Subtitles:

None

Extras:

• Betty's Scrapbook (11:10)

• Deleted Scenes from Cinerama Adventure (8:25)

• 8mm Home Movies (15:13)

• Aussie Newsreel (2:26)

• Restoration of Cinerama Holiday (12:53)

By far, the most dazzling experiences visualized on the giant screen—once the Cinerama spectacle is opened with a breathtaking airplane view of alpine terrain—are some grand and exhilarating moments of skiing on the slopes above Davos and a heart-thumping plunge aboard a bobsled down the whole long, white, zig-zagging chute of the famous Cresta Run. This latter episode, with its accompaniment of sounds of screaming runners and rushing wind, is something to put the now familiar roller-coaster ride of "This Is Cinerama" in the shade.

It is notable in this program that the outdoor action invariably registers with most effect, conveying a sense of participation that the indoor scenes do not always have. For this reason, the first half of the program, which is photographed almost entirely outdoors, is the more vivid and entertaining, since it includes not only the Swiss alpine scenes but some lively views of tripping across America and a beautiful sequence of a typical New England country fair.

The second half of the program, which follows an intermission, is devoted largely to sight-seeing in Paris, much of it indoors. And this, while studded with colorful glimpses, is largely conventional. A Petit Guignol puppet performance of the fable of Red Riding Hood, done before an audience of rapt youngsters, is an exceptional incident here, because of the interesting incongruity of the intimate show on the giant screen.

“Now the 2nd Cinerama presentation goes beyond anything you’ve ever imagined, as it takes you on a round-the-world adventure that will have your spirits soaring like a million Roman candles! It’s winter in Switzerland, it’s summer in New England, it’s daybreak on the desert, it’s dancing till dawn, it’s spring in Paris, it’s jazz in New Orleans…it’s every holiday you ever dreamed of…come true!”

“Cinerama Holiday” was the 2nd of the original, 3-panel Cinerama travelogues. Released in 1955, the motion picture crisscrosses two hybridized travelogues of the “Cinerama camera accompanied” vacations of two adventurous, real-life, married couples. We meet first, Fred and Beatrice Troller, from Zurich, Switzerland, who upon their arrival on the first transatlantic flight to ever land in Kansas City, unload their motor scooter and begin a panoramic tour of America, which begins with them driving up Fremont Street in Las Vegas and catching a casino floor show. Meanwhile, Betty and John Marsh, leave their Kansas City home to take off on the same plane the Troller’s arrived on, for a return flight to Switzerland where this couple take in an outdoor ice show in St. Moritz, and where John rides a bobsled, beginning their European vacation. The latter of which provides just one of the film’s obvious, immersive, “thrill” sequences accentuated by the three-camera/curved-view format.

The Swiss couple are awed by sights of the American west viewed from the “Vista-Dome” of a speeding California Zephyr train, ride a cable car in San Francisco, observe a New Orleans “jazz funeral”, a performance of “Tiger Rag” by Oscar Celestin, and visit a New England county fair, where the Ferris wheel provides another immersive cinematic experience. Meanwhile, the American couple ski the Swiss Alps with hundreds of fellow skiers, and thereafter discover the joy of singing and “fondue” in a Swiss tavern, and then move on to Paris, where they take in the Paris Opera, the Louvre, High Mass at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, a Grand Guignol puppet show, see the spring line in a fashion show, and a floor show in the famous Lido. Both couples meet up in New York City to “finish” their movie, so to speak, and are treated to a finale of the U.S. Navy’s “Blue Angels” performing near-supersonic aerial maneuvers and landing on an aircraft carrier. And all of that’s a Cinerama Holiday!

Unseen theatrically since the early 1970’s, and never before broadcast or issued on home video, the picture now digitally remastered from its original camera negatives, is now newly presented in the Smilebox® Curved Screen Simulation. It is a fascinating time capsule of the 1950’s, an age in which most people had yet to experience a flight in a plane.

Gary Tooze

November 2nd, 2013

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