Cinerama Premiere Book (cont'd)

Hazard E. Reeves, pioneer in the field of sound and electronics

CAPTION: Hazard E. Reeves checks the performance of the Cinerama "sound head".

Before Fred Waller had progressed very far down the road toward the successful development of the Cinerama process, he realized that sound such as had never been heard before must be a part of his objective. It had to do the same thing for the human ear that his wrap-around picture would do for tye eye.

Fortunately, in the process of doing the Eastman Kodak Exhibit at the New York World's Fair, he had met and worked with Hazard E. Reeves, one of the country's outstanding creative sound engineers. It was only natural that he should show Reeves the progress he was making, and equally natural that Reeves was quick to see the great potentials of Waller's work. Reeves agreed to take on the task of developing the multi-dimensional sound that Cinerama needed. In fact, he did more than that--he invested in the Cinerama process and became president of Cinerama, Inc. when the company was organized several years ago.

Young in years and appearance, Reeves is a tornado of energy, equipped with a nimble engineering mind and the practical sense of a successful executive. He operates several businesses with one hand while he has his fun developing new ideas with the other. Reeves is never happier than when erfecting a new product, not only to the point where it works, but to the point where it is a sound financial operation.

Reeves came to New York in 1928 with an engineering degree from Georga Tech. After two or three years of rapid progress in the field of sound--he was Chief Engineer with the Standard Sound Company and consultant to the Harvard University Film Fondation--he opened his own recording studio where he specialized in putting sound on film for motion picture producers and making records for recording companies. The studio grew rapidly and became the largest in the East in a few years. There were numerous offshoots, includinga company which built special sound equipment and another which made phonograph recording discs. When the war came along, Reeves, with several associates, founded Reeves-Ely Laboratories to manufacture electronic products. Within less than a year the company had contracts totaling many millions of dollars and had won the Army-Navy "E" Award for merit. During the course of the war, the company won the "E" Award four times. After the war, Reeves-Ely Laboratories was sold and Reeves is now president of his new enterprise, Reeves Soundcraft Corporation, which in a fatherly and very effective manner directs the operation of a number of companies manufacturing a variety of products from color television cameras to magnetic film.

What Reeves wanted for Cinerama was not only sound that would move from place to place with the action on the screen; he wanted sound so good it would be completely indistinguishable from the real thing.

Using resources of his own organization Reeves worked for two years with his engineers, experimenting and designing and building the equipment. He came up with a system of six or more microphones, extremely high fidelity amplifiers and six magnetic oxide sound tracks developed from his Magnastripe process, stripped on standard motion picture film. The end result is omni-directional sound of flawless quality. It has what sound experts call "presence," which is just another way of saying it's as good as being on the spot. Sometimes it's better than being on the spot because, in the case of an orchestra for example, engineers can create a better musical balance than if the orchestra itself were present. Reeves sound is no mere adjunct to the Cinerama picture--it's a full-fledged partner.

Program:

"This Is Cinerama"
A Lowell Thomas and Merian C. Cooper Cinerama Presentation
Produced by Merian C. Cooper and Robert L. Bendick

Prologue:

Lowell Thomas, in his famous easy style, goes from early cave paintings to Leonardo da Vinci, to Rudolph Valentino and the Great Train Robbery of the silent picture days, inte fascinating process of explaining how artists, photographers and motion picture cameramen have worked since the dawn of history to give the illusion of depth, dimension and space, and to conveny the since of living motion.

Then, the World Premiere of

• "This is Cinerama"
• The Roller Coaster
• A Ballet at the La Scala Theater in Milan
• The Fourth Wonder of the World
• Handel's "The Messian" sung by the Long Island Choral Society

Among other features in this first showing of "This is Cinerama" are:

• Venetian Boatmen
• Kilts and Tartans
• Toreador
• Spanish Rhythm
• The Vienna Boys Choir
• The Finale from Act II of "Aida"
• Rare Beauty and Fast Action
• America the Beautiful Music by the Salt Lake City Tabernacle Choir

Technical Direction:

Musical Director....................................Louis Forbes
Cameraman...........................................Harry Squire
Asst. Cameraman....................................Jack Priestly
Sound.................................Richard J. Petschmann, Jr.
Film Editor...........................................Bill Henry
Paintings........................................Mario Larrinaga
Sound Effects...............................Reeves Sound Studios

European Sequences:

Supervised by Michael Todd and Michael Todd, Jr.

