"2001: A Space Odyssey" and Cinerama

Tonight, while having dinner, I put 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on my Blu-ray player. It one of those movies I prefer to screen about once a year.  

The first time I saw 2001 was in June 1968 as a junior high present from my parents. We got all dressed up (in those days, one dressed in suits to attend screenings in Hollywood) and went to the Warner Hollywood Theatre, also known as the Hollywood Pacific Theater, at 6433 Hollywood Blvd. (now closed). I have seen two Cinerama movies there previously. They were How The West Was Won and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. 2001 was advertised to be in Cinerama. 

Only it really wasn't.

Above, 2001 at the Hollywood Warner Theater in 1968.

For years, I swore that I saw it in true Cinerama until I found out that it was in 70mm Super-Panavision. Talk about disappointing. True Cinerama movies were projected by three projectors synchronized on a huge curved screen so that one's peripheral vision gives the illusion that one is not just seeing the movie, but being in it. 

My DVD of 2001 also touted it being in Cinerama. Definitely (well, technically) a case of false advertising. Still, the screening we attended in 1968 was spectacular on the Warner Hollywood Theater's curved screen.

According to Wikipedia, three-camera Cinerama was dropped due to rising costs:

Rising costs of making three-camera widescreen films caused Cinerama to stop making such films in their original form shortly after the first release of How the West Was Won. The use of Ultra Panavision 70 for certain scenes (such as the river raft sequence) later printed onto the three Cinerama panels, proved that a more or less satisfactory wide-screen image could be photographed without the three cameras. Consequently, Cinerama discontinued the three film process, except for a single theater (McVickers' Cinerama Theatre in Chicago) showing Cinerama's Russian Adventure, an American-Soviet co-production culled from footage of several Soviet films shot in the rival Soviet three-film format known as Kinopanorama in 1966.

Cinerama continued through the rest of the 1960s as a brand name used initially with the Ultra Panavision 70 widescreen process (which yielded a similar 2.76 aspect ratio to the original Cinerama, although it did not simulate the 146-degree field of view). Optically "rectified" prints and special lenses were used to project the 70 mm prints onto the curved screen. The films shot in Ultra Panavision for single lens Cinerama presentation were It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Battle of the Bulge (1965), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), The Hallelujah Trail (1965) and Khartoum (1966).

The less wide but still spectacular Super Panavision 70 was used to film the Cinerama presentations Grand Prix (1966); 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), which also featured scenes shot in Todd-AO and MCS-70); Ice Station Zebra (1968); and Krakatoa, East of Java (1969), which also featured scenes shot in Todd-AO.

What got me on this topic? Earlier today, I dug up my Science-Fiction Book Club edition of 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke from 1968. It was based on the move screenplay by Clarke and Stanley Kubrick. I was a member and got several books including The Planet of the Apes.