“Almost like a real web site”
 

IN7OMM.COM
Search | Contact
News | e-News
Rumour Mill | Stories
Foreign Language
Auf Deutsch

WHAT'S ON IN 7OMM?

7OMM FESTIVAL
Karlsruhe | Gentofte
Krnov | Varnsdorf
Banská Bystrica
Oslo | Bradford

TODD-AO PROCESS
Films | Premiere
People | Equipment
Library | Cinemas
Distortion Correcting
DP70 / AAII Projector
 

VISION, SCOPE & RAMA
1926 Natural Vision
1929 Grandeur
1930 Magnifilm
1930 Realife
1930 Vitascope
1952 Cinerama
1953 CinemaScope
1953 Panavison
1954 VistaVision
1955 Todd-AO
1955 Circle Vision 360
1956 CinemaScope 55
1957 Ultra Panavision 70
1958 Cinemiracle
1958 Kinopanorama
1959 Super Panavision 70
1959 Super Technirama 70
1960 Smell-O-Vision
1961 Sovscope 70
1962
Cinerama 360
1962 MCS-70
1963 70mm Blow Up
1963 Circarama
1963 Circlorama
1966 Dimension 150
1966
Stereo-70
1967 DEFA 70
1967 Pik-A-Movie
1970 IMAX / Omnimax
1974 Cinema 180
1974 SENSURROUND
1976 Dolby Stereo
1984 Showscan
1984 Swissorama
1986 iWERKS
1989 ARRI 765
1990 CDS
1994 DTS / Datasat
2001 Super Dimension 70
2018 Magellan 65

Various Large format | 70mm to 3-strip | 3-strip to 70mm | Specialty Large Format | Special Effects in 65mm | ARC-120 | Early Large Format
7OMM Premiere in Chronological Order

7OMM ON EARTH

Australia | Brazil | Canada | China | Denmark | England | France | Germany | Holland | India | Iran | Israel | Ireland | Mexico | Norway | Poland |  Russia | Spain | Sweden | Turkey | USA |

LIBRARY
7OMM Projectors
People | Eulogy
65mm/70mm Workshop
The 7OMM Newsletter
Back issue | PDF
Academy of the WSW

7OMM NEWS
• 2026 | 2025 | 2024
2023 | 2022 | 2021
2020 | 2019 | 2018
2017 | 2016 | 2015
2014 | 2013 | 2012
2011 | 2010 | 2009
2008 | 2007 | 2006
2005 | 2004 | 2003
2002 | 2001 | 2000
1999 | 1998 | 1997
1996 | 1995 | 1994
 

in70mm.com Mission:
• To record the history of the large format movies and the 70mm cinemas as remembered by the people who worked with the films. Both during making and during running the films in projection rooms and as the audience, looking at the curved screen.
in70mm.com, a unique internet based magazine, with articles about 70mm cinemas, 70mm people, 70mm films, 70mm sound, 70mm film credits, 70mm history and 70mm technology. Readers and fans of 70mm are always welcome to contribute.

Disclaimer | Updates
Support us | Staff
Testimonials
Table of Content
 

 
 
Extracts and longer parts of in70mm.com may be reprinted with the written permission from the editor.
Copyright © 1800 - 2070. All rights reserved.

Visit biografmuseet.dk about Danish cinemas

 

Magna Theatres
The company behind a new Film development and distributor of productions made in the medium

Read more at
in70mm.com
The 70mm Newsletter
Written by: Showmen’s Trade Review, October 15, 1955 Date: 01.07.2008
Magna, in Latin, is the feminine adjective for "big" and when the incorporators of the Magna Theatre Corporation chose that name they displayed a singular sense of the appropriate for a company that was to face a task that would take big, broad-gauged effort coupled with the perseverance of a housewife persuading the master of the house that the living room needs new furniture and drapes.

The company was born after Michael Todd, who bursts with nervous energy, had persuaded Joseph Schenck, who is calm and deliberate, that he had a revolutionary idea for motion picture photography and projection, Mr. Todd has been associated with Cinerama but had withdrawn from the project before its Broadway premiere startled the motion picture industry into new concepts. He had immediately concluded that a system which achieved a similar effect with one instead of three projectors was needed and this is the idea that he sold Schenck.
 
More in 70mm reading:

Todd-AO
The Todd-AO Projector

Showmen’s Trade Review, October 15, 1955:
Oklahoma! in Todd-AO
Todd-AO
Magna Theatres
Todd-AO Corporation
Philips Collaborated On Projector Design
Todd-AO Projection and Sound
Six track recording equipment
All-Purpose Sound Reproduction
Rodgers & Hammerstein II
Six track recording equipment

 

Organized in 1952

 
As a result, Magna was incorporated in Delaware on Nov. 27, 1952. Schenck, a large stockholder in the United Artists Theatre Circuit, became board chairman, and George Skouras, president of United Artists Theatre Circuit, became president of Magna. Magna's purpose was to finance the experimentation necessary to develop the process now being offered as TODD-AO.

By Aug, 31, 1953, $700,000 or thereabout had been spent in research and experimentation by the American Optical Company and its expert, Dr. Brian O'Brien. By that time, too, the results were sufficient to justify the enthusiasm Mike Todd had for his idea and the producing team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had seen, to the point of believing, that this was the medium in which their works were to be translated to the screen.
 
 

R & H Join Up

 
R&H agreed to make "Oklahoma!" and to give Magna call on all their other properties which had not already been disposed of, an t agreement which apparently turns over to Magna, if wanted, all the R&H musicals with the exception of "Carousel" and "The King and I", the screen rights to which are owned by 20th Century-Fox.

With its first production set, Magna in July of 1954 sought additional financing, reportedly raising $6,000,000 through an issue of five year debentures bearing a six per cent interest rate. Up to this time Magna had been interested in two phases of its operation - developing a new process of photography and projection, and getting a production made in the TODD-AO medium.

Now, with "Oklahoma!" launched, Magna enters the third phase - distribution. It now must find theatres to play "Oklahoma!", theatres which not only have capacity for crowds but whose owners are willing to invest in the retooling necessary to play the picture.

Magna will make no four-wall deals, it insists. There are sound reasons for this, for four-wall deals might smack of monopoly and bring the Department of Justice around with questions and desires to look at files. Furthermore under four wall deals, Magna would have to retool the theatre.
 
 

Seek New Outlets

 
So Magna is now seeking theatres whose owners will invest in the further development of the motion picture. The process is too new for a rigid set of standards under which Magna will select theatres but a spokesman said that, generally speaking, the reputation of the house, its condition, location, management, overhead and the population upon which it can draw for an audience, will be factors. Two more factors, he added, will govern the spread of operations: cost of installation and the success of "Oklahoma!”.

Magna, which owns 62 per cent of TODD-AO, which supplies the equipment, has now put its stock on the market. Its common recently was offered over the counter at 12½ against 11 7/8 bids while its preferred was up for officers.

Officers of Magna are George Skouras, president; Ralph Newburger, secretary; and Malcolm Kingsberg, treasurer, There is no vice-president.

The board consists of Chairman Joe Schenck, Malcolm Kingsberg, Frederick W. Warburg of Kuhn and Loeb (chairman of the Magna Finance committee), Michael Todd, James Landis of the United Artists theatre Circuit, Charles Seligson, an attorney, Bud Morris, another attorney, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Charles B. McCabe and James F. Burns.
 
 
 
Go: back - top - back issues - news index
Updated 28-07-24