Souvenier Program Books for Roadshow Attractions: BEN-HUR, PORGY AND BESS, MARY POPPINS, FUNNY GIRL and more…
October 30th, 2007 by Scott Marks
All of these were purchased after the fact. Do you honestly think my parents were going to spring for something as worthless as a souvenir booklet? The high ticket price, popcorn and a Nedlog were bad enough!
While they may not have bought into the merchandising angle, to their credit, my parents did escort me to a lot of big ticket roadshow attractions. At least one Sunday a month they’d strap a suit and tie on me and steer our pink ‘54 Ford convertible to the Loop to catch a first-run feature.
Slacks and a shirt were okay for neighborhood theaters, but Sundays at the Roosevelt, McVickers, Chicago or State Lake were strictly dress up affairs. It was the closest I ever came to attending Church on Sunday. For this six-year-old kid, these picture palaces represented houses of worship with sermons delivered by John Wayne, Jerry Lewis and Hayley Mills.
The folks took me to Cinerama screenings of The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, How the West Was Won and Circus World. I remember hearing the legendary audio “police calls” played during the intermission of a SuperPanavision 70 screening of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Each time I combed the lobby in search of the bald, greasy-looking, cigar-chomping barker shouting “PUH-RO-GRAMS!” It was never meant to be. When it comes to program books, I exist solely on the throwaways of strangers.
Filed Under Image Blog
CINERAMA Memories
August 20th, 2007 by Scott Marks
When I was 6-years-old, the owner of my mom’s beauty parlor rigged a raffle and my family “won” tickets to a Sunday matinée of How the West Was Won presented in the glory of Cinerama. Dressed in a suit and tie, my parents accompanied me to Chicago’s McVickers Theatre for my first foray into Cinerama.
My adolescent senses kicked into overdrive as I soaked in the enormity of the three-panel screen and the wonder of directional stereo sound. The movie didn’t do much for me, particularly the noxious Debbie Reynolds songs, but the spectacle of the event still burns bright.
It wasn’t your conventional movie screen. First off, it had a deep curve and instead of a smooth surface the screen was comprised of tautly stretched individual slats. Considering the smaller throw, instead of a booth way off in the balcony, three little soundproof huts were constructed on the main floor to house the projectors.
Several years ago Hollywood’s CineramaDome brought back the three-projector system, offering me a return visit to this childhood staple.
It was torture.
Virtually every composition in the film became slave to the rigid process. Even John Ford’s segment dragged on like little more than a That’s Entertainment compilation of the director’s pet preoccupations.The camera(s) seldom moved, and after the first 15 minutes the most interesting part of the experience was observing how the filmmakers masked the seams by composing them behind whatever vertical object (a tree, the corner of a room, the side of a house, etc.) they could find.
I came across http://cinerama.topcities.com/index.htm , an exceptional, fully illustrated history of and resource guide to Cinerama. It even goes so far as rating an individual theatre’s facilities. I wonder if you got to use three stalls at once…
More CINERAMA images can be found in the Vault: http://www.emulsioncompulsion.com/gallery2/v/cinerama/
Tags: Cinerama, Movie Theatre, Sunday matinéeFiled Under Rants
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Quotes, Quips and Fun Facts
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In their infinite wisdom, the Academy finally decided to award Martin Scorsese one of their precious statuettes for his worst film.
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