Cinerama Holiday

STREAM DIGITAL EDITION

BLU-RAY / DVD DUAL-FORMAT EDITION

Unseen theatrically since the early 1970’s, and never before broadcast or issued on home video, Cinerama Holiday, the 2nd Cinerama presentation, is now digitally remastered from its original camera negatives and newly presented in the Smilebox® Curved Screen Simulation. It is a fascinating time capsule of the 1950s, an age in which most people had yet to experience a flight in a plane.

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 Trollers 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!

BONUS MATERIALS INCLUDE:

• Cinerama Holiday "Breakdown Reel" - Footage originally projected interstitially during interruptions of any Cinerama performance.
• Return to Cinerama Holiday (2013) - A brand new documentary featuring Betty Marsh and Beatrice Troller reminiscing about their Cinerama experience.
• Betty's Scrapbook - Share a fascinating look with Betty Marsh as she rediscovers memories of the film with a newly uncovered 50-year-old scrapbook of the production.
• 1997 Cast Interview - With Betty & Jim Marsh, Fred & Beatrice Troller and Waring Jones on the making of the film.
• Bob Bendick's 8mm Home Movies - Shot on the French and Swiss locations during the filming of Cinerama Holiday.
• Remastering A Widescreen Classic - Before and after demonstration on the film's remastering.
• Brand New Behind-the-Scenes Slideshow
• Never Before Seen Deleted Scenes - From the documentary Cinerama Adventure about the making of Cinerama Holiday.
• A 28-Page Booklet - Reproduction of the original program, as seen by viewers of the film's first theatrical showing.