MOBILE CINERAMA PROJECTIONIST
My name is Chris Usher and I was seventeen when I first saw Cinerama. During the summer of 1964, my parents and grandparents and I were visiting Southsea, Hampshire, England, when we saw a gigantic blue tent on the Common. We thought perhaps it was a circus but on reaching the ticket office we realised they were showing films. Now travelling cinemas were long gone before I was born so we were intrigued to see what they could show that our local Regal and Odeon back in our home town of Salisbury could not. Their film was called ‘This is Cinerama’ and it promised ‘to put us in the picture.’ In we all went.
After a small screen prologue the size of which film I thought normal, by a certain Lowell Thomas, who I thought was Walt Disney, the film proper burst on the screen.
I was stunned by what I saw, the shock was like waking up to find the Taj Mahal in your back garden. It didn’t look like you were watching a film, it looked like the wall had dropped out of the tent and you were looking at the outside world, it was so real. I didn’t know I was looking at three films at once, I didn’t see the joins or the odd perspectives, I thought I was seeing the future of moving pictures, when, had I realised it at the time, I was really looking at its past. It made such an impression on me I thought ‘I have to be a part of this,’ and so it would prove to be.
We again saw Cinerama in 1965 when the tent came to Southampton and this time we saw ‘Cinerama Holiday’ which did not disappoint. I bought the brochure which basically explained to me how the system worked and, more intrigued, I went back to see it again and after the show I asked to be shown around the projection box. My host was the chief projectionist, a man I later learned was Derek Wellington.
I was so fascinated I pestered them to let me join and after several visits I eventually got to see the chief engineer Bill Keyes, and, I think in exasperation, he offered me a job as a junior projectionist. I show here my letter of acceptance and on my first day I was involved in the ‘build up’ as circus people call it.
That first day, 11th July 1966, the day before my nineteenth birthday, was indeed a long one for we worked past midnight and after rolling out the 109 by 37 feet one piece screen in the field for cleaning, we installed it in the early hours. I noticed it had a myriad of very tiny regularly spaced holes and I was reliably informed this facilitated sound egress. I said 109 feet of material but the public saw only? 103 feet because of the wine red masking either side when installed. The bottom masking was laced to a track just laid on the ground because the picture went virtually to the floor while the top masking would hide the eyelets.
The rolled screen was hoisted upright and fed from its pole along a track by the eyelets, all of which was supported by ‘gallows’ bolted to the tent stanchions. It’s what circus and fairground folk do, work ‘til it’s done and then rest. Rest for me was a 22ft. Bluebird caravan, painted yellow with the Cinerama logo on the sides, which I shared with projectionist Tony Shore, a young man perhaps a little older than myself.
During our run at Paignton we showed ‘South Seas Adventure’ and ‘Best of Cinerama,’ the latter having a prologue. Our ‘normal’ prologue projector was also used to show adverts during the intermission and the lens was changed for this so that the picture became bigger, albeit dimmer, especially with the houselights up. More work for the Charlie projectionist, invariably Tony Shore.
Mick Mulcahy, Tony Shore and myself on my first day
Mick Mulcahy, Tony Shore and myself on my first day
This of course meant the projection box was very crowded with four projectors, (ABC & P,) one sound machine, (S,) three water coolers, four rectifiers, (R,) (to get DC current from the AC mains for the carbon arcs) so it got very hot during the show. So hot, I remember it once reached 44C, we often wore shorts. All this heat producing electricity came from our busbar (BB) from which we tapped the voltages we needed to feed the various machines. The busbar itself was connected to the national grid.
We had a three month summer run at Paignton and we ‘pulled down’ at the beginning of October. We took the screen masking down even as the second half of our last presentation was still running and the bemused audience that had come in through a proper ticket foyer exited the tent through a hole in its side. We were then assigned six casual labourers each to pull down and pack our tent and equipment. I had these burly blokes under me and they were told in no uncertain manner by tent master Johnny Hein that they would have to do what I told them, short of climbing anything for it is an unwritten rule among circus and fairground folk that only permanent staff may leave the ground. If any casuals were unsuited to any particular task we would sometimes swap them between us so as to get the best work rate from them. Exceptional workers might even be invited to become permanent tent staff and some did.
While the transport staff, headed by Eddie Green, moved our 40 plus vehicle convoy to Woodhouse Moor, Leeds, the rest of us had time off to meet up again for the build up.
Our pitch, unlike Paignton which was dead flat, had a slight rise and though the optimum position was to put the screen at the lower end we reversed it for some reason, Johnny Hein having the final say where his tent went. This may have facilitated access to the national grid for unlike most travelling entertainments, we did not have our own generators.
The projection team, the ‘technicians’ as opposed to the ‘tent staff’ consisted of chief projectionist Derek Wellington, his deputy Mick Mulcahy, Tony Shore, Tony Ellingham, myself and chief electrician Joe Payton. We were under chief engineer and ex Casino, London staff member, Bill Keyes. Our stay in Leeds would be the longest we ever did, 111 days and those days saw some changes of staff, principally ‘big’ Derek. ‘Big’ because before my time there had been a ‘little’ Derek, Pritchard by name. Big Derek, his wife and little daughter moved into a house in the area and his vacancy saw the arrival of our new chief, Pete Dolan.
Also joining in the place of Tony Shore, who resided in Leeds, was Keith Mannion. So that we were fully staffed Bill Keyes took on Spaniard John Macias, adding to the international mix we already had. I remember him pointing out that one of our trailers, bearing the name Remorques, was Spanish also. Tent master Johnny Hein was of course German as was his right hand man Franz, who I never heard speak a word of English. Hein, actually missing a thumb, was the only person on the site that could use two sledgehammers at once, one in each hand, to drive in a pin and Franz was the only person that would dare to hold it. Bill also felt he needed a secretary so he took on local girl Ann Phillips.
