Cinerama Presentation
did anyone out there see GRAND PRIX in its original 1966 Cinerama reserved
seat engagement??? what was it like???
My Dad did. He said he's never seen anything cooler than that, he still talks about it.
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MovieChat Forums > Grand Prix (1966) Discussion > Cinerama Presentation
It blew your socks off. The opening with the exhust pipe was thunderous. The first race could and did make some people feel ill. Of course if you saw it saw it third row center it sure helped. Some where I have the booklet they gave you.
Rule 3 oh 3
I remember seeing it in the theater during its first or second run, but I don't know if it was in Cinerama. If that's the only way thay showed it then yes I saw it that way. In '66 I was 12, and my father passed away in August that year. I had my own paper route and regularly walked into town on Saturdays to pay my weekly bill. That took me past the King theater so I did catch a lot of Saturday matinees.
The film impressed me greatly, and I'm actually watching it on TCM as I write this.
I did indeed see it Cinerama with my Uncle and cousins from Indianapolis. My Uncle owned a large Firestone dealership in INDY and we were able to get tickets (to a few Indy 500's as well). I was around 12 years old at the time, and recall getting dizzy watching parts of the film, but what a rush!
Steve
Chicago
I was 8 at the time and went to see Grand Prix several times. I was totally mesmerised by the film and have loved formula 1 ever since. I have never forgotten the experience and it is indelibly stamped in my memory as one of my clearest childhood memories. I remember coming out of the cinema and wanting to be a race driver and being totally in awe of these heroes and there machines. I hummed the theme music for what feels like months after seeing the film and have never forgotten it.
The sound, the huge screen and thrilling racing sequences, that exhaust pipe sliding across the track ... it was a perfect drama/action film. I remember the huge impact of the opening sequence very clearly ... the exhaust pipes, the screen splitting again and again, the huge sound.
The movie was so dear to me I was desperate to find a copy of it when VHS came out and kept searching for it. It was finally released on video and I have it on VHS tape. I loved watching it again and will no doubt get the dvd version one day.
It is now a historical document on early formula one in a way that films can rarely achieve. The cars and the circuits and the mood of the sport. A remarkable achievement really in every area of the film making craft.
I live in Sydney and it was shown at The Paris cinema, the only one with the Cinerama equipment and huge double screen, which very sadly is now a MacDonald,s!
"Everything is safe till it goes wrong" - Joe Simpson, "Touching the Void" - book only.
It was a vivid memory for me too at the age of 12, going to my first "Cinerama" experience in Kansas City. My family immediately became Formula fans and my Dad still, at the age of 83, loves NASCAR.
My husband and I viewed Grand Prix via Netflix last night and it was amazing what I did, and didn't, remember. The sounds and camera action remains spectatular and unequaled for its time. I didn't realize over 40 (!) years ago that the dialouge was a little corny but it was worth it then and now to get to the racing sequences.
The extras featured on the 2 discs are more than worth the rent and I'll probably buy it now for our library. A classic!
I saw it in May 1967 shortly after it was released here in the UK at a West End Cinema just behind Cambridge Circus (can't recollect the name but it's still there now as a live theatre). This was the main London cinema for showing Cinerama releases. It was very good along with the stereo sound however.....if I am completely honest, I was more impressed with the Cinerama version of 'Battle of the Bulge', both vision and sound, which I had seen 12 months previously at the same place.
I was about 15 and went to see it at a matinee at the Capri Theater in Dallas (long since demolished) during its roadshow. It wasn't very busy, so I asked the ticket seller to give me a seat right up front in the center. What can I say. It was mindblowing. The storylines are rather predictable, but the racing footage remains the best I've ever seen. Yves Montand, who passed away just recently, was a truly great screen personality. And Jessica Walter is worth the price of admission!
shareI saw it in Cinerama, which at the time was 70mm single-lens Super Panavision 70 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinerama ). I also saw _2001: A Space Odyssey_ in the same format. I was blown away both times--I've seen both films many times since, but never equaled those initial experiences.
(I also saw the three-lens _This is Cinerama_ some time earlier. It was interesting, I thought--you could definitely notice the screen edges, and I thought that the width of the screen would have made it difficult to pay attention to any *particular* action. I thought that the much more narrow Super Panavision 70 was probably better for a dramatic presentation.)
