Technirama is one of those widescreen formats I've never really
understood, like VistaVision, designed to be used with existing cameras
and film sizes.

I get 8-perf pulldown but I got lost in the article when they claimed it
was a more efficient use of film versus VistaVision and I didn't see
anything that said it was intended to be projected on a variety of
screen sizes like VistaVision.

Technicolor developed it.

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingtr1.htm

Also, anamorphic lenses were used to squeeze it down vertically? You end
up with 2.35:1 anyway with no alternate sizes? I'm so confused.

Also, was Technicolor still a three-strip process in the late 1950s? I
ask because there are sequences in the movie inside those multi-story
wooden religious buildings whose levels are connected with ladders and I
can't imagine how anyone lugged cameras up there. This movie may not
have had any sets built for it but I'm not sure. Oh, I suppose those
were sets. I see a credit for use of a studio in Tokyo.

It films at famous religious locations in Kyoto (the home of the royal
family for centuries) and Nara. Nara is essentially a long commuter rail
ride from Kyoto.

The point of this movie is to show Japan as a cultural destination that
Americans should travel to. The people are friendly. The screenwriter
claimed that this was the first post WWII movie in which the Japanese were
not seen as the enemy. The script doesn't really condescend but there's
no explanation provided for stupid Americans about the wife defering
to her husband or how respect within the family is actually supposed
to work. To the extent there's a plot, this is the set up. Basically,
the main characters simply act against interest, you know, what your bad
screenwriter thinks is "drama" when he's at a loss for a creative idea.

The film stars Jon Provost, who wanders around Japan lost trying to get
to his parents in Tokyo after a plane crash, hampered by a terrible
script and a so-called friend who keeps telling him to hide from police.
Of course, this would have been solved over a commercial break if only
Lassie were there to guide him but Provost hasn't yet been cast on the
tv series.

Not only is Lassie missing but I've seen these locations used in movies
like Sayonara (also 1957) and I kept looking for Aki to teach Sean
Connery how to pretend to be an absurdly tall Japanese fisherman.

The parents are played by Cameron Mitchell and Teresa Wright. Mitchell
is part of the American diplomatic staff in Tokyo having just been
transferred from Manilla. She's his unhappy wife having learned of his
affair with another woman through embassy wife gossip. She wants to end
the marriage and take their son back to the United States. For reasons
that aren't made clear, the parents arrived in Tokyo ahead of the boy
who is put on a flight from Manilla by himself. The flight develops
engine trouble and ditches in the Pacific ocean. We get lots of
soapiness about the parents being told the plane will have trouble being
found because it's off radar and we don't get a scene of the plane
ditching. We aren't even told how many passengers and crew survied.

Provost is just found by himself in a raft. It's a good-sized raft and
suggests if no one else made it on board, then a dozen passengers
drowned. We did hear of one other raft with rescued passengers.

The fisherman has his wife and son on board. She's played by Kuniko
Miyake, with a huge number of credits and I recognized from a couple of
movies. The father is Susumu Fujita. The son is Roger Nakagawa.

The son spots Provost's raft. He's pulled on board, suffering from
exposure but they warm him up and after a long sleep, is perfectly fine.

And... we get STOOPID. The son overhears his father saying the have to
bring the boy to the police and gets it into his head that Provost is a
suspected criminal for having brought the plane down. He can't ask his
father about any of this because a son cannot question his father but he
can think his father will treat an honored guest, a victim of tragic
circumstances, as a criminal saboteur? Idiotic script.

The son claims he's been to school and was taught some English by
American servicemen but he has absolutely no concept of geography. He
clearly has no idea where Tokyo is.

They wander around the countryside, sneaking onto a vegetable truck,
getting help from families although still trying to hide. The parents
follow the reports of the two children being sighted.

There's a scene that's not bad with the two American parents being
hosted by the two Japanese parents trying to be polite to each other and
barely able to communicate. But the two Japanese parents around taken
with the two American parents from location to location as the boys were
spotted.