Prologue:

Supervised by Walter Thompson

"America the Beautiful":

Supervised by Fred Rickey
Piloted by Paul Mantz, Air Speed Record Holder

Music By:

Cinerama Philharmonic Orchestra Salt Lake City Tabernacle Choir Vienna Philharmonic Vienna Boys Choir The Long Island Choral Society

This Souvenier Program shows you the Cinerama camera at work, but it makes no attempt to reproduce a Cinerama picture.

CAPTION: A trio of big arcs, among many which were flown in from England to provide sufficient illumination for the color photography of the La Scala Opera Company.

MILAN -- your front row seat at La Scala

Including the orchestra, there were more than six hundred people on the stage at one time when the Cinerama camera photographed the La Scala Opera Company's brilliant presentation of the Finale of the Second Act of Aida. It turned out that there weren't enough lights in Italy to illuminate the stage; additional lights had to be flown in from England on short notice and generators to supply the current were recruited from all over Italy. A capacity audience was there by invitation to here an especially arranged performance while they "sat" for the Cinerama camera.

La Scala is the temple of operatic art, not only for Milan, but for the whole world. Almost all of the great names of the past centry and a half have sung there. It has been home to such giants as Verdi, Puccini and Mascagni, Caruso, Chaliapin and Gigli. Only someone who has lived in Milan can understand the great pride and deep feeling of possession which the Milanese feel for their La Scala.

CAPTION: The Cinerama camera works close in to give American audiences a better-than-front-row seat for the lavish La Scala Opera Company's presentation of Aida.

It wasn't easy to arrange to photograph an actual performance of La Scala. The directors of the opera found it hard to believe that any motion picture could do justice to their work. The movies, they feel, have always left much to be desired so far as their ability to reproduce operatic music is concerned. The La Scala directors finally gave their permission, but only with the understanding that they would be among the first to see the results which, if not up to La Scala's high standards, would never be shown publicly. Signor Luigi Oldani, La Scala's Impressario, recently flew to New York to see his work reproduced by Cinerama. Admittedly skeptical and in no mood to approve a mediocre presentation, he stood up after the preview, not only ready to give his approval, but to make it ecstatic approval.

CAPTION: Special scaffolding was built in one of the lagoons so that the outboards could come into the scene from beneath the camera.

Florida's Cypress Gardens -- a potpourri of rare beauty and fast action

Cypress gardens is just one great big outdoor studio, a dream spot for the man with color in his camera, whether he clicks a box brownie or, like Cinerama's cameraman, Harry Squire, is boss of a big 3-lens 35mm camera. A spot of exquisite natural beauty where century-old cypress trees grow along the shore and out into Lake Eloise, Cypress Gardens has become a botanical wonderland at the hands of Richard D. Pope and his wife, Julie, who, while adding exotic flowers and plants from all over the tropical world, have carefully followed the laws of nature in their growth and arrangement.

The Cinerama camera crew spent more than three weeks in this photogenic spot making test shots of all kinds with the Cinerama camera. It was an ideal place to experiment with such things as camera angles, close-ups and long shots, traveling shots, scene composition and the technique of establishing primary and secondary interest. Out of these tests came new technical information which will be invaluable in future Cinerama productions.

CAPTION: The Aquabelles race for their water skis before the camera and an audience of hundreds in the natural water theater at Cypress Gardens.

CAPTION: Cypress Gardens' flying outboards go through their paces for the Cinerama camera.

In spite of the long days of hard work involved, the Cinerama crew had a lot of fun at Cypress Gardens. But it is not likely that they enjoyed themselves any more than the boys and girls who rode the water skis, piloted the agile outboards, staged the water ballet and generally made themselves photogenic against the backdrop of Cypress Gardens' exotic tropical scenery. These youngsters are not professional actors, just teen-agers most of them, who live nearby and have become proficient enough to be a par tof Cypress Gardens' regular water show. At the end of the last day of shooting they tossed the whole Cinerama crew into the water, Director Cooper included. "Not much you can do," says Cooper, "when 15 boys and as many girls decide you're ready for a dunking--especially when the girls do most of the dunking."

