Event

This screening includes The Girl Can’t Help It

Date and time:

Sun, Oct 20, 2019, From 4–5:39 pm

Runtime:

1 hr 39 min

Cost:

$4

Sunday Matinee Classics: CinemaScope Song and Dance

In 1953, CinemaScope was the latest Hollywood fad to promise viewers a cinematic experience like none other—an attempt to reverse the trend of declining movie theater attendance precipitated by the introduction of the home television set. Preceding it were Cinerama and 3-D in 1952, which had both done a good deal to reverse the trend of empty cinemas. Spyros P. Skouras, head of 20th Century Fox at the time, saw an opportunity to be a part of this reversal of fortune. In 1926, French inventor Henri Chrétien patented anamorphoscope—lenses which utilized an optical trick to produce an image double in width than those produced by conventional lenses. By the 1950s, Chrétien’s patent had expired, and Fox got to work developing the technology into CinemaScope, heralding the dawn of the modern anamorphic format to be utilized in both the principal photography phase of film production and projection of the final production. CinemaScope was used across multiple film genres between 1953 and 1967, but is perhaps remembered most fondly for the extravagant musicals it helped produce, some of which are lauded as the greatest, or at least the most enjoyable, musical films of all time.

Curated and programmed by Brittany D. Friesner.

Series: Saturday Matinee Classics