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Classic Anamorphics


Guest Glen Alexander

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The Samuelson quote makes specific reference to Primes with a back adaptor, but I have never seen those lenses anywhere.

 

An obit for Jan Jacobsen at In 70mm.com says that he built a series of wide angle anamorphots with the

anamorphic section in the rear. I've never heard of that elsewhere.

 

http://in70mm.com/newsletter/1999/57/jacobsen/index.htm

 

He seems to have invented the rear anamorphic. His patent for it is basic enough in describing the concept.

 

http://www.google.com/patents?id=Ol9vAAAAE...cad=0_1#PPP1,M1

 

Though this system, which is probably used in the 50mm Ultrascope, uses a pair of anamorphics set at right angles to each other to obtain a slightly wider taking angle. Possibly the reference in the obit is to this system.

 

 

The Todd-AO 35s that use the Shiga anamorphs would be the Cinema Products Canon High Speeds.

The first series were built by NAC with Richard Vetter designs.

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Last weekend, I had the chance to see a number of early CinemaScope productions during the annual Widescreen Festival at Schauburg cinema, Karlsruhe, Germany. These were the films shown over two days:

 

THE ROBE (1953, d. Henry Koster)

HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (1953, d. Jean Negulesco)

THE VIOLENT MEN (1954, d. Rudolph Maté)

A STAR IS BORN (1954, d. George Cukor)

THE LAST FRONTIER (1955, d. Anthony Mann)

THE DARK AVENGER (1955, d. Henry Levin)

THE VIRGIN QUEEN (1955, d. Rudolph Maté)

 

All films were shown in vintage prints with 4-track mag sound and (except THE DARK AVENGER) in 2.55 ratio. Most prints were Technicolor dye transfer, THE ROBE had about three reels of vintage (faded) Eastman positive, the rest was Technicolor and Agfa positive. A STAR IS BORN was a "mixed" print too.

 

It was a great experience for me to see all these titles on a big screen (curved with a width of about 17 metres) and in stereo mag sound. Some observations may be interesting in this dicussion of vintage CinemaScope lenses.

 

1. The Eastman color parts of THE ROBE had excellent sharpness and extremely fine grain. These reels seemed to be contact prints from OCN, both the Technicolor footage and the Agfa positive had much more grain and (Agfa) a lot of dust and abrasions from dry dupe and release printing.

During the OCN parts, I scanned the image for any telltale signs of lens problems with the Chrétien adapter but could not find any. Especially the daylight exteriors where sunlight allowed stopping down a bit more looked spectacular.

 

2. HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE was Technicolor dye transfer all the way and seemed more grainy with less definition. Especially the New York scenic views were really bad, I always wonder whether these were shot especially for the movie or taken from the Scope demo reels.

The lens breathing with focus changes (at the fashion show) was very obvious, they tried to hide it with dissolves between shots. All in all a much better picture than I remembered although less interesting in terms of cinematography.

 

3. With THE VIRGIN QUEEN and THE LAST FRONTIER, I cannot speak about the lens performance because obviously early CinemaScope Technicolor prints had a real problem with shadow detail. Dark zones simply disappear in black or grey which never was the case with 3-strip Technicolor movies. This becomes really painful to the eye because LAST FRONTIER has a lot of day for night scenes which look absoultely terrible. I strongly suspect that a contact print from the OCNs would show that both films had much better resolution than visible in the IB prints - not the CinemaScope lenses are to blame but the pre-1955 dye transfer process.

 

4. THE DARK AVENGER, shot by Guy Greene in England, had the best looking Technicolor print both in terms of color rendition and sharpness. Cpompared to the other viontage prints, Technicolor London did the best job in creating a dye transfer print from Eastman negatives.

 

5. The greatest surprise to me was A STAR IS BORN, although it was a 120 minute version which is a great loss compared to the full 176 minute restored version. Nonetheless, it was all Eastman positive contact printed, strongly faded of course, like with all Eastman prints of that period.

It was obvious that they had to struggle for more depth all the time, especially in the theatre at the picture's opening. Resolution and precision of focus varied from shot to shot. In some musical numbers (Judy Garland performing the "production number clichés" in her living room) focus pulling did not always match Garland's movement, it must have been hell to do this with 25ASA stock and early anamorphic lenses!

 

But what really surprised me was the sharpness of many medium shots - some of them reminded me of the almost three-dimensional look that you find with certain Todd-AO films. Despite the color fading, it felt as if you could reach out and feel the texture of actors' skin or costumes. I wish all modern release prints had this sharpness. For some reason, most of these shots had no visible grain which speaks for the quality of the early 5248 stock.

 

To sum it up: If you want to see how good or bad vintage CinemaScope lenses were, you have to look at a vintage Eastman color positive print. This is how the process was meant to be seen. Of course it's nicer for most people to watch a film in dense and bright Technicolor than in more or less faded Eastman color, but the pre-1955 dye transfer process added some problems of its own. (Later IB prints from improved matrix stock, especially when done from large format VistaVision or Technirama, are another thing.)

 

It was impressive how good THE ROBE looked, and it says a lot about the filmmakers and especially the cinematographer's team that they could manage to steer around the limitations of this new process and the old 1927 Chrétien lenses.

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Beautiful analysis, Christian.

 

The aspect that you mentioned about the Todd AO lenses has interested me about anamorphic shots in general. I have tried to get folks to talk about it but to no avail. Since you have mentioned this characteristic, I'll drone on about it again. Why do anamorphic lenses increase the sense of depth (Z axis) dimension?

