Quick: what was the most popular film of 1955? Well, it probably doesn't take much imagination to guess
Cinerama Holiday, the subject of this post and the correct answer.
Now then, who were the stars of this spectacle? Ha! Got you there. They were non-professionals, John and Betty Marsh and Beatrice and Fred Troller. The movie got away with having zero star power among the actors because the film projection system itself was the principal attraction.
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| The premiere of This Is Cinerama |
Cinerama was a three-projector system that played on a huge curved screen in specially equipped theaters. The first such film,
This Is Cinerama, dates from 1952.
Cinerama Holiday was the second. The process underwent some changes as time went on, and production fizzled out in the 1960s. A few Cinerama theaters are still hanging around for revivals, and the films have appeared on DVD and Blu-Ray.
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| Promotional postcard for Cinerama Holiday |
As the name suggests,
Cinerama Holiday was a travelogue of sorts, following two couples on their journeys. The Trollers, from Switzerland, came to the Americas. The Marshes, from Kansas City, traveled to Europe.
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| Morton Gould |
The score for
Cinerama Holiday is credited to Morton Gould, but the LP cover says that additional music was contributed by Van Cleave (aka Nathan Van Cleave). Jack Shaindlin is credited as conductor and musical director. Mysteriously, a few of the album selections are attributed to Shaindlin on the labels, and none to Van Cleave. The Argentine composer Terig Tucci contributed "Holiday in Rio."
When you examine the musical credits in the film's souvenir booklet, you find that the movie itself had a much more varied soundtrack than the LP. It presented such attractions as a "traditional Chinese orchestra," the Dartmouth Glee Club, the congregation of the Second Free Mission Baptist Church, yodelers, an excerpt from Rameau's
Les Indes Galantes, and Papa Celestin's Original Tuxedo Dixieland Jazz Band - among others.
None of these appear on the album, which is almost entirely orchestral, with the notable exception of a awful piece called "Hail to Our Land," which ends the LP.
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| Scene from Cinerama Holiday on the curved screen |
This is not to say that the record is unpleasant; quite the contrary. As always with Gould, the melodies and orchestrations are apt and enjoyable.
Oddly, Gould decided to compete against himself in the market by recording an EP of the
Cinerama Holiday music for RCA Victor, which I unfortunately do not have. I did locate two numbers by Papa Celestin, which Columbia issued on a single purportedly as being from the soundtrack. The musical credits mentioned above, however, claim that Celestin and band only performed one of the two during the film - "Tiger Rag." I've included both sides as a bonus.
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| Papa Celestin picture sleeve |
The sound is quite good for both LP and single. The film soundtrack was recorded in stereo, but Mercury's 1955 issue was mono-only.
This is another one of the LPs I transferred many years ago that has never appeared on the blog.
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| Souvenir booklet |
