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CINEMASCOPE PRESENTATION

- A GUIDE FOR THEATRE OPERATORS (c.1953)

A small theatre converted to CinemaScope in the early 1950’s. Costs not normally
associated with the requisite equipment are removal of several rows of seats up front and
their relocation to the sides, major renovation of the heating and cooling system and
removal of walls around the proscenium. The exit to the left of the screen also appears to
have been eliminated. Note that the CinemaScope screen is not just wider but substantially
taller than the original.
Photos borrowed from John Belton’s Widescreen Cinema.

A pattern for the proper launching of CINEMASCOPE and STEREOPHONIC SOUND has
been thoroughly worked out in the more than 1,000 theatres that have presented THE
ROBE and other Twentieth Century-Fox CINEMASCOPE productions to date. For your
guidance, as a new member of the select group of theatres equipped to show this new and
revolutionary process in screen entertainment, this manual has been prepared. It outlines
the many facets of the campaign that exhibitors, in large or small theatres, used so
successfully for their premiere engagements. The enthusiastic response of the public to this
new medium is now an established fact and the box office record of THE ROBE is the talk
of our industry. The grosses amassed by it in the United States and all over the world are
fabulous.

You can have the same results for your theatre by following the success formula used by
your predecessors in launching CINEMASCOPE. First, and foremost, you must treat the
presentation of CINEMASCOPE and STEREOPHONIC SOUND as the most important
event that has happened in the field of motion picture entertainment in 27 years since
sound was installed. Everything you do in preparation for the presentation and for the
premiere occasion itself should reflect this attitude. With the coming of CINEMASCOPE
your theatre becomes the hallmark of quality entertainment in your city and you should let
your patrons know how proud you are in being able to bring them this new and improved
method of motion picture production and presentation.