Our run was very popular and we often filled our 1216 seats for a show. At this time I was rewinding the sound track and, a little later, Able, Baker and Charlie, checking the prints for the next show. Our two rewinders were electric and controlled by a foot pedal cross winding from bottom right to top left. Cross winding was the only practical procedure because it kept the film you were checking always at waist height it being impossible with such large reels, up to 12,000 ft. in length, to go top to top. This meant that we wound emulsion out, the projector feeding from the back to put the film correctly in the gate cell to screen. The take-ups of course wound forwards to make the reel cell out. By comparison regular cinemas with their changeovers of 2,000 ft. reels rewound left to right, top to top, always cell out for their ‘front to front’ projectors.
We also played the film into the inside of the reel nearest us to prevent any proud sections and thus facilitated safe man-handling, especially when loading on to the projector feed spool. Another problem with our large reels was the stress at the ends of the films, that dragging effect you get when the film is turning all that metal, albeit aluminium, by itself. We countered this by winding junk film on to the spools to enlarge the centres as much as our films allowed.
Also our rewinders had two different tensions, Strong to begin with to wind as tightly as possible to reduce stress when on the projector and then about halfway through a lesser tension, neatly changed by our right hands without stopping, to reduce stress on the rewinder. If ever our films needed replacement sections it was invariably the ends.
Derek Wellington
Bill Keyes
Ann Phillips
Tony Dolan
Keith Mannion, Tony Ellingham and John Macias
Projectionist box, technicians’ office and electricians’ wagon at Leeds
Very occasionally I was allowed to operate Able projector, manually lifting the reels on to the feed box and assisting the take up at the start. Because of inertia the large reels needed help to get up to speed or else they would snatch and break the film, (unthinkable!) I first did this on the more forgiving sound machine but there were times, enabled by their close proximity, one person would assist both Able and sound reels at once and because of their face to face layout, in two different directions. It was 30 inch aluminium reels for the travelogues, but the two story films, ‘How the West was Won’ and ‘The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm’ used 34 inch.
Because these two films were longer, we needed longer positive carbons in our Ashcraft arcs so Bill enlisted the services of local business man Fred Steele to provide them. As the travel of the positive was limited to just over the hour we often had to re-set them by Allen keys back in the water cooled silver jaws while the show was actually running and while they were live!
During our stay in Leeds we changed our foyer sign from ‘Cinerama’ to ‘Super Cinerama’ and a cover was put over the rear of the projection box so that we might rewind the reels there without having to brave the steps in any rain. The cover also gave us a proper light trap to ensure no daylight could reach the screen during a performance.
John Macias by Mick Mulchay’s caravan. Mine was the next one down
And now a word on our hierarchy of staff. Our outfit was registered as ‘Itinerama’ and sleeping partners among others were Lord John Manners and the Mills brothers Bernard and Cyril of circus fame. Cyril did visit us once during my stay when we were in Paignton in 1967 and he would have been entertained by our General Manager David Monk. Dave Brackenbury and wife Jean were in charge of ticketing and finance while I have already mentioned transport manager Eddie Green and legendary tent master Johnny Hein. George Spittall was in charge of advance publicity and he would often be in our next venue sorting out posters and complimentary tickets. For the record while at Leeds the seats ranged from 5/6 to 13/- with reductions for children and groups of twelve or more. (That’s 27½ pence and 65 pence to younger readers.) All of the above mentioned were circus folk and were not Cinerama technicians. That breed was headed by Bill Keyes, with his projectionists and electricians.
Us projectionists’ day of work consisted of rewinding and checking the prints, repairing with Permacel tape if required, from the night before, remembering that all our films had been run in other Cinerama theatres, for years in some cases. Permacel came in two nylon based varieties, clear and white, clear being the obvious choice for any screen image, the white reserved for leaders, run outs or the sound track. There is no cement splicing in Cinerama prints, integrity of length having to be maintained to ensure synchronisation. We then cleaned the Ashcraft arcs and the Westrex ‘Century’ heads. The mirrors were polished to remove the previous day’s carbon deposits but we never touched the heat shield positioned near the gate end of the housing. This specially coated glass disc, about 6 inches in diameter, reflected heat into the roof of the arc housing while allowing the light through to the gate. We used silver polish on the silver jaws and carbon tetrachloride for the gate mechanism and the ‘jigilos,’ those saw tooth like combs that sort of hid the matchlines on the screen.
During the run of ‘South Seas Adventure’ our management decided to re-create an historical event. This was the last time a travelling cinema had come to Woodhouse Moor, before the First World War in film’s silent era. We temporarily cut ‘The Great Train Robbery’ from our TIC prologue and spliced on a ‘The End’ title for good measure. A man, whose name I regretfully cannot remember, was actually a projectionist back in those days and he was introduced to the audience. He also provided a fairground organ which he set playing after the end titles of ‘South Seas Adventure’ but not before the exit music. Hearing ‘Ta ra ra boom te ay’ at the same time as ‘Click go the shears boys’ was something I’ll never forget! I think the tent staff were very pleased to re-lace their tent after letting the organ in and out but not too long after they had to open it up again. Just before we were to commence showing the ‘West’ for the first time after Christmas 1966, Bill Keyes decided to clean the screen again, this time by way of a ‘cherry picker’ platform. Up went Derek and I with our mops and buckets on a task that took all day. After re-lacing their tent the exasperated tent staff were not called upon to repeat the task until we pulled down. I think this is the time when Derek decided his travelling days were done.
