Book Review – Wide Screen Movies
A History and Filmography of Wide Gauge Filmmaking

Review by Ron Cotton – October 27, 2006

Written By: Robert E. Carr & R. M. Hayes
Published by McFarland & Company, Inc. (http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/)
Approx. 516 pages, Copyright 1988.
ISBN 0-89950-242-3 (US Hardcover - Unknown Retail)
Out Of Print

Wide Screen Movies is a godsend to those who wish for entertaining and accurate account of various wide screen ratios and methods under a historical backdrop. Many today get their information from IMDB and other Internet resources that are oftentimes disputed and ranted about indefinitely. Wide Screen Movies on the other hand, is the only authoritative book has managed to outline many of the processes, laced with black and white photos and poster art. For people who love lists, details chronological movies in specific aspect ratios.

Wide Screen Movies is broken up into two major sections and reads like two separate books. The first half is where the meat lies. It details Early Wide Screen, Multiple-Film and Deep Curved Screen Processes, Anamorphic Process, Wide Frame Processes, 70mm Processes, Other (stranger) Processes, and finally the Sound Processes. Any process that you can or can't imagine can be found here, and details the differences between each process. In Anamorphic Processes alone, 67 processes are discribed. Admittedly, not all of the detail described is exacting, but is more than enough to understand a process and a stepping stone to further your study in a process.

The second half is the Filmography, and is not needed for a book of it's scope. This is where the information on the Internet excels, and therefore is better left out. It is as if the writers wanted this book to be completest and failed in the attempt. This second half of Wide Screen Movies is better left ignored, and if a second edition was ever to come, this is the fat that needs to be trimmed.

Wide Screen Movies wasn't only tailored for film buffs who demand hard facts, but somehow Robert Carr and R. M. Hayes has accomplished this task and has made this read an entertaining experience. Wide Screen Movies without the Filmography would have resulted in an improved publication, but otherwise doesn't discount the importance of this book. This review I hope will renew interest into this much needed publication and cram more detail with color photos into a second edition. The last lines of the Foreword sums up my feelings of this book: “For those who remember Cinerama, Todd-AO, etc., and for those who wish they could have been there: This book has been created for you. “Movies” are just “films” now and the great 'scopes, 'visions and 'ramas are gone. We really miss them.”