from the cinemas 2 were sent to Pinewood Studios and 2 went to a local technical college.
At some point someone in France bought two of them and stored them with Cinemateriel in Paris.
At that time some of the parts went on to Switzerland and we collected the remaining bits from paris in 1992 while seeking out parts for our Cinerama installation.
As far as I heard the demise of Kalee as a manufacturer was due more to the attempt to build a 70mm projector which never went into production. I am sure Jim Schulz can clear this up.
Most 37's I know were installed at some Preview cinemas, they lacked the quality of the Kalee 21 or some say as well Jim Schulz would claim that the Kalee 11 or 12 was "Yorkshire's Best", I can't really repeat here what Jim has to say about the Westrex 7000!.
I remember Dave Young (formerly of the NFT/MOMI) telling me that this was an old wives' tale, and explaining the reasons as follows. Rank had wanted to import Vic 8s en masse since the late 60s as they were impressed by its comparatively low running costs compared to those of British projectors available at the time. However, the government at the time imposed punitive import taxes on industrial plant and machine tools which was also available from UK manufacturers. The 35mm only version of the Vic 8 would thus have been taxed to hell, and so Rank imported the 35/70 model, which escaped the tax on the grounds that no 70mm projectors were being made in the UK. Dave believed that the idea of a G-K 70mm mech was somehow caught up in this project - possibly Rank made noises about putting money into developing one in order to sidestep any political flak which might result from importing equipment on such a large scale.
I've never seen nor come across anyone who has seen any actual plans, prototypes or anything more solid than a rumour about any G-K (or for that matter, any British) 70mm projector mechanism. If one did exist (even on a drawing board), then I'd be fascinated to hear about it.
As for the GK-37, my personal experience of them has been nothing but positive. OK, a totally oil-filled mech (as opposed to one in which only the cross box is immersed) is a generation behind, I've found them to give a steady picture, be less prone to cause dirt and scratching on film (by which I mean it takes less work by the projectionist to prevent dirt and scratching than it does with many other projectors) and to require less routine maintenance and troubleshooting than most other machines I've used (although admittedly, timing those drum shutters is a bit tricky). My only criticism would be the high pressure with which the two cinch rollers hold the film against the scanning drum. With old acetate stock I find that the bottom sprocket can strain the perfs a bit, but this is no problem with poly and if everything's clean there's no danger of any dirt or scratching.
I am bringing this thread back to the top, and I have copied below the text of my original e-mail. If Dick, or anyone else can provide any further information on the Kalee Vistavision projectors, I would be very interested to hear from them.
Copy of original e-mail to Dick starts here, and runs to the end of this post.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Dick,
I have just read two posts from you on the Film-tech film handlers forum which I found very interesting. I cannot reply to the forum, I sent a registration request a week ago, but have not yet had a reply.
in those posts you said:
>In Bradford we have parts of 2 of the four Vistavision projectors that >were built by Kalee in the UK. The remaining parts are currently
>residing in Switzerland but we are trying our best to recover them.
and:
>As I said in my earlier post Kalee only produced 4 Vistavision
>projectors. All 4 were as far as I know installed in London's West
>End. After the removal of the projectors from the cinemas 2 were sent
>to Pinewood Studios and 2 went to a local technical college.
>At some point someone in France bought two of them and stored them
>with Cinemateriel in Paris.
>At that time some of the parts went on to Switzerland and we collected
>the remaining bits from paris in 1992 while seeking out parts for
>ourCinerama installation.
>As far as I heard the demise of Kalee as a manufacturer was due more
>to the attempt to build a 70mm projector which never went into
>production. I am sure Jim Schulz can clear this up.
This is all very interesting. I see that you are from Bradford, and that you later mention the Cinerama installation. I therefore assume that you are in some way involved with the NMPF&T / Pictureville. you say that 'we' have parts of two of the projectors in Bradford. I take it that the 'we' is the Museum; is this the case? May I ask what parts you had, and do you still have them? Do you have any photographs of these parts, or would it be possible for me to see the actual parts, if you still have them? I am very interested in these machines.