There are interesting scenes that are supposed to be in the streets of Kyoto.

At one point the children wander into a Japan's idea of burlesque
although it's a family movie and the audience doesn't see what the
children must have seen. But next door to the house of burlesque is a
fabulous legitimate theater.

The most spectacular part of the movie, in addition to showing off the
royal palace and associated religious site, and the religious site at
Nara, is this huge traditional theatrical production with a cast of
hundreds of women and an enormouse stage that wraps around the
auditorium on three sides.

The boys are then taken to the compound in which the women live (I
assume no men are allowed) by one of the performers. They are bathed and
fed and pampered and get a private show.

The Japanese boy thinks they are geisha but I don't think actors and
geisha are the same thing.

Huh. Who knew? Off stage, these women remain in their elaborate costumes
and makeup. In the morning, hearing the head woman say she'll call the
police, they run away.

At the main train station, the Japanese boy ignores the signs for the
train to Tokyo and end up on a train in the wrong direction toward Nara.
There they enter that multi-story religious pagoda and there's time for
Provost's parents (but not the Japanese boy's parents) to arrive. The
children stupidly crawl out onto a sloped roof and Cameron Mitchell,
after instantly climbing ladders for 6 stories, rescues them with help
of police.

Philip Ober (ubiquitous tall bald character actor with a large head)
plays a colonel assigned by the ambassador with no other duties than to
drive the parents around.

There isn't much for the parents to do. Mitchell was in westerns and war
movies. I usually think of him as unsympathetic but he doesn't have a
lot of personality. Teresa Wright is completely wasted. She's worried.
Yeah, we get it. She imagines all sorts of calamities and says nothing
but "the boy is alone and scared" and isn't helpful at all. Finally, the
lousy script gets fed up with itself and we get this cut from Teresa
Wright worrying to Provost having the time of his life.

I enjoyed it for the travelogue quality but we really needed
explanations instead of just fish out of water. If you expect nothing
from the script, just watch the scenary and goreous Technicolor.

Produced by R.K.O. which was now owned by General Tire and Rubber as
part of a conglomerate after Howard Hughes ran studio into the ground.
You'll recognize producer William Dozier's credit (from Batman) but he
had just over a year to turn the place around and it wasn't enough time
to stem chronic losses. R.K.O. ceased domestic distribution by early 1957,
turning it over to Universal-International whose distribution credit also
appears on this movie. They closed the studio in January 1957 intending
to become a tenant at Pathe studios. Instead, all production ceased.

R.K.O. went out on a bad note.

I forgot to mention:

Cameron Mitchell was in the main cast of The High Chaparral (1967 to
1971), second lead playing Leif Erickson's brother. I know it's in
second run syndication but I've really never watched it.

In the scene in which rescue planes have been dispatched, there is an
unmistakeable Clint Eastwood in a bit part as one of the pilots. He got
a couple of lines.

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
> Technirama is one of those widescreen formats I've never really
> understood, like VistaVision, designed to be used with existing cameras
> and film sizes.
>
> I get 8-perf pulldown but I got lost in the article when they claimed it
> was a more efficient use of film versus VistaVision and I didn't see
> anything that said it was intended to be projected on a variety of
> screen sizes like VistaVision.
>
> Technicolor developed it.
>
> http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingtr1.htm
>

My buddy Marty!

I miss him like crazy. :-(

> Also, anamorphic lenses were used to squeeze it down vertically? You end
> up with 2.35:1 anyway with no alternate sizes? I'm so confused.
>
> Also, was Technicolor still a three-strip process in the late 1950s? I

As far as I can tell the last English language three strip release was JET
PILOT in 1957.

