Page 26 - CinemaRecord Edition 3-2003 #41

Camera 65

and the Metro

Bourke Street

Bigger than…

By Eric White

ack in the late sixties or early seventies, during the run Ben-Hur was filmed in a process called Camera 65,
Bof The Shoes Of The Fisherman in Melbourne, I which was basically 70mm with a slight horizontal 'squeeze',
remember Graham McGhee, one of the projectionists, telling and if projected in this format there would have been a
me that MGM had planned to put 70mm into their Bourke projection aspect ratio of about 2.7:1, much wider than
Street Metro for Ben-Hur, but decided that the theatre Cinemascope, whose aspect ratio in the late fifties had
would not have been able to install a wide enough screen to settled down to about 2.3:1 (Originally it was 2.55:1).
make it worthwhile. I would assume that Metro would have wished to have
shown Ben-Hur in 70mm at this ultra wide ratio in its hard-
ticket seasons, and the Bourke St proscenium could just not
accommodate it. (Neither could MGM’s St James in Sydney
if reports from that city are to be believed).
Apart from that, the projection room at Bourke Street
was very small. I am not sure that there would have been
enough head-room for 70mm machines, with their big 6,000
ft spoolboxes. The rewind room was so small that the
supply arm of the rewinders had to be mounted unusually
high above the bench with the film making a right-angle
bend around a roller to allow enough bench space to make
splices on. I have seen nothing like that anywhere else.

Left: The ultra-wide projection angle made possible
with the use if the 70mm Camera 65 Process.

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