You also say that you were trying to recover the remaining parts of the machines, were you successful in this? I had heard that at least one projector still existed, but Dion Hanson's 'Fantastic Formats' booklet states "In England Rank-Kalee developed a horizontal projector, the only known installation being at the Odeon Leicester Square for 'Battle Of The River Plate', unfortunately none of these appear to have survived".
You say in your second post that "All 4 were as far as I know installed in London's West End". Do you know where these installations were? I know that one pair was installed at the Odeon, there are photographs of these to be found in various places, with Mk.1 BTH SUPAs in the background. I have read that the other installation in the uk was at the PLAZA, but that these were Century machines from America, not the Kalee ones. Do you know if this is correct, I have never found any photographs of this installation.
Is it possible that the Odeon was the only cinema to have the Kalee machines, and that the other pair were supplied new to Pinewood, and never were installed in a public cinema? Do you know how long the machines remained at Pinewood, or indeed, if they are still there. I know that they had a large triple head rear projection system there, which I believe could run 8 perf plates, and ,of course, Vista cameras have been used in recent times for original photography for special effects shots, so Pinewood would have had a need for Vista projectors long after they became redundant in normal cinemas.
You also say that the other pair went to a local technical college. Was this the then Wandsworth Tech. (Now South Thames College)? When I left school in 1974, I attended this institution for four years, training to be an audio visual technician with the I.L.E.A., which I remained until 1990, when I moved to my present post as an I.T. technician at Croydon College. I remember one day being suprised to see some 35mm slides with an optical track on the top edge, I was not aware of the existance of Vistavision at this time. I was shown a short roll of print, from which the slides had been cut, and was told that the projectors had been taken to the College when they were removed from the cinema, I don't think that they said which cinema this was, but that they were no longer there.
The main hall of the old building had, until fairy recently at that time, several 35mm machines installed, but these had all been removed, and the hall had been taken over by builders. When the builders moved out, just a single Elf 3000 16mm xenon machine was installed, two more firsts for me, the first time I had seen 16mm used on a large screen, and the first xenon I had seen.
There were two staff I remember who taught projection, by this time just 16mm on portable machines, but we had to learn, and be tested on, all the models that the ILEA had in use at that time, their names were, if I remember correctly, Ted Church and Harry Court. Ted was quite old at the time, and Harry had been ill, so I don't know if either of these gentlemen is still alive, but they had stories going back to sound on disk days.
Wandsworth Tech seems to have received a lot of interesting equipment in the past, sadly, most of it was got rid of shortly before I went there, there was a strange system for projecting telewision by filming a monitor screen, and then processing and projecting the film, used for the coronation, I think, some photographs of parts of it were still there. Sounds rather like Bairds Intermediate film system in reverse!
Anyway, back to Vistavision. Did you attend the event a Grip House Studios a few years ago at which some VV was shown? this was done using a modern projector, using a reel of the old 'Battle of the River Plate' print. I think this must have been from the print which ran at the Odeon. The print was very badly faded, almost no colour left, but it still looked impressive. No soundhead was fitted to the projector, but the track was Magenta VD, similar to that found on some old Disney 16mm prints. This is interesting, because I have heard that this was the only film shown in this country, but I remember that the film I saw at college had a duo-bilateral VA track, and therefore would seem to have been from a different film.
It is now possible again to hear Perspecta tracks; a number of the new cards exist, I have one myself, and last month I went to the Loew's Jersey Theater, (www.loewsjersey.org), to hear 'Forbidden Planet' plus various shorts and clips, using the original integrator installed there. If the picture and track negatives exist in reasonable condition, making a new VV print with its original track on modern low fade stock should not be technically difficult, I didn't say that it wouldn't be expensive, but I would be prepared to make a contribution to the cost, and I'm sure others would also, how many people would it take at say £100 each? would it be possible to get a contribution from the BFI, or the lab doing the work? Original projectors may still exist, modern ones certainly do, and fitting an optical soundhead should not be too difficult. Perspecta integrators, both new and old, exist. It would be nice to see a good print shown in its iriginal form.