Bill had one more job to do before we could premiere the ‘West’ on Boxing Day and that was to change the speed of the machines from 26 to 24 frames per second. It was Christmas Day in the projection box when Mick and I observed Bill set about changing the gear ratios on the drive motors. A curious thing happened. Bill at first used the wrong combination of gears and when we ran the projector we were testing, I think it was Able because of its ease of access, it ran at 16 fps! Bill promptly swapped a gear around and we got our 24fps but it just showed that with a three bladed shutter instead of the two blades that the system used you could make films in Cinerama using a lot less film as the sound system was adequate for high fidelity reproduction even at that speed. Not that anyone would do it but it’s just a thought.
Cinerama at Leeds, November 1966
A station control box
After three and a half months at Leeds we pulled down and moved to the Goose Fair site in Nottingham. Pete Dolan stayed in Leeds, as did Keith Mannion, John Macias and Ann Phillips. This left us without a chief projectionist so Bill Keyes got in touch with a previous projectionist who had left a year or so ago, by name, Ken Ackroyd. Ken was chief until he made a technical blunder that endangered a big show which prompted Bill to sack him and so the man of the moment became the momentary man. Next chief was one Ivor, fresh from the Princess cinema Birstall. He lasted only a few days but not before making his memorable quote on Cinerama: ‘Each projector is twice as big as the ones I’m used to, and you’ve got three of ‘em!’ He also asked me, a teenager, how I could handle this system to which I could only reply that I had never known anything else.
To solve Bill’s problem of who would run the show on Mick Mulcahy’s days off, he took the bold, and temporary, step of asking me to ‘be on Baker,’ a euphemism for chief.
And so I took it on and I never did anything else to the day we finished. I showed the ‘West’ for the first time on the 6th of April 1967 and I felt that I was where I should be, for I never tired of Cinerama placing myself mentally in the auditorium with each new audience as if I was seeing the film for the first time. Being on Baker you had to ensure each projectionist inched over to get the selsyn in lock position and the gate in the ‘rest’ position, indicated by an arrow on the inching knob. Footage meters would be zeroed before lacing their machines on the start mark in the gate, visible by looking down the lens barrel, which would then be checked by the chief. All four stations, Able, Baker, Charlie and sound would then be put in ‘remote’ mode and then ‘lock’ with the take-ups on.
The sound machine was always operated by the Able projectionist for it was within arm’s reach of that station. Done correctly, four green lights for remote and four white lights for lock appeared on the main control panel by Baker. Of course, being American equipment, all switches were ‘up’ for ‘on.’ If a travelogue, the arcs were struck but if a story film ‘West’ or ‘Grimm’ we would wait to strike up during the overture just to make sure we would get to the end. At the advertised time the chief would press the start button on the main panel activating all four stations at once, each man assisting the take-ups to speed and then we would be hearing the overture through our monitor.
We used channel three centre screen but we could also listen through the intercom in the auditorium at what the audience was actually hearing but we would pick up ambient sounds, coughing, etc, so we stuck with the clean sound of speaker three. If not operated by Bill, the faders were preset, according to how many people we had seated, in a locked console in the centre of the auditorium near where the two main aisles crossed, seat S24 to be exact. Sometimes if the sound was not clear it meant there had been a build up of oxide on the sound head but this was easily solved by playing carbon tetrachloride on the 35mm full coat sound track just before the head which would clear in seconds. Any longer and we would see Bill rushing up the centre aisle between the raked seats frantically pointing to his ears even before he got to the intercom.
Other times a reluctant relay would not switch in so we had to quickly open the relay box on the back of that projector and coax it into position. All of the switches we projectionists operated did not pass the main current but only operated the relays which closed the main circuits. Nearing the picture the houselights were taken down and the hand dowsers on the arcs opened. The footlights were slowly taken down on their fader and a second before the picture the chief would press the sync dowser, we called it the ‘zipper,’ switch to allow the light through for the image to appear on the screen.
The white lights would flash together every time a ‘sync’ frame went through the gate which was every 32 frames or three feet there being 10 and 2/3rds frames every foot in Cinerama as opposed to 16 in normal films. Every sync frame the edge number, BB0000 was Baker’s start mark for example, the numbers lined up exactly with the six perf frame and if there was ever any problem and we had to do a restart, we would always wind down to a sync frame to illuminate the white lights on the control console. All of this that I have just described being seamless to the audience.
If any of them had cared to turn round they could have seen us quite clearly through the four very large projector ports we had. We also had to run with some lights on to see what we were doing and being aware of our visibility in our ‘fish tank’ we dressed in what would now be called ‘smart casual’ but short of wearing ties. Because we could be seen only from the waist up the shorts were in order on hot days.
Other operations we carried out were to run down the overture to a second start mark on the sound machine which would then match the picture. This was enabled by a clutch mechanism on the machine. I think we did this on ‘Windjammer’ for although this film had a prologue we never showed it. Of course being filmed in Cinemiracle, Able and Charlie prints were flopped in the projectors, emulsion to screen, as they had been filmed through mirrors. Those mirrors had the effect of putting the three camera lenses in optically the same position and it was this feature that enabled them to circumvent the Cinerama patents. Cinerama Inc. eventually bought out Cinemiracle which is why we could show ‘Windjammer.’ Let’s do it reader, the Cinerama US patents were 2,273,074- 2,280,206- 2,397,713- 2,476,521- 2,544,116 and 2,563,892! Films where we did show the prologue had Charlie projectionist running the two machines briefly, albeit frantically, for we never had a dedicated member of staff for the task.
