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The CinemaScope roll out continued
throughout the 1950s, but because the
CinemaScope lenses were optically flawed
(producing slightly out- of-focus images at
the sides) the process waned in favour of
Panavision’s superior 2.35:1 aspect ratio
product and, of course, the CinemaScope
screens could still be used. By 1965, even 20 th
Century Fox began to favour Panavision
using the process for Von Ryan’s Express at
the insistence of star, Frank Sinatra. The final
two films to be shot in CinemaScope were In
Like Flint with James Coburn and Caprice
with Doris Day, both in 1967.
Nowadays, in the digital age, the majority of
movies are made in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1
or 2.40:1 but unfortunately with cinemas
favouring “wall to wall” screens, “scope”
movies, instead of being wider than those in
the standard 1.85:1 ratio are the same width
but with a reduced height to fit them onto the
screens. This results in the audience no longer
being thrilled by the screen opening out wide
on each side for the feature, as was the case
when CinemaScope was all the rage. ★

In Sydney, The Robe was transferred from the but no blond. Far better to open the door wide. Images:
Regent on 8 April 1954 to Hoyts Esquire, which The blond might yell, but the view is better - and
became the Harbour City’s third theatre for that’s how it is with CinemaScope. Instead of Trove
CinemaScope films. In the suburbs, by May seeing your movies as it were through a keyhole, Film Weekly
1954 CinemaScope equipped theatres were the you now take the broad view”.
Hoyts theatres at Bondi Junction (both the Star
and Coronet), Bondi Beach, Chatswood,
Crows Nest, Double Bay, Manly, Mosman,
Neutral Bay and Woollahra.

It took a while longer for CinemaScope to reach
Tasmania - both the Hoyts Prince of Wales,
Hobart and the Hoyts Princess, Launceston
began screening The Robe on their new large
screens on 27 October 1954. On the same date,
both the Avalon in Hobart and the Plaza in
Launceston opened the MGM CinemaScope
production of Rose Marie. At the time, a
spokesman for the two ‘non-Hoyts’ theatres said
they would be screening six to eight
CinemaScope films a year but their wide screen
presentations would mostly consist of
VistaVision films!

While most reviewers heaped praise on the
CinemaScope process and The Robe itself as a
film, some were not all that impressed. In the
Brisbane Courier Mail, the reviewer claimed the
stereo sound was so loud it “stung you into near
insensibility”. In Perth’s Western Mail, Isla
Brook wrote: “The Robe has sweeping spectacle
but I was not impressed - it was all a little tiring.
The screen is huge and makes everything look
rather larger than life. It gives you the sensation
of being surrounded by picture. The sound is
overwhelming too. It’s stereophonic, which
means it comes from all over the screen instead
of a central speaker as in the present talkies.
That’s good in some ways, though a jot noisy
when you’re unaccustomed to it”.

The Perth Sunday Times used a rather politically
incorrect way of describing CinemaScope:
“There are always people addicted to the
dubious sport of peeping through bathroom
keyholes. But it is not to be recommended, even
if there is a blond within. Chances are you’d
focus on a soap dish or a corner of a bath heater,

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