A number of other systems have now gone out of use, four track mag cinemascope, for example. Are a few good prints, and the equipment to run them being preserved, so that demonstrations can be given in the future. Even recent systems are now extinct, the CDS and LC Concepts digital sound systems for example. Are these being preserved somewhere? I hope so.
The possible Kalee 70mm machine is also intresting. I used to be a member of the Projected Picture Trust, I am about to re-join A couple of weeks ago I went to see their new display at Bletchley Park. There was an advertisment on display for the new Rank-Kalee 70mm machine; it wasn't a Kalee machine at all, it was a Victoria X, like the Ex. Odeon Leicester Square one standing a few metres away. Was there ever a real Kalee 70mm machine, or even plans for one? With Kalee by then in the hands of Rank, who had clearly decided that new projectors should come from Italy, was it all over for Kalee, other than by name, before a 70mm design was made?
This mail has been much longer than I intended, if you think that anything I have written may be of interest to others on the Film-tech forum, please feel free to post it there.
Best wishes,
Stephen.
When Robert Harris' restoration of Vertigo came out in 1998 I was really hoping that many more Vista films would be rereleased using his technique of printing the frames of horizontal negative onto a new 70mm vertical 5-perf master element. Vertigo looked stunning to me, even in the sequences which were optically printed through filters to correct dye fading. This is a particular issue for us Brits given that the Rank Organisation adopted VistaVision as a production format for a short while in the late '50s: I'd love to see films such as Simon and Laura and The Battle of the River Plate in the Vista ratio and with the full definition of the 8-perf frame, but needless to say I've only ever been able to see them in pan-and-scan.
Maybe someone could come up with a new VistaVision projector that advances the film pneumatically rather than mechanically, like IMAX, and then archivists might be persuaded to produce Vista prints again. Until that happens, then IMHO 70mm is about the only way we're likely to get an idea of what VistaVision was capable of.
As an aside, I've always found it interesting that VistaVision was the only widescreen process that Alfred Hitchcock used (for The Trouble with Harry, North by Northwest and Vertigo), despite the fact that the peak of his career coincided with the launch of CinemaScope and Cinerama. Maybe there's a paper in this for the Bradford widescreen conference next year...
Larry
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Larry Shaw
Boston Light & Sound, Inc.
North American Distributor of Kinoton GmbH
290 North Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02135-1990
Tel: 617-787-3131 x104 Fax: 617-787-4257
E-Mail: larry@blsi.com
Website:www.blsi.com/kinoton
I am sorry I don't seem to have received your recent e-mail about the Kalee VV machines. I will just add a few brief comments
Firstly it was Jim Schultz that told me that the four machines were all installed in the West End. I really need to get back in touch with him to grill him for more information.
I believe that you are right in your assumption that the college mentioned was Wandsworth Tech.
As far as to the parts in our possession we have the mech block, gate parts and some sprockets (but not the intermittent ) from one machine , two soundheads ,bases beams and lamphouses and various other bits and pieces.
I believe that they used a standard Kaleee 21 intermittent with double sized sprockets.
Sadly it appears that the parts that went to Switzerland have been lost. the story of how they got there is a long one and best discussed over several Guinnesses.
As to "current " VV machines the IMAX Ridefilm units I believe use a Ballantyne mech.
Leo, I wouldn't have thought that an IMAX type intermittant would be needed for 8-35. Normal intermittant sprocket systems manage 8-70, pulling the same length of film with twice the mass. If necessary, a slower pull across, (is that the correct term?), would be easy to do with an electronic intermittant drive, at the expense of some loss of light. A polyester print shouldn't have any problems doing this, I'm not sure about what would happen if you wanted to run faster than 24 fps though.
Meanwhile, Larry wrote:
"Kinoton makes both VistaVision and so-called Reverse VistaVision projectors."