> ask because there are sequences in the movie inside those multi-story
> wooden religious buildings whose levels are connected with ladders and I
> can't imagine how anyone lugged cameras up there. This movie may not
> have had any sets built for it but I'm not sure. Oh, I suppose those
> were sets. I see a credit for use of a studio in Tokyo.
>
> It films at famous religious locations in Kyoto (the home of the royal
> family for centuries) and Nara. Nara is essentially a long commuter rail
> ride from Kyoto.
>
> The point of this movie is to show Japan as a cultural destination that
> Americans should travel to. The people are friendly. The screenwriter
> claimed that this was the first post WWII movie in which the Japanese were
> not seen as the enemy. The script doesn't really condescend but there's
> no explanation provided for stupid Americans about the wife defering
> to her husband or how respect within the family is actually supposed
> to work. To the extent there's a plot, this is the set up. Basically,
> the main characters simply act against interest, you know, what your bad
> screenwriter thinks is "drama" when he's at a loss for a creative idea.
>
> The film stars Jon Provost, who wanders around Japan lost trying to get
> to his parents in Tokyo after a plane crash, hampered by a terrible
> script and a so-called friend who keeps telling him to hide from police.
> Of course, this would have been solved over a commercial break if only
> Lassie were there to guide him but Provost hasn't yet been cast on the
> tv series.
>
> Not only is Lassie missing but I've seen these locations used in movies
> like Sayonara (also 1957) and I kept looking for Aki to teach Sean
> Connery how to pretend to be an absurdly tall Japanese fisherman.
>
> The parents are played by Cameron Mitchell and Teresa Wright. Mitchell
> is part of the American diplomatic staff in Tokyo having just been
> transferred from Manilla. She's his unhappy wife having learned of his
> affair with another woman through embassy wife gossip. She wants to end
> the marriage and take their son back to the United States. For reasons
> that aren't made clear, the parents arrived in Tokyo ahead of the boy
> who is put on a flight from Manilla by himself. The flight develops
> engine trouble and ditches in the Pacific ocean. We get lots of
> soapiness about the parents being told the plane will have trouble being
> found because it's off radar and we don't get a scene of the plane
> ditching. We aren't even told how many passengers and crew survied.
>
> Provost is just found by himself in a raft. It's a good-sized raft and
> suggests if no one else made it on board, then a dozen passengers
> drowned. We did hear of one other raft with rescued passengers.
>
> The fisherman has his wife and son on board. She's played by Kuniko
> Miyake, with a huge number of credits and I recognized from a couple of
> movies. The father is Susumu Fujita. The son is Roger Nakagawa.
>
> The son spots Provost's raft. He's pulled on board, suffering from
> exposure but they warm him up and after a long sleep, is perfectly fine.
>
> And... we get STOOPID. The son overhears his father saying the have to
> bring the boy to the police and gets it into his head that Provost is a
> suspected criminal for having brought the plane down. He can't ask his
> father about any of this because a son cannot question his father but he
> can think his father will treat an honored guest, a victim of tragic
> circumstances, as a criminal saboteur? Idiotic script.
>
> The son claims he's been to school and was taught some English by
> American servicemen but he has absolutely no concept of geography. He
> clearly has no idea where Tokyo is.
>
> They wander around the countryside, sneaking onto a vegetable truck,
> getting help from families although still trying to hide. The parents
> follow the reports of the two children being sighted.
>
> There's a scene that's not bad with the two American parents being
> hosted by the two Japanese parents trying to be polite to each other and
> barely able to communicate. But the two Japanese parents around taken
> with the two American parents from location to location as the boys were
> spotted.
>
> There are interesting scenes that are supposed to be in the streets of Kyoto.
>
> At one point the children wander into a Japan's idea of burlesque
> although it's a family movie and the audience doesn't see what the
> children must have seen. But next door to the house of burlesque is a
> fabulous legitimate theater.
>
> The most spectacular part of the movie, in addition to showing off the
> royal palace and associated religious site, and the religious site at
> Nara, is this huge traditional theatrical production with a cast of
> hundreds of women and an enormouse stage that wraps around the
> auditorium on three sides.
>
> The boys are then taken to the compound in which the women live (I
> assume no men are allowed) by one of the performers. They are bathed and
> fed and pampered and get a private show.
>
> The Japanese boy thinks they are geisha but I don't think actors and
> geisha are the same thing.
>
> Huh. Who knew? Off stage, these women remain in their elaborate costumes
> and makeup. In the morning, hearing the head woman say she'll call the
> police, they run away.
>
> At the main train station, the Japanese boy ignores the signs for the
> train to Tokyo and end up on a train in the wrong direction toward Nara.
> There they enter that multi-story religious pagoda and there's time for
> Provost's parents (but not the Japanese boy's parents) to arrive. The
> children stupidly crawl out onto a sloped roof and Cameron Mitchell,
> after instantly climbing ladders for 6 stories, rescues them with help
> of police.
>
> Philip Ober (ubiquitous tall bald character actor with a large head)
> plays a colonel assigned by the ambassador with no other duties than to
> drive the parents around.
>
> There isn't much for the parents to do. Mitchell was in westerns and war
> movies. I usually think of him as unsympathetic but he doesn't have a
> lot of personality. Teresa Wright is completely wasted. She's worried.
> Yeah, we get it. She imagines all sorts of calamities and says nothing
> but "the boy is alone and scared" and isn't helpful at all. Finally, the
> lousy script gets fed up with itself and we get this cut from Teresa
> Wright worrying to Provost having the time of his life.
>
> I enjoyed it for the travelogue quality but we really needed
> explanations instead of just fish out of water. If you expect nothing
> from the script, just watch the scenary and goreous Technicolor.
>
> Produced by R.K.O. which was now owned by General Tire and Rubber as
> part of a conglomerate after Howard Hughes ran studio into the ground.
> You'll recognize producer William Dozier's credit (from Batman) but he
> had just over a year to turn the place around and it wasn't enough time
> to stem chronic losses. R.K.O. ceased domestic distribution by early 1957,
> turning it over to Universal-International whose distribution credit also
> appears on this movie. They closed the studio in January 1957 intending
> to become a tenant at Pathe studios. Instead, all production ceased.
>
> R.K.O. went out on a bad note.
>