At the beginning of our stay at Nottingham we had taken on Keith Still from Newark and local man Tom Shortall. Keith lasted only a few days but Tom was there at the end. Others came and went around this time but I cannot recall their names, one taking one look at the projection box and all its equipment and leaving immediately with the words ‘I’ll never handle all this lot!’ Other projectionists we saw, not looking to join us, would come from local cinemas to see our system while we would be invited to visit their boxes. This camaraderie was often accompanied by exchanges of complimentary tickets for our respective shows.
Baker station showing amplifier and main control panel
The projection box at Leicester
Baker station showing amplifier and main control panel
About this time we took on an assistant electrician that we knew only as ‘Dee,’ who left us when we reached Leicester. There always was a position for the post ever since Tony Ellingham had transferred to projection just before I joined.
As the colder weeks passed we no longer had the need to heat the tent so our two gas driven units were given a rest for the summer, of course we had to advertise our tent as ‘centrally heated’ to ensure our patrons’ comfort during the winter months. About this time the heat in our projection box was assuaged somewhat by the installation of a new venting system for the arcs.
We were now showing ‘West’ and ‘Grimm’ week about and although we had a ‘West’ trailer there wasn’t one for ’Grimm.’ Bill Keyes gave me the use of an old ‘Grimm’ print to put together some scenes that might do the job. With the help of the indispensable edge numbers and a spoken introduction by David Monk on our Brennell tape recorder I put together a passable trailer. Can I claim to have made a film in Cinerama? It would not be the last time. Our Brennell also served as background music as people were taking their seats until replaced by the cassette machine you see in the photograph.
In the middle of April we pulled down and moved on to Leicester where we opened on the 22nd. On reaching the Welford Road site I took some pictures of the build up which I show here. As can be seen in the photographs the tent had a high end where the screen was, opposite the projection box. The uprights, thirty stanchions, altogether weighing 25 tons, were of two designs, 14 thinner ones with two flat sides supported the low end of the tent, all of these paired off for symmetry and made in a single unit. The 16 other, larger stanchions which had to bear more weight, were each in two modules bolted together for ease of handling and transportation.
Tom Shortall exiting the projection box at Leicester
The different heights of these, again paired off, stanchions were achieved by the ‘bolt on’ portions being of different lengths as can be seen in the photos. All four sides were braced and each had a ‘ladder’ side to facilitate climbing. Their load was the speakers, the screen and, in our first year 1964, some curtains. I understand all this elegant engineering was made by a German firm, Stromeyer at a cost I heard was £80,000 pounds. Other sources say it was the Light Metals and Metal Industry Company of the UK but I am not sure of this. Stromeyer did make Bertram Mills circus tents and the name is a good one to associate with Cinerama. Are you reading this Dave?
The stanchions went up first, each anchored by cables to the base of their second neighbours, or if an entrance, its third. As they went up the ring was attached giving the whole stability. The first time it was erected in Richmond the structure collapsed which is why there is now some doubt as to the actual date we first showed a film to the public.
When the ring was complete the tent walls, in their various sections, were added, we see Chris and Brian doing this, prior to the tripod legs being laid out, roof attached and ready to be lifted by a hired crane. When so high, the tripod was jacked up by two tent staff on the very apex, they literally jacked themselves up to the 60 feet or so that the whole roof stood on the tripod legs. The main angled legs were then installed transversally each attached to the tent apex at one end and at the bottom of the shortest of the large stanchions at the other allowing the audience and the projector beams an uninterrupted view of the screen. When all was secured, the tripod legs were hauled into the roof out of sight for film presentation.
The seats, canvas covered aluminium tube and slightly larger than normal cinema seats, along with their safety lights, were then installed and coconut mats laid in the aisles. We technicians then pulleyed our speakers up the appropriate stanchions and pinned them about ten feet from the ground level with the central aisle ready to be wired up along with our houselights and footlights. With the help of the tent staff we had already manoeuvred our box into position so that prologue and Baker beams shared the 13 feet gap between the two shortest stanchions. After winching up, the box was permanently supported by the frames you see in the photos with a canvas ‘bellows’ joining it to the tent. All this left our screen to be installed as described earlier. We had safety belts for all these operations but neither the tent staff nor the technicians ever used them.
The projection box from the ‘high end’
The central heating trunking and the tent wall
TENT PLAN: 16 bigger stanchions in red, 14 smaller stanchions in green. Speakers in black and numbered. Tent 128 feet in diameter. Screen 103 feet.
ABLE PANEL 127 feet to left side, 135 feet to right side, with 8 feet depth of focus
BAKER PANEL 133½ feet to left side, 133 feet to right side, with 2 feet depth of focus
CHARLIE PANEL 137 feet to left side, 130 feet to right side, with 7 feet depth of focus
Typical seat prices: BLUE 13/-, GREEN 10/6, YELLOW 8/-, PINK 5/6.
1216 seats in total.
The seats were fabric covered and what with the tent walls and roof also being of fabric material, our auditorium was virtually acoustically dead, very agreeable to the high fidelity and stereophonic surround sound system such as we had.
Chris and Brian attaching the tent wall
There was one entrance to the auditorium through the foyer which spanned the width of two stanchion spaces, say 26 feet or so, and this entrance could be either side of the tent according to the location. Including the foyer there were five exits, two level ones either side of the screen and two either side of the projection box which because of the rake of the seats necessitated steps down to the outside world.
Before all this was going on the caravans and all transport wagons and trailers had been lined up into a square around the tent bordered by our blue perimeter fence. The projection staff lived two to a caravan (we called them ’vans) or if you were the general manager, transport manager, chief technician, finance manager or tent master you had one each. All were supplied with Calor gas and electricity from the grid. The tent staff lived in one wagon, the ’18 berther’ and what they did after all the manual work was to become the ushers and programme sellers to the shows with their smart maroon jackets, white shirts, black trousers and ties. Among those I remember, I never knew any surnames, were Paul, who left us at Leicester, Chris, Brian, Franz and one other who liked to call himself Amigo.
