Page 20 - Cinerama_booklet

THE STORY OF

words, he was seeing "the motion picture of tomorrow" and in a

matter of weeks a production company had been formed and
enough capital had been raised to begin shooting the first Cin-
erama feature.
But then came the question: what to shoot? Thomas called in

one of Hollywood's top producer-directors, Merion C. Cooper,
and between them they decided to make a picture in which the
only hero would be the Cinerama camera. Thomas himself went

. off to Europe to see what the old world had to offer in the way of
cineramic screen material while Cooper, along with Robert L.
Bendick who had been recruited from television to co-produce the

picture, stayed home to survey the local scene.
In Europe the Cinerama camera started a grand tour that
began in Scotland, where it photographed the colorful, caco-

phonous Gathering of the Clans, proceeded to Spain to take in a
bull-fight, to Vienna to hear the Vienna Boys Choir, to Venice, and
finally to Milan, where the entire triumphal march from "Aida"
s performed by the La Scala Opera Company for benefit of
~ ..... ........, ___
("the many-eyed one") as the Cinerama camera soon
nown in Italy.
while, in Florida's sun-drenched Cypress Gardens,

d Bendick were transcribing the excitement and beauty
Pope's famous water carnival. Lashed to the prow of