"America the Beautiful"

Harry Squire, the Cinerama cameraman, isn't exactly what you'd call quiet and retiring. He's one of the boys and holds up his end, conversationally speaking, except when it comes to reciting the thrills that have come his way in his work as a cameraman. "It's all routine to me," says Harry. "I've been around the world eight times. I did almost all of Frank Buck's stuff, traveled a lot with Lowell Thomas, went into the Belgian Congo with the Gatty Expedition. It's just another day's work, that's all.

"But I'll tell you one thing that did get me--that flight in the B-25 with Paul Mantz. I was alone in the nose of the plane with the camera. When he flew down those canyons--that wasn't routine. I sorta...well, you'll know what I mean when you see it."

Paul Mantz, who flew the converted bomber which carred the Cinerama camera from New York to California via some of the most magnificent country to be found anywhere in the world, is not an old lady's pilot. In his yonger days, he was the stunt pilot in Hollywood who was called into do the trick flying and stage the crashes that nobody else would have anything to do with. Yet he managed to spend less time in the hospital than his competitors. He graduated form stunt work to speed flying and won the Bendix Trophy Races for three consecutive years, 1946, 1947, 1948. He holds numerous air speed records and no one has topped hom at consecutive outside loops--46 of them.

Today he operates Paul Mantz Flying Service in Burbank, California, and is generally considered the country's crack pilot for aerial photography. It was his knowledge of camera angles and lighting for aerial work which made it possible for Harry Squire and the Cinerama camera to catch the brilliant breath-taking background for "America the Beautiful."

Who's who in "This is Cinerama"

Lowell Thomas, Chairman of the Board of Cinerama Productions Corp. and Co-Producer of "This is Cinerama"

It is estimated that the voice of Lowell Thomas has been heard by more of his fellow mortals than any other voice in history--including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Hitler and Mussolini. He recently celebrated his 22nd anniversary as a radio headliner, and holds the longevity record for all programs, of all types, in the entire history of broadcasting.

Lowell Thomas first came into the public eye in 1930 as the discoverer and biographer of Lawrence of Arabia, as biographer of Counter Luckner, "The Sea Devil," and as historian of the world's first flight. "L.T.," the author, has written a shelf of books, 41 in all, including such other well-known titles as "Back to Mandalay," "Pageant of Adventure" and "The Untold Story of Exploration."

A biographer might well single out Lowell Thomas's amazing ability to get things done and cover ground as his outstanding characteristics. While restricted for the past 22 years by a 5-times-a-week, twice-nightly broadcast which cirecles the globe, and 17 years of continuous work with Fox Movietone News, he has done more writing than most full-time authors, and has managed to maintain his habit, established early in life, of keeping on intimate terms with the ends of the earth.

In 1943 he made a radio tour of South America, broadcasting from Rio de Janero, Santiago, Lima and elsewhere around and across that continent. In the spring of 1945 he broadcast to America reports on the Second World War from London, Paris, Luxembourg, Rome, and from a mobile truck behind the front lines.

Upon his return from the European Theater he set off on a 'round the world flight, over "The Hump" and into Central Asia, to assemble material on the Pacific War. This journey included broadcasts to America from Cairo, New Delhi, Manila, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, as well as from Chungking.

Then in the summer and fall of 1949, he and his son, Lowell Jr. made their Himalayan journey to forbidden Tibet. This visit to the real Shangri-La, Lhasa, the capital of the Dalai Lama, and the near-tragic return journey to India attracted as wide attention as any adventure of our time. Lowell Thomas, Jr., told the story of the trip in his best seller, "Out of this Wrold."

1950 took Lowell Sr. to Alaska and the little-known Juneau Ice Cap, with an American Geograpical Society expedition, and the following year he was off on another aerial jaunt to Europe, Africa and South America.