Feeding us all were cooks Henry and Timmy. In fact, as in all circuses and travelling fairs we were ‘all found,’ even our laundry was organised by Mrs. Hein. The only thing we didn’t have was running water, that came from standpipes. There was also a toilet wagon of which we had the use, as did our patrons, which we didn’t always use because the 1960s was still a time when towns had public baths and other adequate facilities. When my mum and dad visited they stayed in a B and B, though we could have always found room in one of the caravans, I think the small ‘Sprite’ was reserved for this.
The crane ready to hoist the roof
It is worth mentioning here the story of the installation at the London Casino in 1954. Again a converted theatre, the job was the particular charge of Charlie Sweeney who, along with the audience, received a shock on the opening night of the 30th September. Charlie panel did not appear on the screen! Sweeney frantically checked and adjusted everything including smashing the heat filter in the arc, till he found the mirror was focussing the light above the gate. A quick adjustment restored Charlie panel to its rightful place and it was later discovered that a technician working last minute on the extractor vent above was sitting on the mirror control knob and had consequently rolled it out of position. It was a great disappointment for Charlie Sweeney in his otherwise flawless installation.
As a contact with the Casino they gave us their projectionist Ted Clifton to oversee us. Ted had the sound control box removed from the auditorium and put next to Baker, and with the introduction of the films’ cue sheets we had proper control over the sound channelling, previously the preserve of Bill Keyes when he ventured into the auditorium.
The first five channels were exclusive to the five speakers behind the screen, number six was on the right and visible to the audience as was seven on the left. Channel seven could be patched through to the two number eight speakers behind the audience when the visuals required it, for example the people screaming on the roller coaster. Number six would also be patched to seven to share its channel. So ten speakers in all for Cinerama if you include the prologue, mounted to the right of number three. Each Cinerama speaker consisted of a separate bass and treble unit and they were powered by a 450 watt solid state amplifier array you see in the Baker station photograph. I think the amp, model 320c, was manufactured by the Grass Valley Group of California. Each channel had its own separate unit within the array and was very quickly replaced if there were any failures, no screwdrivers or tools necessary. The pre-amplifiers, also easily replaced by sliding in and out, were mounted on the sound machine itself where you can see them just above the sound head.
Come the high summer we moved back to Paignton and set up exactly as we were a year earlier. Two new projectionists joined us, Australian Roy Blandthorn and local man Chris Berry. We also gained a second electrician, Jimmy Sokell with his wife Sandy. We showed ‘West’ and ’Grimm’ with ‘Windjammer’ and ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ as matinees. It being too impractical to change the gearing from 24fps to 26 in the short time available between performances, the travelogues ran slow. The opposite effect to when we ran the ‘West’ trailer when our main feature was a travelogue.
One last thing about our Leicester location, it was near to our store where we kept films (which were always stored in square galvanised steel cases) and equipment we were not using at that particular time, and this was a deserted farm building at Normanton on Soar near Bottlesford. I went there once but I doubt if I could ever find it again.
Again we were showing ‘West’ and ‘Grimm’ week about changing on Thursdays. Bill had enlisted George, a gypsy, to be on our staff but he did not last too long and then the powers that be said that Bill himself should take a holiday like the rest of us, leaving us projectionists in charge of everything technical. Well, in his absence something technical went wrong. We were in ‘lock’ with the ‘West’ in front of a full house when Baker selsyn started burning. Mick and I rushed to get the spare to install it after removing the faulty one with our Allen keys. Now selsyn motors each have five wires for operating, a main feed, negative and positive, and three stator wires. These last three send signals to the other selsyns so that they might all turn together in sync. Neither of us knew the proper order of the stators but we did know they would lock in any order. Our first choice put the selsyn120º out with the other three but with David Monk asking the audience for patience we decided we would run in this position. The film in the gate did not know the selsyn was locking incorrectly and more importantly neither did our patrons. So we put our take-ups back on, went into remote and lock knowing full well we would see only three white lights on the main control panel. We started only a half hour late, it had seemed much longer, and we gave a flawless show even though it was very odd to see Baker flashing out of sync with the rest of the machines.
Mick and I never corrected this run fault preferring to let Bill do it on his return, after all we had a show and we wanted him to see the fault. On his return he learned of the smokin’ selsyn, which he had repaired locally, but so had his superiors back at the Casino. They sent their three top installation engineers, Charlie Sweeney, Charlie Foster and head man Ernie Muncer to assess the situation. They reasoned that if the projectionists could fix Cinerama then they did not need a Bill Keyes. The big three checked over the equipment and during their stay I demonstrated to them my 8mm Cinerama set up I had made and, crude as it was then, they were impressed.
The sound machine
Cinerama at Paignton, 1967
During our stay we had cause to cancel some shows and have the tripod legs lowered to brace the tent in a high wind. Some centre and side seats were taken up to allow the legs into the supporting position on firm ground. This was the only time it happened while I was there and when tent master Johnny Hein could take full possession where his orders superseded all others. The Tent Master.
About this time our print of the ’West’ was showing signs of stress at the end of the second reel so Ted sent for a replacement section. In fact he got two and he asked me to splice one in but not before he had inspected it for the match. He did something I did not agree with, he selected Able and Charlie from one set and Baker from the other. I felt it was a bad match and others might agree because that print is still out there somewhere.
