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70 Years of

Mike Trickett
special projectors and major changes. anticipated day finally arrived, the
This was it! newspapers screamed “The New
Entertainment Era is Here”.
The world premiere of
CinemaScope took Seventy years ago this month, on Wednesday
place at the Roxy 9 December 1953, the Australian premiere of
Theater in New York. CinemaScope took place at Sydney’s
Trumpeted as “The Regent Theatre, when The Robe screened to a
First Motion Picture full house
in CinemaScope —
The Modern Miracle The Melbourne premiere followed one week later
You See Without at Hoyts Regent Theatre.
Glasses!” — “The Robe
offered audiences a
spectacular image in full colour
and twice as wide as what
was normal at the time, plus the added
bonus of stereophonic sound made
the process a sure fired hit.

CinemaScope in Australia In the lead up to
the premiere of the first CinemaScope film to
be screened in Australia, the publicity
machine of both 20th Century Fox and Hoyts
went into overdrive.

The newspapers were well on board with the
hype as well. Articles with strange headlines
promising wonderful things on the screen in
the future were plentiful.

For months before the opening night, Hoyts
advertisements announced “Coming - The
Robe in CinemaScope”. When the much

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