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CinemaScope – 60 years later!




           The 1950s saw same major changes in the presentation of movies in the cinema. Until them
           cinema goers were content with the standard (Academy Ratio) image of 1.37:1 (4 x 3).
           With television making inroads into the cinema going audiences of the day (well in America
           anyway), the industry had to offer something bigger and better to keep the patrons coming.
           First there was Cinerama in 1952. Because of its complexity [ three projectors, each
           screening one panel of the three panel on-screen image, plus a fourth unit running the multi-
           track sound – all of which had to be kept in synchronization, and projected from different
           parts of the auditorium ], Cinerama was screened at only a limited number of venues around,
           initially the USA, and later the world.
           In 1953
           Twentieth Century Fox obtained the rights to use a special lens known as a Hypergonar,
           which was designed by Henri Chretien in the 1920s. This lens had the ability to squeeze the
           horizontal plane to half of its width when used in front of a regular camera lens, there by
           filling the regular 35mm frame with a squeezed image, the image could be expanded back to
           its full width when the same lens was placed in front of the projector lens. The end result was
           a screen image twice as wide as the normal Academy Ratio screen.
           The American lens maker, Bausch and Lomb produced a range of these anamorphic lenses
           for Fox, including those for projection use.
           Fox wanted a less complex system which could be used in any cinema, without the need for
           special projectors and major changes to the theatre. This was it!
           The introduction of the wide screen image meant that many cinemas had to make changes
           to their auditoria; in particular, many prosceniums were designed to accommodate only the
           standard Academy Ratio screen. To fit a screen twice as wide, major structural changes
           were needed. Some venues undergoing a full make over in the process. Others simply
           placed a new screen in front of the old screen and proscenium. While the more recalcitrant
           operators just ignored the format and hoped it would go away.
           For some time Fox released both CinemaScope and Standard versions of some of their
           films. But with many theatres advertising CinemaScope as a draw card, others had to follow
           suit.
            Advertising of the time is quite interesting. Those cinemas not equipped for ‘Scope, were
           advertising such wonders as their giant Wida-Scope screen, Ultra-Scope pictures, etc. In
           most cases they were simply cropping the top and bottom of a regular image and making the
           width greater by using a shorter focal length projection lens, in a similar manner to today’s
           non-anamorphic wide-screen.





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