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
> I forgot to mention:
>
> Cameron Mitchell was in the main cast of The High Chaparral (1967 to
> 1971), second lead playing Leif Erickson's brother. I know it's in
> second run syndication but I've really never watched it.

It was filmed in old Tucson. I’ve never liked it. One of the rerun
channels, grit or something, is showing at now and I catch them
occasionally but it’s hard to sit all the way through. It’s like lancer. I
can’t figure out what exactly is wrong with it or how I fix it But it sure
doesn’t call to me.

Speaking of which one of the rerun channels showed the bonanza reunion
movies although annoyingly not the first one last weekend. The second one
which casts Dan Blocker‘s look-alike son as somebody other than his
character son and somebody unrelated to him that doesn’t really look like
him except he’s huge as his bastard son started it off. And amazingly it’s
a blatant remake of the pilot of THE BIG VALLEY with the 6 million Dollar
bastard fighting his way in while filthy rich villains on private train
cars try to steal their land. Then because they were turning a one hour
show into a two hour movie they started padding like crazy and Al from
quantum Leap was playing Malachi Throne, who was the boss of Al from it
takes a thief, and it turned out the entire plot of the Barclay family was
because Al from quantum Leap had been in love with Barbara Stanwyck and now
wanted Crystal from Dynasty (not the new dynasty) Because she was a dead
ringer for her mother.

I had a headache by the time it was over and still haven’t sat through the
next one yet.

>
> In the scene in which rescue planes have been dispatched, there is an
> unmistakeable Clint Eastwood in a bit part as one of the pilots. He got
> a couple of lines.
>

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.