At the end of September it was time to move again, this time to Walsall, specifically the Arboretum. Johnny Hein had received new tent material and when this was put up it leaked a little daylight, the same specification fireproof plastic coated fabric being lighter and also one shade a lighter blue though we found that the leakage did not cause any problems. Someone somewhere knew that the tent would go on even if Cinerama finished. They were proved right as it transpired but we weren’t to know it at the time.
Rear of Able showing drive motor, selsyn, carbon feed and relay box. Baker rectifier is in foreground bottom right. Sound machine feed spool is beyond
The pitch at Walsall was sloping and Johnny Hein wanted the high end of the tent up the slope. This would mean a re-alignment of the projectors after our previous three level pitches and Ted Clifton asked me if I would do it. Our line-up loops, which were of a static scene from one of the travelogues, revealed that we would have to tilt our machines up very slightly accomplished by raising their feet by way of adjusting bolts. Even on a dead flat site the projector beams were tilted up, the middle of the screen being 19 feet from the ground while the projectors were about 17½. The tilt at Walsall stopped short of any perceived ‘keystoning’ by the audience so we were well within our limits.
Actually our projection box layout was far from ideal even if the site itself was, but the bespoke filed gate apertures made the image from the 100mm or so lenses fit the screen exactly. Indeed the box was rumoured to be an ex-Cinemiracle projector set up but I am not sure of the truth of this. What we did know for sure was that our projectors were from the Coliseum, London, which converted to 70mm in 1963.
As stated, Charlie had its own port, then the prologue, then Baker and Able all with a port each. The fifth window by the sound machine was blanked off. To avoid the stanchions the box was positioned slightly to the right so that prologue and Baker shared that same 13 feet gap between the middle two stanchions while Able and Charlie were in the next gaps either side. This arrangement was acceptable for a match between Able and Baker but made the left side of Charlie picture just over a foot bigger than the right side of Baker’s. Baker was always a static picture so to match some diagonal lines, especially above the horizon, Charlie had to be constantly framed. A good projectionist would instinctively know where the horizon was even if it wasn’t visible and could frame back to the default position just as the scene changed leaving the audience unaware that the picture had moved. The Cinerama camera does not particularly like looking up or down and lines are only level when the horizon is exactly in the middle. Also the closer an object gets to the camera the more it ‘doubles up’ at the matchline. We had an adjuster that could move the picture east and west as well as the framer for north and south and I fancy that the ‘Windjammer’ panels, being filmed in Cinemiracle and not involving the use of jigolos, were very slightly narrower than Cinerama panels and therefore required us to use our east/west facility to blend them.
Otherwise we very rarely used it as it was set by the chief engineer so as not to double up the beams. Close focussing when filming would reduce the doubling because it reduces the angle of view slightly but not enough to cover all scenes which is why a ‘toe-in’ device was introduced for the second film ‘Cinerama Holiday.’ This toe-in is most apparent in the ice dance sequence and some interior scenes. This was the problem that Cinemiracle had solved but at the price of some complication.
Another thing we had to keep an eye on while running was the carbon arcs. We had to ensure the gap between the neg and pos was maintained at a certain distance for the best spread of light on the screen. A filtered window with optimum position marks printed thereon helped us here. I must say that the snow scenes in Cinerama Holiday were a challenge because, being virtually all white, they would reveal any differences in the arcs’ colour temperature and their even spread on the screen. But such is Cinerama.
Our tent dictated that we could not curve our screen more than 100º so this is the reason we did not need a louvered screen, the reflected light between Able and Charlie being negligible. As can be seen from our plan these projectors were at an angle to their portions of screen the projectionists sometimes having to focus within their panels to follow the action while Baker, being virtually square on to its panel had no need to do this. I have mentioned that I was permanently on Baker, well there was one show where I was Charlie projectionist. Tony Ellingham was given his chance to ‘be on Baker’ showing the ’West’ which he did but once.
While we would check the picture with the line up loops, the sound was tested with a spare sound intro from act two, TIC. Each speaker would be played individually and the patching also tested. It always worked.
At Walsall we showed ‘Seven Wonders’ and ’Windjammer’ week about so we were back to 26fps. About two weeks in we did a special matinee of ‘Seven Wonders’ for 500 school children. Their teachers thought it a good idea to show a film they had made warning of the dangers of strangers offering lifts in their cars for there had very recently been the murder of two young local girls by such a man.
Their film was standard 8mm and I was asked to present it. So I took a little table and a big extension cable and set up about thirty feet from our screen. The picture was just about visible when the splices weren’t coming apart but I hoped the children got its message. I also thought how big and bright our film would look to them after showing the smallest film format and then the largest all in an afternoon.
About a week later Chris Berry left us. Us being Ted Clifton, Mick Mulcahy, Tony Ellingham, Tom Shortall, Roy Blandthorn, Joe Payton, Jimmy Sokell and myself. We were all Natke members, Joe was our shop steward and he only ever called one meeting for we were not militants and we did not contest what was about to come, we somehow knew it would happen one day. For most of 1967 it became my job to work out the projection rota and we always seemed to have two more man hours than we had men. Mick and I did those hours for nothing, after all, our wages were double the average and it was all disposable income.
As the month began we were told we were ending that Saturday, the 4th of November 1967 and we had to be out of our caravans by Monday. Our travelling days were over, Cinerama had come to the end of the road. In the last three days we decided we wanted to hear Lowell Thomas say ‘This is Cinerama’ one last time and so we did. We showed the film only to ourselves, Mick taking act one, pressing the start button on our cue word ‘revolutionise’ one last time. I did act two. No more Grand Canyon ‘in all its spectacular wonder’ or the dizzy swirl of the aquacade flashing all over the screen with ‘plenty of screen to flash over.’
