Seattle Cinerama

The Seattle Cinerama Theatre is a landmark movie theater located in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle, Washington in the United States of America. It is currently one of only three movie theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel Cinerama films.

History

The Seattle Cinerama opened in 1963 as Seattle's Martin Cinerama as a showcase for the eponymous technology, but was retrofitted a few months later to also show 70 mm films on its huge curved screen. The movie house soon became specialized in showing such kitsch spectaculars as "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Unfortunately, both formats shortly fell out of fashion, and "Krakatoa, East of Java" from 1969 was the last non-standard film to be shown at the Cinerama in the first era of its existence.

The following three decades were lean, as the proliferation of suburban multiplex theaters drew movie fans away from the Cinerama. Lackluster ticket sales quickly led to a general decline in the theater's upkeep, until it was relegated to play second-run movies after being taken over by Cineplex Odeon on a reduced rent, month-to-month basis.

The turnaround began in 1997 when developers revealed plans to turn the Cinerama into a dinner theater or a rock-climbing club. This sparked a grassroots effort to save the historic venue, with local film buffs circulating petitions and issuing an urgent cry for help, which was answered by multi-billionaire Paul G. Allen, himself a movie fan and frequent patron of the theater during its 1960s heyday.

Allen purchased the theater and initiated a comprehensive, multi-million dollar restoration. The grand re-opening occurred in 1999. Since then, the theater has played both classical movies and select new productions. [http://www.cinerama.com/theatre4_history.html]

The theater today

The renovation restored the look of a great mid-20th century movie house, and also saw the installation of state-of-the-art technology and accessibility features. The theater now contains 808 seats and two screens. The first is a 90-foot-long, 30-foot-high screen, constructed of 2,000 independently angled louvered strips, which provides an unobstructed view to patrons sitting anywhere in the theater; it is used for presenting three-strip films such as "How the West Was Won" and 70 mm classics like "." For screenings of modern 70 mm/35 mm first-run movies, however, a second screen sits immediately in front of its massive counterpart. This smaller screen can be disassembled in a matter of hours whenever there is a Cinerama presentation.

In 2001, Warner Brothers chose the Seattle Cinerama as the theater in which to premiere the newly restored 70mm print of "2001: A Space Odyssey." The film opened on October 5, 2001 and eventually opened in other cities around North America the following month.

In addition to the Seattle Cinerama, the two theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel Cinerama films are the Cinerama Dome at ArcLight Cinemas in Los Angeles, and the Pictureville Cinema at the National Media Museum in Bradford, England. [http://www.cinerama.com/theatre1_save_the_cinerama.html]

In recent years, the Seattle Cinerama has generally been one of the venues for the Seattle International Film Festival. In 2005, it opted out of the festival because it had the lucrative opportunity to show "."

ources

* [http://www.cinerama.com/default.asp Official Web site]
* [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/ The Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
* [http://archives.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/News/06/02/showbuzz/ CNN on the opening]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE2DD1F3BF934A25756C0A9669C8B63 New York Times reference]

External links

* [http://www.cinerama.com/default.asp Official Web site]