Larry, what do you mean by 'Reverse Vistavision'?
Recreating a VV cinema would certainly be worth doing as a technical curiosity in a venue such as Dick's museum, but even if you produced a working VV setup for release print projection the ball would once again be in the archivist's court as (s)he would have to provide the prints. If there is a complete set of picture and sound elements for a given feature in a good enough condition to be continuous contacted printed then no problem - you could do them on any 35mm printer. But anything that needs optical and/or step printing would require VV-specific lab equipment, and what lab would be willing to invest in that just for one or two prints?
I seem to remember that the IMAX ridefilm projector which has a conventional intermittent runs at 48fps.
Yes, I agree with this, a considerable number of titles were filmed in Vistavision, and Technirama, but there have been few 70mm restorations, 'Vertigo' and 'Spartacus' are the only ones which I can think of at the moment. More would certainly be welcome.
Have 70mm restorations ever been made of the two Cinemascope-55 titles?
"Recreating a VV cinema would certainly be worth doing as a technical curiosity in a venue such as Dick's museum, but even if you produced a working VV setup for release print projection the ball would once again be in the archivist's court as (s)he would have to provide the prints. If there is a complete set of picture and sound elements for a given feature in a good enough condition to be continuous contacted printed then no problem - you could do them on any 35mm printer. But anything that needs optical and/or step printing would require VV-specific lab equipment, and what lab would be willing to invest in that just for one or two prints?"
Surely, the equipment already exists; in the Widescreen Museum there are some frames from Vista wprint material made during the restoration of 'Vertigo', and quite recently, Vista has been used for special effects work in various films, step contact and optical printers must have been needed for this work.
Do you know how the 'Vertigo' restoration was done? The frames in the museum indicate that some new Vista material was produced, I know that some of the work involved several generations, at what point in the process was the conversion to 5-65 made.
The only pictures of these machines which I have seen are the well-known ones taken in the box at the Odeon Leicester Square, and some Kalee promotional material, I can't remember if this was a photograph, or a drawing. Many of the parts do seem to be similar to the 21. There are still quite a few 21s around, would it be possible to obtain some parts from this source, and, if so, how much would still be needed to put together a working machine? Any idea what it might cost to make these parts? Given that these were just about the last Kalee design, and that the Kershaw factory was only a few miles from the NMPFT, it would be nice to see one of them restored there.
I came to see the Cinerama setup a few days after it opened, they were still having a few teething problems at the time, and I also came to HTWWW at the Widescreen Weekend, I can't remember if it was in 2000, or 2001.
I am planning to come up again, I cannot make the August show, I have to work that day, but I think I can do September. When I was there the first time the auditorium was only about half full, so there as no problem getting a ticket; is this still the case, or would I need to book in advance now? If advance booking necessary, how do I do it, do you take telephone bookings, or would I need to do it by post?
Do you have any plans for more frequent Cinerama shows? Now that there are prints of several of the films, how about either weekly or fortnightly shows, alternating sveral titles, of staying monthly, but running a double bill. You might get more people willing to travel a greater distance for this.
You are right about the Imax Ridefilm projectors using conventional (dual pin) intermittents to run 70mm 8-perf film sideways at 48FPS. However, the intermittent disengages to allow high speed rewind through the projector back to the start point, wher the machine locks back up with the intermittent. Those are a modifoed version of a "PRO-VISTA" VistaVision projector on a Ballantyne main frame. We've built a few of those and other variations as well...
Pat
Hitchcock was doing a lot of work for Paramount around the time he made those movies. In fact, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY and VERTIGO were both Paramount releases (NORTH BY NORTHWEST was MGM).
At the time, Paramount was in charge of deciding which films got VistaVision treatment. Hitchcock was reportedly not too thrilled about having to use the process.
Hitch started out in the silent era, so maybe that's why he preferred using Academy ratio (and Black-and-White). He regarded his first color film (ROPE) and his only 3-D film (DIAL M FOR MURDER) as experiments. Even after his "switch" to color, Hitchcock would occasionally revert to using B&W for some of his better films (STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and PSYCHO, for instance).
