Rare promotional trailer for VistaVision. Introduced in 1954 by Paramount, the larger format negative produced superior definition release prints. Final tag is a promotion of the first film in VV - White Christmas.
In all my years in the industry, I had never seen a promo for VistaVision! I suppose it was because we never experienced it in its true formate in Australia. Marvelous to see this rare clip. Thanks for the upload!
Wow a very impressive promotional trailer. Had never seen this before. VistaVision was such a superior system, a shame it did not catch on as much as it deserved. The 35mm equivalent to horizontal Imax film prints. At least we can appreciate its achievements in superior image capture via Bluray releases, as much as we can the Cinerama restorations.
As we know, both VV and CinemaScope were introduced in the US at a time when TV was starting to bite into attendances, and no doubt the bigger and clearer images had their impact. But 1953/4 in Australia was way before TV here and the Aussie exhibitors were still doing very well. In fact many saw both formats as an unnecessary expense, and stalled of converting for (in some cases) several years.
Probably the main reason why CinemaScope won out is that the studios didn’t have to buy all new cameras, they just had to attach a lens. If Wikipedia is to be believed, 102 movies were shot entirely in VistaVision, as opposed to 502 movies that were shot entirely in CinemaScope.
