Showed is back. Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” not only earned Lol Crawley the best cinematography Oscar but has led to a renewed interest in the format – one that is now being further fenced by unconfirmed reports Of the 35 mm horizontal format also used in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “A battle after the second”, Yorgos Lanthimo’s “Bugonia”, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Untitled 2026 filmAnd Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering heights.”
The timing is therefore perfect for TCM Classic Film Festival To screen two rare Paramount Vistavision printing by “We’re No Angels” (1955) and “Gunfight at the OK Corral” (1957) on April 26 at TCL Chinese Theater. In addition, the films will be projected with special horizontal projectors, which have not been used since the 1950s.
Crawley will introduce “Gunfight,” The Western from Director John Sturges (“The Magnificent Seven”), Which Teams Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas as DOC Holliday, and Charlotte Barker, Director of Film Restoration at Paramount Comedy, Directed by Michael Curtiz (“Casablanca”), About Three Escaped Felons from Devil’s Island, starring Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray and Peter Ustinov.
“The idea that actually screened Vistavision prints with Vistavision projectors came first in November last year,” Genevieve McGillicuddy, founding and CEO of The festivaltold IndieWire. “Paramount approached Charlie Tabish, our main programmer, saying that they had a small number of actual Vistavision prints of classic films. We wondered if it would be possible to project them with vistavision projectors. It began a conversation with our lead-tech and projection) by bosta, chapin cutlars,
Vistavision, which was launched with “White Christmas” in 1954, was Paramount’s response to the 1900s Fox’s popular Cinemascope. However, the horizontal 8-perf, 35mm film strip gave a larger negative area than Cinemascope with greater sharpness, finer detail and reduced cereals. In fact, Vistavision was the precursor to the IMAX 65mm, with its horizontal orientation.
Among the Other Classics Shot in Vistavision Were Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch A Thief” (1955), “Vertigo” (1958), and “North by Northwest” (1959), John Ford’s “The Searchers” (1956), Cecil B. Demille “The Ten Commille’s Ten “One-eyed Jacks” (1961).
But “White Christmas” demanded that a non-existent horizontal projector show the new Widescreen format. Paramount turned to Century Projector Corp. To find a quick solution in time for Christmas week. They created six prototype Vistavision projectors: two for Radio City Music Hall in New York, two for the Warner Theater in Beverly Hills and two for Paramount Lot.
Nevertheless, with only about two dozen custom-built Vistavision projectors available in the 50s, it was actually shown by the films in their full glory. The Vistavision fashion ended with “One-Eyed Jacks”, but the format was later revived by George Lucas and ILM for special effects process work on “Star Wars” and other prestige VFX movies.
Of the few Vistavision prints available at Paramount (which for some unknown reason was made in the 90s), “We are no angels” and “Gunfight” are the best of gangs when it comes to quality and condition. There are no Hitchcocks or “The Ten Bids” or “Fun Face” and “White Christmas” fades.
“I think they are an interesting couple when it comes to showing the projection,” McGillicuddy added. “But I think our audience is hungry for that kind of material. We know that” we are no angels “was reworked (with Robert de Niro and Sean Penn 1989) and we do not often screen for many Western.”
“What we chose was (very) different,” added Paramount’s Barker. “‘We are no angels’ filmed on a stage and are very colorful (shot by Cinematographer Loyal Griggs), and we just felt that this movie was not shown much and could use some attention.
“This contrasts a lot with” Gunfight “, added Barker,” who was shot on site (by the cinemator Charles Lang on Old Tucson Studios) and shows a lot of the desert views where you have it (deep) focus that Vistavision is known for. And you can show all four men walking down the street, which in a non-curing movie would have been really narrow. “
But to pull off these special shows, Boston Light & Sound’s Cutler needed a couple of working Vistavision projectors. Fortunately, he had them, which he found in 1984 in a Boneyard in Dallas, Texas. Cutler’s hope then was to publicly screen “Vertigo” in Vistavision for its famous release of Universal Classics.
“They actually sent me one of” Vertigo “, as we drove it in our store but never on a big screen,” Cutler told Indiewire. “So for me and my company this is a Hinkist event.”
The projectors that Cutler had in possession were two of the original prototypes made to screen “White Christmas.” Some upgrade was required because they were underdeveloped. They didn’t even have doors on them. “We’ve had to do things like putting a picture change on them,” Cutler said. “We also had to build new shutters so that we could cover (better movement stability) between frames, which was something they had difficulty doing back during the day.”
When it comes to sound, Paramount has restored Vistavision PerspeTa three -dimensional sound for “We are no angels.” This was a cheaper alternative to magnetic stereo -soundtracks. “So it is transformed into a three-track champion, who will be locked to the film projectors and played back (with) Pro tools,” added Cutler.
However, the biggest challenge was to suit a couple of Vistavision projectors in the already crowded Chinese projection booth. Because of their unusual construction, there is no room to get the rollers mounted on them so that they can change quickly and efficiently during the film’s driving.
“The prints consist of 2,000 feet rolls,” said Cutler, “which means each roll runs about 10 minutes because the film goes twice as fast as it does in a standard 35mm projector. What we have to do is make the printouts at Giant Reels. So each roll will run about an hour, and the movie is fed by a unit of a tower Half and has a half movie that we come to some of them and have an hour and have a half movie. Machine, half of the printout on the other.
While Cutlers pulled off the recreations of Odor-o-Vision and Sensurround at the TCM festival, he never thought he would get a crack at Vistavision. But he hopes that this is not just a one -time. “Personally, if this event turns into something, I would surely love to see” one -eyed jacks, “in Vistavision,” he said.