We would dearly love to be able to restore one of the original Kalee VV machines to running condition.
However even though we are a National Museum we still have finite resources ,both financial and human, and sadly it is unlikely we will undertake such a project in the near future.Even if we did restore it we would still be faced with the problem of available prints and, more importantly finding somewhere to install it. Pictureville already has 4 Victoria 8s and a DP70 eating up space
We are still trying to find backing for a new print of HTWWW and that is a higher priority at the moment.
Unfortunately our current print which is 40 years old would not stand up to regular screenings. The other problem with increasing the frequency of Cinerama screenings is that Pictureville is of course used for our standard film programme and even though historically Cinerama is a proper activity for us , commercially it doesn't make sense so therefore the current first Saturday arrangement is likely to stay in place for some time.
Aren't the ridefilm projectors 8 perf 35mm not 70?
"Reverse VistaVision" places the intermittent at the opposite end of the gate from VistaVision. When dealing with converting typical conventional mechanical 35mm or 70mm machines to 8/35 horizontal it is easier to (standby for gross oversimplification)just turn the mech head on its side and enlarge the gate. Unfortunately this places the movement at the right of the gate (if you are facing the screen), which is the wrong place for VistaVision. For some purpose-built attractions involving many projectors -mostly in Japan- this "Reverse VistaVision" format is used to reduce projector costs.
Larry
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Larry Shaw
Boston Light & Sound, Inc.
North American Distributor of Kinoton GmbH
290 North Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02135-1990
Tel: 617-787-3131 x104 Fax: 617-787-4257
E-Mail: larry@blsi.com
Website:www.blsi.com/kinoton
Point taken about Hitchcock having spent the first three decades of his career working in either full-gate or Academy (he started as an assistant art director and stills photographer on Woman to Woman (1924, dir. Graham Cutts)), but a lot of other directors who entered the industry around the same time subsequently became widescreen enthusiasts and worked in a number of different formats (e.g. Michael Powell or John Ford).
H actually worked very rarely in b/w from the mid-50s onwards: if I remember the Truffaut book correctly, I Confess and Strangers on a Train were b/w because he was working out a contract with Warners before moving to Paramount and wanted to make low-budget films quickly in order to get out, whilst Psycho was b/w on account of having been made with zero money using his Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV crew because Paramount had refused to finance it in the belief that it would be a box-office flop!
Stephen:
AFAIK the printers used for the Vertigo restoration were VV to 65mm, not VV to VV. Both contact and optical step printing was used, the latter in cases where original elements were either badly faded (in which case the new neg was printed through filters using a similar principle to Desmetcolour) or shrunk beyond the point at which contact printing is possible. I do not know of any VV to VV printers in current use that can cope with faded or shrunken originals. Presumably the original generation of printers could be modified, but as none of the original cinema projectors seem to exist in their entirety, I'd be a bit surprised if anyone had a working VV printer stashed in their garage!
In any case, the whole point of archival restoration and preservation is to make a film available in a format which is in current use but without sacrificing the integrity of the original. VV to 65/70mm certainly achieves this as far as what you see on the screen is concerned. From our point of view, the less rare and/or obsolete formats we have to support the better.
I like to know where as now days (certainly in the UK) only a hand full of cinemas can show 70mm and no doubt in the world only a few hundred or so theatres that are really equipted with 70mm.
quote:
You say in your second post that "All 4 were as far as I know installed in London's West End". Do you know where these installations were? I know that one pair was installed at the Odeon, there are photographs of these to be found in various places, with Mk.1 BTH SUPAs in the background. I have read that the other installation in the uk was at the PLAZA, but that these were Century machines from America, not the Kalee ones. Do you know if this is correct, I have never found any photographs of this installation.
Until it closed last year, I worked at the Plaza. While I certainly wasn't around at the time, I'm fairly certain there were no VistaVision projectors installed.
