I saw "White Christmas" in all its Vista Vision glory at an AMC movie theatre last week in NYC. Back in 1954, when "White Christmas" was made, film studios were not thinking of TV screens when making Vista Vision or CinemaScope films. Film studios were making films for the big screen cinema and not TV. TV and TV screens were considered the enemy of motion pictures and they made sure that a film like White Christmas would not fit on your TV screen so they could get people away from the newly evolving TV culture. And the movie still doesn't fit on the TV screen as I came to see it last week at the movie theatre. I saw things that I had never seen before due to the sheer height of the Vista Vision sets.
Yes those old VV films are glorious on the big screen... and to be frank, they also didn't envision them to be the kind of hi-definition we have today. You can see makeup lines etc on digital prints now that never would've been seen in the 50s... projectors just couldn't reproduce the images with the clarity they can now. It's so interesting how technology can affect the experience of viewing a movie that's already made, cut, and broadcast. Seeing on a TV is different from seeing in a theater... and seeing in a theater in 1954 is so different from seeing in 2025!
I saw "White Christmas" in all its Vista Vision glory at an AMC movie theatre last week in NYC. Back in 1954, when "White Christmas" was made, film studios were not thinking of TV screens when making Vista Vision or CinemaScope films. Film studios were making films for the big screen cinema and not TV. TV and TV screens were considered the enemy of motion pictures and they made sure that a film like White Christmas would not fit on your TV screen so they could get people away from the newly evolving TV culture. And the movie still doesn't fit on the TV screen as I came to see it last week at the movie theatre. I saw things that I had never seen before due to the sheer height of the Vista Vision sets.
Yes those old VV films are glorious on the big screen... and to be frank, they also didn't envision them to be the kind of hi-definition we have today. You can see makeup lines etc on digital prints now that never would've been seen in the 50s... projectors just couldn't reproduce the images with the clarity they can now.
It's so interesting how technology can affect the experience of viewing a movie that's already made, cut, and broadcast. Seeing on a TV is different from seeing in a theater... and seeing in a theater in 1954 is so different from seeing in 2025!