It took me only a few seconds to realize that _Grand Prix_ was a great movie: a few others have mentioned the incredible beginning, with the deafening engine whine, the black screen that is revealed to be looking up the tailpipe, and the Saul Bass titles. Then (as I recall--I could well be wrong) James Garner giving us some background on F1 racing, leading right into the action of the race that results in Brian Bedford's accident.
There's also that memorable dreamy "Yves Montand and Eva Marie Saint in love on the racing circuit" sequence. And of course Françoise Hardy is an ornament to any film.
Frankenheimer made some remarkable films, IMHO. I'm thinking particularly of the somber b&w movies of the 1960s--_The Manchurian Candidate_, _Seconds_, and _Seven Days in May_.
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I saw it at the Cinerama theatre in Manchester, England in 1967. It was stunning! I had read articles about the production and seen a BBC documentary about the production. I had seen "How the West was swon" on three-panel Cinerama and it was, technologically, clunky. The single panel Super Panavision 70 with the giant curved screen was a great leap forward. It was one of the first films to be made with remote control cameras on the cars and these had video cameras attached for the benefit of the camera operator. Frankenheimer also got the use of a vibration-free camera mounting from NASA for those smooth helicopter shots.
I saw Grand Prix again much later in a Cinemascope format flat-screen presentation a a local cinema years later. It was not as spectacular!
If I could find a DVD with the original Super Panavision 70 framing, I'd buy it tomorrow.
no but i wish i did, it's an amazing movie!!
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Thanks Nicholas clarke for clearing up my own questions about the Cinerama techniques, as I've recently gotten both How The West was won and Grand Prix on DVD.
I saw both of them in the first runs on cinerama screens- and now noticed the difference in presentations. (Love that 134 Freeway! "The Promised Land!")
I saw Grand Prix in the early spring of 1967 in Detroit- I won a bus trip with other newspaper carriers from Indianapolis for selling subscriptions- I was just 13, and already knew that I wanted to be car racing driver and race Formula 1 as well as the Indianapolis 500.
The theatre- filled with almost nothing but young paperboys- went nuts at the beginning of the movie. It was an unforgetable experience- There was Graham Hill, who as a rookie had won the Indy 500 the year before, after a cue-ball breaking style mult-car accident on the main stretch just after the start. We were in the third turn and didn't see the wreck, but did see Jim Clark spin out twice in front of us, without making contact with the walls, but which cost him, and the florescent orange STP Lotus the race. Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill were both rookies, in similar looking rear-engined cars, and Stewart led late in the race as well, before a mechanical failure. It was the height of the British Invasion at Indianapolis.
A month or two later, my Dad and I were at the first day of quals watching the STP Turbine of Parnelli Jones qualify, and then at the race where it led all the way until it broke down with three laps left. A.J. Foyt inherited the lead for the win, and then drove a Ford GT to victory at Le Mans later that summer.
Grand Prix was definitely something to recall, and even though there are wrecks and death, my own desire to auto race only grew. I've seen very little of it since then, but now the great DVD. "Le Mans" is next. At the screening, they gave us color prints of some of the paintings of the grand prix cars shown in the film, and they were on the walls of my bedroom for the next few years.
I got some great photos at quals the next year- of the STP Lotus wedge turbines, and of the Bobbie Unser's Turbo-charged Eagle offy- the Rislone Special- which won that year, and so then was used as the Paul Newman car in "Winning". The turbines had been redesigned by Colin Chapman, who declined coming back to Indianapolis after Clark had been killed at Hockenheim. The STP team of Andy Granetelli had two of the turbine wedge Lotus cars in the race, and both led near the end- Joe Leonard's broke down with only a few laps left, much as Joneses did the year before.
I even got a blurred picture of Bobbie up close as he was being wheeled through Gasoline Alley and people were jostling me about. And then even a photo of the new Indiana Pacer's center Bob Netolycky, from the stands in the pits as he walked past- curiously similar in POV to the shot of Sarti and his wife in the stands.
By the time I came of age though- I'd seen too many drivers die. Clark. Jochen Rindt. Mike Spence. Jim Malloy. Peter Revson. Swede Savage. His crash I saw right in front of me. I knew it was too dangerous, and I sorta satisfied the desires by bicycle racing- which is plenty dangerous otherwise!
Mark Donahue. Arnie Knepper. On and on, I can't even name them all.
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