March 2025

Cinerama Goes Dramatic for How the West Was Won

This article first appeared in AC, Jan. 1962. Some images are additional or alternate. How the West Was Won, a Metro Goldwyn Mayer-Cinerama production, is the first dramatic picture to be photographed in the Cinerama process. Along with Charles Lang, Jr., ASC and Joseph LaShelle, ASC — who photographed other segments of this production — I had the rewarding experience of directing the photography of segment No. 2, which stars Debbie Reynolds and Gregory Peck, and which was directed by Henry Hathaway and produced by Bernard Smith. Applied to the production of a dramatic picture, Cinerama poses many new and interesting problems, both for the director and the director of photography. It presents certain limitations, too, in contrast with...more