As a young man, Lowell Thomas was a gold miner in Crippe Creek, a range rider, a mining camp reporter and an editor. With degrees from our universities, he was on the faculty of Princeton University working for his doctorate in Constitutional Law when World War I broke out. It didn't take him long to substitute the role of foreign correspondent for teaching, and when he read in 1917 of the appointment of General Allenby as the new British Commander-in-Chief in Egypt, his nose for news made him suspect that a drive against the Turks was about to be launched. He pulled the wires necessary to take him to the battlefront of the Near East where he met and later joined Lawrence. This association enabled him to assembled the astounding story which laid the groundwork for his career on the platform, as a film maker, lecturer, news commentator and world-famous personality.

The man who, with Robert Bendick, co-produced "This is Cinerama" is Merian C. Cooper, famed in the motion picture industry for his long list of bold, successful pioneering ventures. Cooper, a man who could shoot films from the exciting pages of his own life, considers Cinerama the greatest and most revolutionary development in motion pictures since sound and Technicolor.

Cooper started out as a "firster" when, with his then partner, Ernest B. Schoedsack, he was one of the first to produce natural films such as "Grass" and "Chang." Again, with Schoedsack, he was the first to tie studio and wilderness together in "Four Feathers."

He pioneered in aviation. Before Lindberg flew the Atlantic, Cooper invested in Pan-American Airways. Along with Juan Trippe and John Hambleton he believed it was entirely sane for planes to fly the oceans with passengers. Most persons thought these young pioneers were crazy.

When three-color Technicolor was young, he got C.V. and John Hay Whitney to bet a fortune on it. Her persuaded David Selznick to try the three-color process which resulted in the use of Technicolor for "Gone with the Wind." This forced the film industry to take up Technicolor.

He staged the first radio show with film stars (1933)--Constance Bennett, Irene Dunne and Dorothy Jordan. All producers fought him on this.

In 1933, with E.B. Schoedsack, he produced "King Kong," a bold, imaginative film which brought minature projection to the screen.

He was the first to advertise a motion picture on television.

At a time when people thought dancing was dead on the screen, he created a dance team, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.

Cooper says, "Cinerama, invented by Fred Waller, is the same kind of bold venture as were sound and Technicolor. Neither the stage nor motion picture give a comparable feeling of being part of the action. The action bursts out of confinement.

Robert L. Bendick began his photographic career by doing documentary picture work for the Canadian and Bermudian Agencies as well as still photography for some of the leading magazines.

In 1940, he went into the field of television, working for CBS. This was interrupted by the war in which, as a captain in the army, he served as combat cameraman with the First Motion Picture Unit in the China-Burma-India Theater. He was the chief cameraman on the first glider invasion into Burma, which set the pattern for all subsequent glider invasions.

After the war, he returned to CBS in a new capacity as head of the News and Special Events Department. During this period, he was producer of a series of shows on the United Nations, sponsored jointly by the Ford Motor Company and CBS. For this series of programs he received the Peabody Award, the highest award in the television field, which is often referred to as the television "Oscar."

Bendick's work with Cinerama is by no means his first pioneering venture. His work with CBS-TV gave him full responsibility for the first television broadcasts of the national Republican and Democratic Conventions in 1948; the first United Nations television broadcast; and the first baseball game that went out over TV, a Brooklyn Dodger game, in 1946. The first pictures to be broadcast from the capitol building in Washington, the opening of Congress in 1947, were under his direction.

He is co-author with his wife, Jeanne Bendick, of "Television Works Like This," and "Making the Movies."

Louis Forbes has been musical director for many of the greatest motion pictures, including "Gone With the Wind." He was called in to Hollywood by Universal-International in 1936. He was musical director for David Selnick for six years. Forbes' first picture was "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." Next came "Intermezzo," starring Ingrid Bergman, followed by many other films. In three years with Samuel Goldwyn he did Danny Kaye's "Up in Arms" and many more Goldwyn hits. When Merian C. Cooper, as co-producer with Robert Bendick of "This is Cinerama," was asked to select a musical director, his single choice was Louis Forbes.

Mario Larrinaga is described by Willis J. O'Brien, the man in charge of special effects for "King Kong," "Lost World," and other unusual films, as one of the finest technical artists ever seen in Hollywood. An all-around artist, Larrinaga had no notion he was going to be in motion pictures when he came to the United States from his native Mexico.

