Cinerama Holiday (1955) User Reviews

Lots of fun - Cinerama is still an impressive format today!

[aruba-2 · 8/10 · 7 August 1999]

Cinerama is a format in which movies are filmed using three cameras, then displayed on a curved screen using three projectors. It does a great job of making you feel like you're in the action. Only about 10 movies were filmed in Cinerama, and very few theaters are currently equipped to show them. The only one in the U.S. at present is in Dayton, Ohio, which is where I saw Cinerama Holiday.

This movie is about two couples (they were couples in real life too, and they used their real names), one from St. Louis and one from Switzerland. They each go to the other's country and travel around. That's the plot, such as it is - but seeing the sites in Cinerama is a lot of fun.

There are huge musical stage productions in Paris and Las Vegas, bobsledding, a county fair, skiing, a puppet show (where you can see the audience as well as the show) and a lot of more low-key stuff. It's a lot like being taken on vacation by interesting hosts. If you get the chance to see it, do.

Surprisingly High-Concept Yet Low-Key

[britishdominion · 7/10 · 16 November 2013]

Despite being a gimmick documentary spread huge on the surface, CINERAMA HOLIDAY actually boasts a surprisingly high-concept storyline: an American couple and a Swiss couple switch continents and discover each other's culture through travel. In the end, the film turns slightly meta with our pair of happy vacationers meeting up in New York City - to watch the film they were just in!

The picture's Cinerama process is eye-poppingly re-rendered gorgeously on Blu-Ray thanks to the loving care of Cinerama archivist David Strohmaier. The film may be a curio, but it's also a looking-glass glimpse of a time where even air travel to other countries was exotic and the providence of the lucky (or wealthy).

The fun really is seeing the Swiss couple discovering America. The set- ups are all obviously faked for the three-panel camera, but there's still the charm of these two European non-actors being dropped into a tiny Las Vegas or discovering the wide countryside. The American duo's jaunt through the Swiss Alps and Paris is equally wooden, yet spirited. Its fun to see the world through both couples' eyes.

Fun trip across the USA and Europe ala 1950s sensibilities

[bbmtwist · 7/10 · 22 June 2017]

This second feature in the Cinerama process is the first to be produced by Louis de Rochemont and to be scored by Morton Gould. The two would collaborate again on the Norwegian WINDJAMMER, in the identical process of Cinemiracle.

This is thankfully not narrated by Lowell Thomas (he provided narration on three of the five Cinerama travelogue films, THIS IS CINERAMA, SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD and SEARCH FOR PARADISE). The general narrator here is unidentified. Each husband of the two couples, John Marsh and Fred Troller, provide the narration for their segments of the film – and embarrassingly bad they are at it.

This is the only one of the five Cinerama travelogues to have a main title at the feature's start. A short prologue in black and white explains the process and the idea behind taking two couples, one from the mid-West USA and one from Europe, and having them trade places for second honeymoon vacations. It isn't until almost 11 minutes into the film that the screen widens and turns to color for an aerial tour of the Swiss mountains.

Act One is really the best of the two, containing the two great "you are there" segments of the film, the hair-raising bobsled ride (1:45 minutes in length and occurring at the 15:45 minute mark), and the truly breathtaking finale skiing sequence (1:00:00 to 1:04:45 – totaling 4:45 minutes.)

At St. Moritz the bobsled run is contrasted with a boring 8 minute Holiday On Ice performance outside the hotel at its ice rink. The contrasting Las Vegas and Arizona segments are short and trivial. The San Francisco segment, lasting about 3-1/2 minutes, tries to cram too much in and gives short shrift to most areas covered. Not even identified is Odetta performing a folk ballad in a jazz club.

A train ride across country provides a brief amount of footage with the camera speeding along the track at the head of the train (perhaps this gave MGM the idea for their thrilling train chase climax to HOW THE WEST WAS WON, the final Cinerama feature).

Off to Hanover, NH for a brief tour of Dartmouth College and a visit to the Deerfield State Fair, which provides a very brief, but fun, ride on a Ferris wheel.

To the South and some jazz with a cemetery band, and a jazz club with Oscar Celestin doing a distasteful and incredibly boring performance of Hold That Tiger (let it go, please!).

Act One ends with the exciting skiing sequence and some yodeling at a local beer garden.

