On November 7, the Hollywood Cinerama Dome is celebrating 55 years of cinematic history, and has prepared a schedule of films to match its unique contribution to the glamorous profile of the city that shares its name. Four films, which all had premiers at this historic theater, will once again grace the ample screen of the famous landmark.
The celebration begins tonight, September 30, with Battle of the Bulge, a 1965 dramatization of Nazi Germany's final Western Front counterattack of World War II starring Henry Fonda and Robert Shaw. The story is presented in a very interesting fashion, depicting the conflict from the perspective of an American intelligence officer simultaniously with that of a German Panzer Commander. Being a war film, Bulge is a particularly apt genre for viewing on a great big, giant edifice of the Dome. The battle scenes will no doubt be particularly impressive as they fill the enormous 32 by 86 feet screen, literally encompassing the audience, which is just the thing for which Cinerama was created.
Grand Prix hits the Dome with full force October 7. The 1966 racing film features James Garner as an American Grand Prix driver. Garner is fired by his racing team after a crash at Monaco that injures his British teammate, Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford). Adding insult to injury, Garner's character becomes romantically involved with Stoddard's estranged wife while his teammate struggles to recover. A stunning masterpiece of cinematography, Grand Prix is as close to IMAX as the technology of 1960s allowed. Honestly, I think there's a little too much focus on the races, but there's no denying they sure are exciting to watch.
Other films included in the sequence are the 1962 western epic, How the West Was Won on October 21, and the 1963 comedy, It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World that includes virtually every know living comedian of the day. The first film is a saga covering several decades of Westward expansion in the nineteenth century, and the later is a madcap cross-country rush to find some treasure sparked by the dying words of a thief. Both films are packed with luminary classic film stars that come at you one right after another at apace that will make your head spin.
made up of 316 individual hexagonal and pentagonal shapes in 16 different sizes,took just 16 weeks toStar Wars: Episode III- Revenge of the SithStar Wars: The Force AwakensAvatar in 2009As IMAX presentation developed, Cinerama became considered an outdated fade, but truly thrived in its heyday. The Hollywood location, which is construct from start to finish. There was a great lapse in popularity between its 1965 premier until the Dome became a practical arena for the presentation of event films in the new millennium. Digital projection was brought into the theater in May of 2005 for . Most recently, the Dome jumped on the new emergence of 3D with James Cameron's . Inevitably, the Dome was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.. And Laser Digital projection debuted in December of 2015 with another installment of the science fiction saga,
I urge you to make the effort to see at least one of these films in the format best suited for its presentation. Opportunities like this just don't come along that often, so make it a priority and get your tickets now. You'll be sorry if you don't.