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Gary wrote a fascinating article about Winning the West and its projection format of Cinerama, which reminded me of a movie I saw when visiting Disneyland in 1976. I found more information about it, enough to merit a separate post.
Disney created America the Beautiful for the American exhibit at the 1958 Brussels World Fair. Walt Disney tried to visit a showing of the movie incognito, but he was recognized and mobbed by fans. A special Russian-language edition was shown at the American display in Moscow in 1959, where Nixon and Khrushchev had their famous kitchen debate. It ran most of the time from 1960 to 1979 in a special theater at Disneyland and occasionally thereafter until 1996, when it was permanently discontinued. By 1996 the original prints were badly faded, so the movie lacked the color saturation of the early years. Disney updated the movie every few years and made a special edition for the Bicentennial, which is the version that I saw in 1976. It ran at all Disney locations at various times.
The projection required an odd number of screens with a small gap between each one so that a projector on the opposite wall could project the video. The video started with 9 screens, but that increased over time. There were handrails, which I remember, that formed aisles in the hall so that you could hold on and not get dizzy watching the movie. My recollection is that the movie went on and on (but not too long) - in fact, it only lasted 18 minutes. It was originally called Circarama, but the owners of Cinerama complained that the name was a trademark violation, so Disney changed it to Circle-Vision 360.
Disney had used the theater since it was built in 1955 to show Americana. The first movie was A Tour of the West. When America the Beautiful was discontinued, it was replaced with American Journeys in 1984, which showcased non-white and non-male stories, so it was an early DEI effort. Sadly the theater is now used to show Buzz Lightyear: Astro Blasters.
I'm sure our family visited the movie because it didn't require any of the tickets from our Disneyland booklets (since it was sponsored by a company). My parents were always looking for free things to do.
We had no TV at home, and I had never been to a movie, so this was the first video projection of any kind that I had seen. I was utterly stunned by it. It made me proud to be an American. I'm sure having experienced the Bicentennial that summer and then seeing this movie played a big role in making me a patriot.
At that time Disney was using its vast resources to tell the story of America, the country that had made it possible for Walt Disney to climb so high. Disney was educating good citizens and inspiring Americans to love their country. Now it is trashing America and destroying the gender of the children whose parents still allow them to watch its productions. What a sad collapse of a once-great company.
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A lot more people alive today have seen Circle Vision 360 than can say that they saw three screen Cinerama. A fine follow up, Steve!
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In comments on a post about the lunar landing anniversary (I think it was the post by @She), I mentioned the 1964 film With Their Eyes on the Stars, made by North American Aviation, which placed the space program in the context of American history and development. (With music supervised, and some of it composed, by John Stewart)
Like the other films mentioned, a much more positive view of this country and its history than is common in the filmmaking industry today.
Can be watched on YouTube at the above link.
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Indeed.
Your post reminded me of a stop that The Family She regularly made, on our forays across Pennsylvania and back to visit relatives on the East Coast.
That stop was at Roadside America, a miniature village and model train layout near Shartlesville PA. For more than eight decades, it displayed, with pride, iconic scenes from American history and daily life, and at some point, culminated with Kate Smith belting out God Bless America" to a nighttime fireworks display.
It was a casualty of Covid (non-essential), and changing times. Sad.
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We attended the Disney show more than once. You can be sure that I held on to those handrails for dear life. It was a great experience!
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During the early to mid-1980s, I worked at the Carowinds theme park near Charlotte. During at least part of the time I worked there, there was a similar 360-degree panorama theater in operation at the park, although now I can't find any information about it. My recollection is that its design was pretty much identical to what you describe; I wonder if Disney sold this technology to other theme parks, or of there was secondhand Disney hardware on the market for other theme parks to buy.
Oddly, I have absolutely no memory of the film that was shown there, even though I must have seen it more than once. To be honest, I don't think anybody went there to watch the show; its main attraction was that it was one of a handful of attractions at the park that had air conditioning.
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