edited by John Hayes
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Welcome to WIDE SCREEN MOVIES; a magazine dedicated to those movies that have been shot and presented in one of the many and varied wide screen formats that have come and gone over the years. This website features highlights from the print issues of the magazine; information on purchasing individual copies and subscriptions to the magazine may be obtained by emailing editor John Hayes.
So, ‘Widescreen’. How are we going to define that term? Well, for the purposes of this magazine we will mainly consider films with an aspect ratio of 2.2:1, such as Todd-AO, Super Panavision etc., or wider; Cinemascope’s 2.55:1 (2.35 and 2.40:1), or wider still with Cinerama and Ultra Panavision’s 2.76:1. Fans of VistaVision and IMAX won’t be forgotten, either, in case anyone’s wondering; although fans of new movies will probably be disappointed, as we will mostly be concerned with films that were released in the ‘Golden Age’ of widescreen—from the release of the first Cinerama film in 1952, until around the end of the sixties. They really don’t make them like that any more, you know.
Back in the 1950’s one of our local cinemas closed for a week to have something called “CinemaScope” installed. The following week found me sitting awestruck at the first showing there of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. From that moment on, these were the films I wanted to see; the ones with “..in CinemaScope” in their newspaper ads. We went to the pictures twice a week in those days, before TV came along, and I must have seen hundreds of films, but the wide ones were special. I can remember seeing The Ten Commandments and in spite of the cast of thousands, I was disappointed that it wasn’t in ’scope.
I became aware of other catchy names for different systems that all came down to the same thing for me; a wide, wide picture. “Technirama” , for The Vikings- my all time favourite film; “Todd-AO” for South Pacific—my mother dragged me to see that one. And of course, “Camera 65” for Ben-Hur. (“Camera 65” wasn’t a particularly inspiring name, but it eventually became “Ultra Panavision 70” which was really cool.) It wasn’t until the 1960’s that I was able to see the ultimate in widescreen systems—and the one that had started it all—when Cinerama came to Manchester’s Theatre Royal, bringing with it the giant curved screen and the sound that came from everywhere!
Those were indeed the days—and those were indeed, the films. And that’s what we aim to recreate in this magazine: the anticipation and excitement, that certain thrill that accompanied the sight of the cinema curtains slowly swinging back to reveal the wide, wide Window Of The World (MGM Camera 65) that only the wide screen formats could take us into. Come and join me in looking back at those at those Big Movies of the Wide Screen, the creative talent behind them and the systems they used.
Welcome to the world of WIDESCREEN!
John Hayes, Editor & Publisher
Copyright Notice: Both the print version of the magazine and this website are intended solely to promote an interest in the subject of wide and large format movies. This is a not-for-profit project and carries no paid advertisements or merchandise promotions of any kind. Pictures are used either with the consent of the copyright holder or within the meaning of ‘fair use”; that is to say, for historical, educational or review purposes only. If any copyright holder objects to the use of their property on this site, they have only to contact the Webmaster and it will be removed immediately. |
Contact editor John Hayes for information on subscribing to the print edition, and to purchase back issues. All issues are presently available, price £3.00 each in the UK, US$8.00 or €8.00 anywhere else in the world. Prices include postage.
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Widescreen Movies Magazine Website Directory
Click the link above to read past issues and feature articles
Site Reconstruction Warning! When we launched Widescreen Movies Magazine 2002, it was conceived, primarily, as a print magazine. The web version came into being when the initial project faltered with the unfortunate death of my pal, Harry Nadler, who was going to organize the printing. Our good friend Bill Burns created the website in order to keep the project alive; and certainly, because of this, we have reached a far wider audience than the print medium would have allowed. When Tony Edwards came on board, taking on the printing chores as well as contributing articles, we were able to revert to plan A and produce the print version. Because of this – and without really meaning to – I have neglected the website more than I should have and allowed it to become a sort of on-line promotion site for the print magazine. However, I’ve decided to remedy this by improving and expanding the website, beginning, as you will have noticed, by adding the spiffy posters to the home page. Looks better already, yes? I’ll ask you to bear with us over the next few weeks as we make these changes and improvements. And hopefully, when we’ve done, you will enjoy your visits to Widescreen Movies Magazine even more! Thanks, as always, for your continued support. John |