 

I have guessed that it may be due to the inherent dual depth of field of anamorphic lenses. They have the normal lens's depth on the Y axis but a shorter lens length and therefore deeper depth on the X axis. With this in mind, the depth perception at the subject's point of focus is a different X Y ratio than in the bokeh'd background. I think the human brain doesn't really know how to process this optical peculiarity and ends up mildly stunned by the experience. These shots are, frankly, stunning.

 

Does this sound viable or am I completely off my rocker?

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I know what you are talking about Paul, it is precisely this three-dimensionality which I love about anamorphic. You are right, it comes from the fact that you are looking at a scene basically with 2 lenses (or, more precisely, the characteristics of 2 lenses) at the same time. Anamorphic mixes the look of a longer focal length and that of a wider focal length.

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You're not crazy; it's why Super-35 and anamorphic will never look the same. Years ago David Mullen & I did some tests with a lab in NY shooting in Super-16 with spherical shots cropped to 2.39 and blown up to anamorphic 35 and shots done with an anamorphic on the same 16mm camera and then blown up to anamorhic 35. The result was that there was very little difference and the cropped spherical was way easier to deal with when shooting for various reasons. But there was a certain quality to the anamorphic-originated footage that could be described as it's "artifacting." And I consider this interesting sense of depth to be a part of this. Note that this is really only apparent in shots with specific depth presented, such as objects both close & far in frame or talent close to the lens on a relatively (for anamorhic) wide lens such as a 50mm.

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A colleague of mine has a set of 2 anamorphic long lenses. They are 400mm and 600mm focal length, both f5.6.

Did Isco manufacture 200mm and 300mm spherical lenses and fit rear anamorphic adapters inside?

 

Were "telephoto'' anamorphic lenses common, as most of the prime A-lenses discussed here are in the 40mm to 135mm range?

 

Thanks for the info on the Cinemascope newsreel/low-budget adapter, my colleague has one of those as well and I was always curious about its' application.

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Matt,

there were three UltraScope telephoto lenses:

 

f=300mm/5.6

f=400mm/5.6

f=600mm/5.6

 

Is it possible that your colleague's lenses are that type? The 300 and 600mm lenses have black and silver housings with a black "UltraScope" logo near the mount, the 400mm is all black and has the logo engraved in white.

 

 

Paul,

I should have been more precise - I was not referring to the anamorphic "Todd-AO 35" lenses used for JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, MACBETH and FLASH GORDON but to the special look of spherical 65mm format Todd-AO lenses. Those medium shots in A STAR IS BORN reminded me of certain shots in AIRPORT (1970) shot in 65mm using Todd-AO lenses. There is a car interior/night scene with Jean Seberg and Burt Lancaster that looks almost 3D even in faded prints.

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BTW, the Bausch & Lomb anamorphic adapter was not made especially for newsreel and documentary work. In fact, some of the early CinemaScope productions (after ROBE/MILLIONAIRE/TWELVE-MILE-REEF) must have used it. Marty Hart has a picture of the adapter on a camera shooting 20.000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954).

 

AWSM

 

So the B & L adapter definitely was used for feature film work until the first series of B & L block lenses became available. Unfortunately, I have not found any information on which films used which type of lenses. Set photos from Jack Cardiff's unfinished production of WILLIAM TELL (1954) clearly show the silver adapter lens.

 

When the B&L block lenses were available, the adapters must have been used for short subjects newsreel and low budget feature work. THE ROYAL TOUR (of Queen Elizabeth II, 1954) and some of the early CinemaScope short films we saw at Karlsruhe (about the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown) certainly used them.

Edited by Christian Appelt
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BTW, the Bausch & Lomb anamorphic adapter was not made especially for newsreel and documentary work. In fact, some of the early CinemaScope productions (after ROBE/MILLIONAIRE/TWELVE-MILE-REEF) must have used it. Marty Hart has a picture of the adapter on a camera shooting 20.000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954).

 

So the B & L adapter definitely was used for feature film work until the first series of B & L block lenses became available. Unfortunately, I have not found any information on which films used which type of lenses. Set photos from Jack Cardiff's unfinished production of WILLIAM TELL (1954) clearly show the silver adapter lens.

 

I've seen other production stills for '20,000 Leagues under the Sea', mostly in a lengthy articule in Cinefantastique which show the B&L adaptors on the cameras. Elsewhere I've seen a still showing an extreme CU of Peter Lorre being shot with the attachment on a, maybe, 300mm Kilfitt. Probably in International Photographer.

 

This promo for 'Lust For Life' which was shot in late 1955 shows attatchments on the cameras, even in the blimps.

http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=...amp;titleId=291

 

While you can't actually see the attachments, there are focus pullers on both sides of the cameras and blimps with the fp on the motor side moving a lever.

 

Articles in AC mention that 'The Great Locomotive Chase', shot in late 1955 used attachments on three BNCs and one Arriflex. 'Stagecoach to Fury', a B/W RegalScope movie shot in mid-1966, used the attachment on a BNC.

Oddly enough, stills from 'The Outrage', Panavision 1964, show the B&L attachment being used on an Arriflex.

& 'Caprice', one of Fox's last CinemaScope films was still using the attachments on the Arris used for the ski scenes.

 

Pathe labs sued Technicolor over advertising the Eastman color prints of 'The Robe' as being Technicolor. I never could findout how the suit was resolved.

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Christian,

 

Thanks for the info on the Ultrascope telephoto lenses.

I wonder how many sets of the telephoto lenses were fabricated?

 

I recently purchased a Cinepanoramic anamorphic lens adaptor with its lens support accessories (French) for a bargain price at a garage sale: it looks like its shooting days are probably over but it will make a great paperweight!

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