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Jane Russell steers through some choppy waters in Howard Hughes’ widescreen biggie, UNDERWATER! (1955).<\/p><\/div>\n
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Widescreen film fans could go on about the various processes developed during the late twenties \/ early thirties, and the first real revolution which followed in the 1950s after This is Cinerama<\/strong> (1952) dragged audiences lost to TV back into cinemas to re-experience the theatergoing environment with big screen, big surround sound mixes.<\/p>\n The fascination goes beyond the rectangular format, and its deliberate design to bring a moving image that\u2019s closer to the human eye\u2019s own wide panorama; it\u2019s the artful mid-century logos, that thematic music, and the technical hiccups which took several years to refine so the image, the lenses, the colour, and the film stock lived up to the massive hype.<\/p>\n Studio Fox saw the value in widescreen, bought Henri Chr\u00e9tien’s patent<\/a> and original lenses, and made their own splash with The Robe<\/a><\/strong> (1953). Other rival formats followed, some branded after a studio (Warnerscope), but a commonality was the \u2018scope term which enabled graphic designers to take a studio or process\u2019 proprietary nomenclature, and sprawl that sucker across the screen.<\/p>\n Fox pushed ‘scope as a deluxe format (with Color by Deluxe) and many films featured early surround sound, but a discrete soundtrack added some complications to how much the 35mm film frame was devoted to the image, and the magnetic stripe that contained the panned dialogue, sound effects, and booming music.<\/p>\n Other studios seemed more interested in the visual process, and mono wasn\u2019t an unusual choice for the final film mix \u2013 perhaps because stereo added more time, more expertise, and like the wide film ratio of 2.35:1, more tracks to fill with material \u2013 dead air was just as detrimental to a film’s impact as dead screen space.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n VERA CRUZ (1954) in sort-of sprawling Superscope!<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Perhaps that\u2019s why Superscope’s debut, Vera Cruz<\/a><\/strong>, was in mono; budget, and maybe the elements weren\u2019t up to snuff for a stereo mix, whereas later productions did have stereophonic oomph.<\/p>\n The American Widescreen Museum<\/a> is one of the definitive resources for the histories and visual ephemera of the various formats that duked it out during the 1950s and beyond, and while RKO\u2019s purchase to use the Tuchinsky brothers\u2019 Superscope system wasn\u2019t unique, the nomenclature\u2019s second life in audio gear sets it apart from Cinerama, CinemaScope, VistaVision, Techniscope, and sundry.<\/p>\n Yes, Cinerama was spun off into Cinerama Releasing Corporation, but when interest in Superscope as a big screen process waned, the Tuchinskys incorporated the brand in 1957, and struck a truly unique relationship with Sony.<\/p>\n As the Superscope Technologies website explains<\/a>, after visiting Japan, the brothers signed a deal to distribute Sony\u2019s tape recorders that featured built-in amplifiers \u2013 a world\u2019s first \u2013 and thus began a lengthy and very strange appearance of the Superscope logo on Sony recorders, which included classic reel-to-reel and cassette player-recorders, and later hi-fi receivers, amplifiers, speakers, mics, and portable variants.<\/p>\n The Superscope firm also bought Marantz in 1964, and distributed that brand\u2019s iconic line of hifi stereo gear. Other products included a proprietary storytelling cassette & book series, and more recent forays into professional tape, CD, and digital recorders \u2013 all tethered to the presentation of media, but far from the widescreen format which Howard Hughes signed up to further sell Jane Russell, Richard Egan, bon vivant Gilbert Roland, and starlet Lori Nelson in Underwater!<\/a><\/strong> (1955), which Warner Archives recently released in a very,very<\/em> nice<\/em> Blu-ray edition.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note the increasing font size signifying the importance of studio bigwig \/ meddler \/ amateur brassier designer Howard Hughes, sultry Jane Russell, and UNDERWATER! which signified RKO’s first Superscope production.<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/VeraCruz_Sp_poster_m.jpg\")
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