The evening of the Saturday came and Mick and I agreed I would run Britain’s last Cinerama show, ‘Seven Wonders of the World.’ All the tent staff came in and stood at the side as I finally pressed the button at the end and Cinerama was no more.
What an adventure it had been. For me it had lasted 482 days. Some of us took souvenirs. I know Roy Blandthorn made off with the TIC prologue while I had a TIC poster and some replaced sections of film of which I am still the custodian. They were the epilogue to the ‘West,’ the Alps from ‘Holiday’ and the roller coaster. I see in John Mitchell’s web site he says he collected prints from various sources and if he needs to know where the opening few feet of his roller coaster came from, it came from me, John. The other sections are also looking for a good home. Oh, and I still have my key to the projection box, would I be needing it? Back in that November there were rumours of a travelling cinema starting in Spain and I was informally invited to be a part of it but the details were very sketchy and I declined. No hablo Espanol y no ‘Esto es Cinerama’ though I did continue my media career in London, but that’s another story. I never knew what happened in Spain but I did see our tent once more, sometime in late 1977, on the banks of the Thames at Kew presenting a stage show called ‘Theatrama.’ Was Mr. Hein still in charge?
On the 21st June 1993 a Cinerama ‘reunion’ was held at the Museum of the Moving Image in Bradford. Somehow they managed to contact me and I was invited to attend. I sat next to Bob Bendick of Cinerama fame and I met, among others, Fred Waller’s widow Doris. My name got into the brochure so may I consider myself officially a part of Cinerama history? Bob Bendick invited me to drop in to see him at his home in Guilford, Connecticut but sadly he passed on before my next visit to the States.
Me with MV Cinerama camera and Baker projector
Speaking in 2019, I have possibly seen more Cinerama than anyone else alive. If I showed ten films a week for fifty weeks a year while with Itinerama that would be 500 showings and probably many more than that. This is all I can remember of those days and why I can legitimately wear my T-shirt which says….’I was in Cinerama.’
In the 1970s I did make Cinerama films, this time in my much improved standard 8mm system that I would show at various exhibitions on my 32 feet screen. My friend Peter Ingleton later produced a super 8mm version and he won an international competition with his film ‘Free as a Bird.’ We were not rivals, we shared equipment and maybe one day we will show our films again to the next generation.
Peter Ingleton lacing his Baker projector at a show in 1977
We can also see professional Cinerama again on DVD, masterminded by David Strohmaier, through the realistic ‘Smilebox’ format. In the aircraft carrier sequence in ‘Cinerama Holiday’ Baker had always been out of sync, behind by one frame in some of the scenes, although the scenes themselves are the correct length and change with Able and Charlie where they should. This has been carried over to the DVD, not so the Charlie panel in one scene near the end of ‘Windjammer’ which I see has been corrected. The TIC DVD has the ‘American’ narration by Lowell Thomas while our print in the tent had the ‘English’ version. You can also see the neg join in the roller coaster sequence, just as it crests the third dip, or to be exact, two frames before footage number 0163. This is very nearly halfway through the sequence, the roller coaster being 343 feet long. They said it was shot using short ends and the light spill frames perhaps confirm this. Also in TIC I noticed a missing frame in the Cypress Gardens sequence. Immediately after the clown plummets into the water for the second time there is a jump cut which must have always have been there because if you examine Able at that point you can just see the splice by the film cement leak from 1952! A much later adjustment, obviously the work of Dave Strohmaier, comes in the final scene when, to remove a slight blemish on the Baker panel, he introduced a short dissolve that makes the original negative version one second shorter. Just take a look at the clouds in Charlie panel and you will see this happen. A similar thing occurs in the Hallelujah Chorus sequence in act one.
One thing I cannot explain is the odd behaviour of the opening scene introducing the Cypress Gardens. There appears to be a ‘fold’ in Baker in the water in the 70mm print and even stranger, ‘Baker water’ is repeated in the Charlie panel in the original neg version! I can only surmise that this is an attempt by someone to get rid of the many hairs in the camera gate. Luckily they look like water reeds anyway. Staying on the water, where does the ‘phantom ship’ in the Baker panel come from just after we fly under the Golden Gate in the same version?
All this work shows that Dave Strohmaier and his team’s efforts have been as epic as bringing a dinosaur back to life by its DNA and his documentary ‘Cinerama Adventure’ is exceptional. He deserves a medal.
Looking back on ‘Waller’s Wonder’ it easy to see why it now has its doubters and detractors. It had its vices and there were many, as were its virtues. The vices can easily be catalogued, usually by people too young to have seen it or older people using second hand reports. Its virtues cannot be reproduced on the written page which is why I feel it has so much bad press. Well, I saw it and I know better. I have also seen Cinemascope, Todd AO, Vistavision, Panavision, Super Panavision, Ultra Panavision, Imax and Omnimax, Circlorama and the rest. They all look very good, but they all look like films and Cinerama….doesn’t. And the above mentioned systems don’t have fans or followers and Cinerama….does. It does because its fans know that they have never seen anything better. If they had, well, there would be no fans and Cinerama would be forgotten.
Overnight it changed the cinema, some would say it saved it, Cinerama introduced widescreen, high fidelity stereophonic surround sound and virtual reality years before virtual reality became a ‘thing’ and all at a stroke. It also introduced the monopack colour system that all studios could use. The credits of TIC say ’color by Technicolor’ not in Technicolor because it was really Eastmancolour processed at the Technicolor lab. In fact Cinerama had been waiting for the monopack colour system for some time, it had been used once before for the Queen’s visit to Canada in a newsreel but the quality was not quite up to feature film standard, but it was ready for the TIC premiere on 30th September 1952. The Technicolor process itself (it also used three films in the camera) was phased out by 1955 but the laboratory continued with its iconic name and after TIC the majority of films were in colour, Eastmancolour using its ECN1 process, when before the majority were in black and white. TIC was the watershed.