A designer and a master of scenic art, Mario was discovered by Warner Brothers who persuaded him to have a try at the creative art work without which many films could not be made. It was at Warner's that he met O'Brien and they became fast friends as well as a successful team.

A year ago, Larrinaga left Hollywood and built a home in the artist colony of Taos, in New Mexico, where he paints landscapes that the galleries are beginning to find in great demand.

Merian C. Cooper, with whom Larrinaga worked on "King Kong," is endeavoring to persuade Mario to leave his desert retreat long enough to help him with a new novel film feature now in preparation by Argosy Pictures in which Cooper and John Ford are partners.

Paul Mantz has been flying since 1924, and has owned and operated the Paul Mantz Air Services for the past 23 years. Catering to well-known businessmen and motion picture people, he has taken more stars to Las Vegas, Reno, and Yuma to either tie or untie the marriage knot than any other pilot. He now has the largest individually-owned airplane collection in the world and can provide authentic planes for any period in U.S. history.

Best known as a speed flyer, Mantz is the only pilot who has won the Bendix Trophy Races three consecutive years--1946,1947,1948. He holds numerous records, most of them made in the P-51 Mustang which he souped up with surplus plane material. He established the Los Angeles-to-New York record,4 hours 48 minutes, in 1948.

Equally well knwon for his spectacular stunt flying in many motion pictures during the past 23 years, Mantz has obtained what were thought to be impossible air shots for some of the biggest directors in the business. He is the first one all the news agencies and television stations think of when there is a "hot" story to be photographed.

Paramount Pictures produced a film "Blaze At Noon," based on his life, in which he appeared. Some of the most amazing stunt flying ever seen occurs in this film.

People are saying...

"I have just looked at the movies' answer to television, whether or not the movies know it yet...as sound has come to the movies, as color has come, this three-dimensional stuff has got to come" -- Robert C. Ruark, New York World Telegram

"Cinerama is as big a thing as the coming of talkies. Whoever puts it on first will stampede the business just as the Warner Brothers did nearly 30 years ago!" -- Sir Alexander Korda

"We didn't relax our hold on the back of the chair in front of us until the lights came on. A lady a few chairs away didn't look so good. 'Biggest thing since sound,' said a gentleman near us..." -- The New Yorker

"Thrills that lift you out of your seat...action that goest on right around you" -- Popular Science

"This invention makes the difference between seeing something on a flat page and seeing it in true life." -- New York Herald Tribune

"So intense is the feeling of realism transmitted by Cinerama that not a few visitors are oversome physically" (when they ride the roller coaster with Cinerama) -- International Projectionist

"We no longer look at a motion picture, we are the picture" -- L.W. Davee, Motion Picture Herald

"It's the shiny new Cadillac to an industry that turned, almost overnight, into a horse and buggy business when TV brought the movies across the parlor threshold." -- Edward T. Martin, Boston Sunday Post

"Cinerama does not reproduce such old tricks as the baseball thrown straight into the spectators' laps; rather, it seems to pull the audience into the picture." -- Time Magazine

"During a roller coaster shot at a preview, ladies shut their eyes and men grabbed their seats to stop swaying." -- Wall Street Journal

A Warm "Thank You"

People who have the faith, the courage, and the farsightedness to put their financial resources at the disposal of an inventor while he labors to create have made a most important contribution to the American standard of living. Without them, a very large share of the new developments of the past fifty years would still be nothing more than ideas and plans in the minds of brilliant but frustrated individuals.

Among those who made possible Fred Waller's years of experimentation and hard work, who constantly encouraged him by their confidence in his ideas, were Ralph Walker, one of New York's well-known architects, and Laurance S. Rockefeller. Mr. Walker and Mr. Rockefeller believed that, sooner or later, new technical developments would enable motion picture to make an even greater contributon to American life, and they had confidence that Fred Waller was on the right road. In the past few years, Time, Inc. and other sponsors have joined in providing the financial resources for Mr. Waller's work. Fred Waller and Cinerama, Inc. unite in an expression of sincere appreciation to these people for their vital contribution which has made Cinerama possible.

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Fred Waller and Cinerama, Inc. also wish to extend their thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph V. McMullan of Oyster Bay, L.I., through whoise thoughtfulness the building which has housed Cinerama's experimental theater was made available.