Exactly one year ago, Flicker Alley released to DVD and Blu-Ray CINERAMA HOLIDAY, which came to theaters in 1955, and SOUTH SEAS ADVENTURE, which dates from 1958. These titles were filmed in a three-panel widescreen process known as Cinerama. At the time, movie attendance was in sharp decline and this and other widescreen processes were employed to lure audiences away from their TV sets and back into theaters.
Flicker Alley now has made available two additional Cinerama films. They are SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD, from 1956, and SEARCH FOR PARADISE, from 1957. SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD is a handsomely photographed travelogue that is based on an idea by Lowell Thomas, who in his day was a celebrated writer, broadcaster, and world traveler. Thomas serves as the film’s narrator and guide, and he poses a question that is directly connected to the film’s title: What are the seven wonders of the modern world? To answer it, he sets out on an air voyage across five continents where he visits cities great and small along with mountains, deserts, waterfalls, gardens, volcanos, monuments, shrines, temples, and cathedrals. The ultimate point is that there are so many wonders, both natural and human-made, that it would be impossible to choose seven.
SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD also fascinates as a reflection of its era in that it exudes a rah-rah 1950s Americanism as it puts forth the idea that, for those in the U.S., all the world’s wonders may be found in their own backyards.
SEARCH FOR PARADISE, also featuring Lowell Thomas, is yet another plush travelogue. Here, Thomas explains that he and his “Cinerama crew” are setting out to record the “last examples of traditional Oriental magnificence” before they are swept away by 20th-century technology. Thomas and company record images of faraway temples and canyons, mountains and villages, and hidden valleys located “next door to nowhere.”
Up through the finale, which is set in Katmandu, Nepal, and features Americans and Communist Chinese attending a coronation, SEARCH FOR PARADISE depicts a sweetly idealized 1950s world where there is no political or economic strife. In this regard, SEARCH FOR PARADISE offers a snapshot of the world in the 1950s from a decidedly Western point of view. There is the U.S, which is good and right; there are the dark, dangerous Chinese Communists; and there is the apolitical “paradise.” The point is that you might want to visit “paradise,” but you will insist on returning to America and enjoying the American lifestyle and the myriad technological advances of Western civilization.
A while back, Flicker Alley also released another three-panel feature, this one employing a process known as Cinemiracle. Its title is WINDJAMMER: THE VOYAGE OF THE CHRISTIAN RADICH, it dates from 1958, and it is a visually plush record of a special training voyage of the Norwegian vessel S/S Christian Radich from Oslo to New York City and beyond by way of Madeira, Portugal, and the West Indies.
WINDJAMMER... is part-travelogue, part-seagoing journey, and part-blissful voyage back in time. Most impressive are some stunning images of New York City created by Arthur “Weegee”Fellig, the legendary photographer and photojournalist. They are reminiscent of the “New York New York It’s a Wonderful Town” opening sequence in the screen version of ON THE TOWN, the Betty Comden-Adolph Green-Jerome Robbins-Stanley Donen-Frank Sinatra-Gene Kelly MGM musical.
WINDJAMMER... and the Cinerama films are visual feasts. All these decades later, they remain fascinating to watch-- and they remain revealing relics of mid-20th-century America.
Rob Edelman teaches film history at the University at Albany. He has written several books on film and television, and is an associate editor of Leonard Maltin’s Movie and Video Guide.
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