Kehr flubs “El Cid” tech specs

Not to nitpick, but N.Y. Times DVD columnist Dave Kehr has gotten it slightly wrong in his review of the new double-disc El Cid DVD by claiming it was “filmed in Super Technirama, a 70-millimeter widescreen process.” Anthony Mann‘s epic was actually filmed (as was Spartacus) on a 35mm, 8-perf, horizontal-through-the-gate process that was then blown up into 70mm. The correct term would be that it was shown or “presented” in Super Technirama 70.
Otherwise, Kehr does a nice job of explaining the various financial motives and political back-currents behind the making of El Cid, and the resultant metaphors that one could fairly apply to the finished film.

4 thoughts on “Kehr flubs “El Cid” tech specs

  1. At the risk of making you look foolish Jeff, I think you’ve got everything wrong on this one. I’m fairly sure that Technirama essentially was a camera systema had the film running through the projecter basically sideways, and allowed the exposure of basically two frames of 35mm film at the same time, thus creating a true 70mm frame. Anything called Technirama ALWAYS used this format for FILMING, but the presentation might be different.
    Here’s the link at the widescreen museum: http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingtr3.htm
    I think the confusion comes from the fact that some of the films were filmed in Technirama (That is: a process of having the films run sideways through the camera and exposing the equivalent of two frames of film for a total of about 70mm), but the PRESENTATION of the films was originally was either in a 35 mmm reduction format or a SuperTechnirama presentation, OR (with later films) a conversion to true 70 mm from the original Technirama elements (like with Spartacus and El Cid).
    So in a nutshell; El Cid was filmed in glorious hi res Technirama…
    I might be wrong on this but I’m pretty sure I read the widescreen museum correctly…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>