Up until he died, Fred Waller was working on a single lens version of Cinerama using horizontally advanced film in his quest to reduce his original eleven camera set up through five to three to one. Fred, you didn’t need the one, your system was right with the three and I feel very lucky that as a teenager I was de facto Cinerama Chief Projectionist. For ‘Chief Projectionist’ was never a title I actually had, but I did the job while other chief projectionists, for whatever reason, did not.
Let us now take an overview and put Cinerama in its historical context. By the late 1940s and early 50s, the cinema was under threat as a mass medium by television. People were choosing, in ever increasing numbers, to watch a small black and white virtually square moving image at home instead of a somewhat larger black and white virtually square moving image at a cinema. True, some cinema films were in colour but they were the exception. To stave off an extinction event that they saw was surely coming, the Hollywood cinema moguls had to do something.
A film company from the east coast, completely independent of Hollywood, premiered ‘This is Cinerama’ in 1952 and when the moguls saw its public reaction they immediately knew what that something was. They had to give their patrons something that television could not do. And so Cinemascope, Vistavision, Todd AO and the rest of the widescreen systems were born out of necessity.
Television still wiped out most of the world’s cinemas but they just managed to survive as a mass medium. By the 21st century, using the same technology, television, in the form of home cinemas, is beginning to look like the cinema again as history repeats itself. Their screens have got bigger while cinema screens have got smaller and when they meet in the middle the only advantage that the cinema will have left is the tenuous artificial ability to present films to the public first. Even now, some film companies offer, for a fee, the choice for television viewers to see films at the same time as the cinema premiere. If they pursue this policy, the cinema will have nothing left to offer and it will surely go the way of the music hall as a mass entertainment. And this time there will be no Cinerama there to save it.
Cinerama had such an effect on me, an obsession really, that I stayed in the film industry most of my life working in film labs, doing post production and becoming an editor for TVC, the people responsible for ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘The Snowman.’ In fact I fancy my life was mapped out before that roller coaster reached the top of the first slope, such was its impact on me!
Now, I believe that three strip Cinerama, while having the capability to make the ordinary look amazing, was always well within itself, plenty of light, plenty of sound, plenty of emulsion on plenty of screen and if ever the phrase ‘the whole is more than the sum of its parts’ was meant for anything, it was surely Cinerama.
In 1952, television pictures looked amazing, but with its technical advances in the 21st century, those television pictures of 1952 now look primitive. In that same year Cinerama also looked amazing and I suggest that if were shown today, to its full potential, it would still look amazing. I am not alone in thinking this….I have already mentioned its fans.
I personally think it was never shown to its full potential for its theatres were converted, they were never bespoke. Cinerama was an event, something special, no popcorn or choc ices to be eaten, after all they don’t show films in restaurants. You might travel to see it, many did, you might dress up for the occasion, many did. The company made films for ten years and showed them for fifteen. I wasn’t there at the beginning…but I was there at
THE END.
| DATE | TOWN | LOCATION | SHOWING |
| 24-04-1964 | Richmond | Athletic Ground | This is Cinerama |
| 13-05-1964 | Hove | Hove Lawns | This is Cinerama |
| 28-05-1964 | Southampton | Western Esplanade | This is Cinerama |
| 18-06-1964 | Southsea | The Common | This is Cinerama |
| 20-07-1964 | Paignton | Clennon Valley | This is Cinerama, Cinerama Holiday |
| 1964 | Plymouth | Gilbert Lane Central Park | This is Cinerama |
| 21-11-1964 | Nottingham | Goose Fair Site | This is Cinerama, 1-1-1965? |
| 08-02-1965 | Sheffield | Devonshire Road | This is Cinerama, Cinerama Holiday, Seven Wonders of the World, 5-4-65 South Seas Adventure |
| 24-05-1965 | Southsea | The Common | Windjammer, Cinerama Holiday |
| 11-07-1965 | Paignton | Clennon Valley | Windjammer, Seven Wonders of the World |
| 10-10-1965 | Southampton | Western Esplanade | Windjammer, 2-11-65? |
| 05-12-1965 | Nottingham | Goose Fair Site | Seven Wonders of the World, 20-1-66 Windjammer, 13-2-66 Search for Paradise |
| 14-03-1966 | Leicester | Cossington Street | This is Cinerama, 27-3-66 Seven Wonders of the World, 24-4-66 Cinerama Holiday |
| 08-06-1966 | Southsea | The Common | |
| 11-07-1966 | Paignton | Clennon Valley | South Seas Adventure alternate weeks with Best of Cinerama |
| 10-10-1966 | Leeds | Cinderfield Woodhouse Moor | This is Cinerama, 23-10-66 Seven Wonders Of the World, 20-11-66 South Seas Adventure, 11-12-66 Cinerama Holiday, 26-12-66 How the West was Won |
| 02-02-1967 | Nottingham | Goose Fair Site | How the West was Won alternate weeks with The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm |
| 22-04-1967 | Leicester | Welford Road | How the West was Won alternate weeks with The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, Seven Wonders of the World matinees |
| 28-06-1967 | Paignton | Clennon Valley | The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm alternate weeks with How the West was Won, Seven Wonders of the World and Windjammer matinees |
| 08-10-1967 | Walsall | The Arboretum | Seven Wonders of the World alternate weeks with Windjammer |
| 04-11-1967 | Closes |