Act Two is almost entirely set in Paris (42 minutes of it). We get to ride in a taxi, see Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Lido, attend a Montmarte ball and a Rameau ballet, a Jacques Fath fashion exhibition and ride some bicycles.

The obligatory tribute to soldiers who fought in WWII is provided by a visit with a local Parisian family and a visit to the Eternal Flame.

For some odd reason columnist Art Buchwald makes two brief appearances in this segment.

After the thrills in Act One, Act Two is a let down with no "you are there" moments until the concluding segment of jet planes landing on a carrier, and that is not of much interest.

Just prior to this the couples reunite in New York City to attend the original THIS IS CINERAMA, still playing, which tries to indicate both couples went through this unaware of the significance of the process they were volunteering for.

To sum up, this is truly a dated, but fun look at the early 1950s, both in the USA and abroad. It was far more successful than the original THIS IS CINERAMA. When one remembers that the vast majority of Americans had never ridden in a plane or been to Europe, it satisfied curiosities and did its bit to engender the wanderlust that made travel the industry it is today.

Not a great film, the historically significant, and worth at least a look. The bobsled and skiing sequences are worth the price of admission alone.

superb restoration done

[jvdesuit1 · 28 December 2013]

The film has been recently restored and is available through Flicker Alley on a combo DVD-bluray edition. It is a remarkable job that has been achieved. Moreover the Smilebox format used enables the viewer to have the original curved screen impression and if you have the chance as I do to view it on a home cinema system with a large screen (2.40m width as far as I'm concerned) sitting at a distance which enables you just to have the screen width in your field sight, you then get the full sensation you had in Cinerama theaters when the movie was first presented. Of course the subject and the way things are presented have aged a lot but it is also a reminder of what Paris looked like in the early 50s and being a Parisian , it brings a nostalgic reminiscence of that time when I saw Cinerama for the first time in Paris.

A good Cinerama film,but ,not excellent

[cynthiahost · 9/10 · 28 October 2013]

This second Cinerama feature and the highest grossing film, back in the fifties,might of excited audiences of the day,but,looking at it today the first half of this features the story is slow moving and the static shots are very noticeable;e.This was the second Cinerama feature that attempted a story with some actual dialog coming from the characters,Betty and her husband johnny as well as Beatrice and her husband Fred.The two women are still with us.Fred died of cancer in 2002 and Johnny died in a car accident,long after he and Betty divorced.There even some careful close up shots in the film.While This is Cinerama carried a quick punch and The voyage of the Christin Radish too.But ,as I said The first half is a bit slow,except the Las Vegas show number slightly picks the speed up,then goes back slow.Near the end of the first half when Betty and johnny are at Swiss restaurant and show place eating fondue and a sing number that involves yodeling happens the speed pick up again.The second half finally pick up speed.There are more exciting scenes in that.It seems the french scenes are the best.The pacing better.the children theater that has the violent puppet show of little red riding hood.The artist and models ball where ,Betty ,behind the camera felt that everybody was high on Marijuana .She stated that after her divorce,in the interview of the disk ,that she would change her self.A french public school class room in which all the students ,including the teacher speaks English,for the Cinerama camera.A tamed version of a probably risqué night club act at the lido, for the Cinerama American cameras.Back in the fifties even France was less prudish about sex than the United states and had bare breasted risqué dance shows ,or at least see through costumes,in their dance number at the Lido.The American cameras were not going to show that.The real best were the ballet sequence,of France and the American naval air plane sequence ,in which Fred was allowed to drive on of the naval planes.The first pat as I said was a bit slow but it had some things that picked it up at the moment.The toboggan sequence as well as the ski sequence ,or was the ski sequence the second half?All in all it was still a good movie.The break down reel was not perfect it barely survived the ravishes of time.I was playing the Blu-Ray disc part it was excellent in it's transfers.the movie it's elf,the way i saw it , was good as a whole ,but, it was not an excellent Cinerama feature .May be it's my mentality. 10/28/13. I checked the d.v.d version.I was looking at the Blu-Ray version first,That slow pace feeling was not in the d.v.d version.Strange!I give it one more number.It is a 10. 10/29/13

Nostalgia At It's Best

[kqym · 10/10 · 28 December 2019]

A wonderful look at high technology in filming in the 1950s. Looking much like the wide screen formats of today, the three camera and stereo sound effects must have been a wonder to those audiences looking a scenes around the world with the huge movie screen curving around there head.