Best Of Cinerama

Best of Cinerama (1963)

Runtime: 143 minutes

This is not only a documentary but it's a best-of featuring clips from the previous Cinerama non-fiction movies.

From: Cinerama Productions Corporation

This was something different that I am glad I got to watch last night as a breath of fresh air: 

A few months ago Flicker Alley put up a Cinerama release for streaming on Amazon; that was Cinerama's Russian Adventure, which was something I did enjoy as a film involving various sights & sounds of The Soviet Union on a simulated curved screen was pretty rad to me. Even if the offerings they put up on the streaming services are in mono instead of 5.1 DTS like it is on disc... just recently they put up this film for streaming; it was clips from the five previous productions done by Cinerama Productions Corporation.

Among the footage you get to see is: being on a rollercoaster, skiing down a hill, riding on a bobsleigh, various locations in Europe, seeing Pope Pius XII, a bullfighting ring in Spain (no, you don't see any of the bulls get killed or even struck by knives; it cuts away before any of that is shown), footage from what was Cypress Gardens in Florida, a train in Darjeeling that wasn't The Darjeeling Limited, a New Orleans brass band, and much more--along the way are cheesy obviously phony storylines; thankfully those only occasionally happen and they are pretty silly. The very end is pretty serious as various locations associated w/ Jesus Christ are seen from the perspective of a low-flying airplane.

There is some goofiness present and there's a condescending moment or two; in addition I haven't seen this footage in context to the original films they were a part of... yet I can still give this a nice rating. Plenty of pretty scenery from literally around the world is displayed and you also get to see not only the Vienna Boys Choir sing a song but a bit from the opera Aira is shown and heard. I can comprehend how in a production that lasts almost 2 ½ hours and is leisurely paced, some may think there were lulls; in contrast, I was always captivated by the wide variety of images I got to witness.

I did not even have to imagine what it must have been like for people back in the 50's and 60's to experience this movies in a world which was filled with mono sound and black & white TV's to be awed by these productions, but I am happy Flicker Alley restores and releases these curios.