Also, Ben Wales said:
quote:
There are hundreds if not thousands of cinemas which can show 70mm now,
I like to know where as now days (certainly in the UK) only a hand full of cinemas can show 70mm and no doubt in the world only a few hundred or so theatres that are really equipted with 70mm.
I think the list will be longer than you think!
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Michael Swarbrick
Projectionist, Empire Leicester Square
The Odeon started ut with BTH projectors, which were standard for Odeon, it later had BTH Mk.1 SUPAs, then, for a while, the Kalee Vistavision machines, along with the SUPAs, I'm not certain, but I think one of the SUPAs may have had to be removed to make room for them, then Vic Xs, one of which is now at Bletchley Park, then Vic 8s, until the refurbishment a few years ago. It currently has the Cinemeccanica machines which can take large spools on the base, the feed and take-up spools being off-set, and overlapping. It also has various other equipment, follow spots etc., a platter, and until recently also had a cinemeccanica tower, it was no longer needed with the new projectors which can take the large spools directly. For many years it had an Eidophor, and now has DLP digital projection as well. Normally three film projectors are installed, except when the Vista machines were in; in some early photographs of the original equipment it looks like ther are four, but I think the one furthest from the camera is either a slide lantern, or a spot, there are no spool boxes visable. I have been in the Odeon box, but it was a long time ago, the Vic Xs were in then. These machines were converted to xenon at some time, around the late '70s, or early '80s, I think.
I think the small auditoria built alongside use Vic 5s.
There are photographs of most of this equipment, except that currently installed, at: www.cinephoto.co.uk
Pat
Im sure there is another west end odeon ive being around which used to be an ABC which had 70mm, cant remeber which one it was though ,shaftsbury ave??
The NFT which Leo used to work at had 70 (DP70's), so has the BFI IMAX.
Other sites in the Uk have 70, the ones with DP70's are on the DP70 list on the www.in70mm.com website.
The local Odeon in harrogate used to show 70 but i think the penthouse and the mag sound gear has since being removed when the place was trippled.
Darren
You will find a picture of the Supa’s and Kalee VV era on Fred Fullerton’s wonderful website.
Darren,
You are correct about the ABC 1&2, Shaftsbury Avenue, which has now been re-branded the Odeon, Covent Garden with four screens.
Pity that 70mm was ever removed from what was the Columbia Theatre, Shaftsbury Avenue. I spent a very happy freelance 9 months 30 years ago, mostly running 70mm.
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.
Sadly, I was born in 1957, and my first visit to a projection box was in 1963, on my first visit to a cinema, to see Disney's 'the sword in the Stone' at the recently demolished Odeon East Dulwich, so I missed all the interesting things which were happening in the '50s.
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.
I haven't looked at the 70mm booklet for a long time, There's an article in it by John Pytlak, a name which wouldn't have meant anything to me at the time I bought it. Do you remember this booklet, John? Other well-known names featured include: Robert A Harris, Scott Marshall and Grant Lobban.
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.
Thank you for interesting posts. Maybe I will get to meet you at Open House.
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.
There is also a pair of DP70's at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank in London.
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.
The Plaza was rebuilt in the early 1960's and the VV Century's were removed at this time, there was talk that two Kalee VV projectors were still at Pinewood Studios, is this true?.
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.
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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
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Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
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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.
Of course, any cinema could show 35mm reduction prints from large format originals, and they can look very good. I saw a new 35mm print of 'West Side Story', which looked quite superb with modern lenses, on a modern screen of reasonable size, about 12 metres, as did most of the restored 'Vertigo'. There were a few problem scenes in this one, but overall, it looked very good. Sadly, I can't see large format origination making a comeback any time soon either.
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!
In short all the places I know round these parts that have 70mm machines, use them for 70mm whenever the need arises. They don't generally show 70 for the sake of it, if a title is available in good condition 70mm then they will show the 70, and why not?
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.
How about Fox Grandeur, and the other wide film processes, from 1929-30. Did anything ever make it to London?