Anyone even a bit familiar with Paul Mantz knows he had a B-25 with a distinctive nose modification for making movies. Back in the 1950s, Mantz was circling the globe with his airplane making Hollywood movies, so it became a well-known sight out there. Since Mantz was directly involved with making Cinerama movies back then, that special modification was referred to as the “Cinerama Nose.” In fact, Paul Mantz and the later Tallmantz Aviation built three of those Cinerama noses and mounted them on three B-25s and one A-26. This is their brief history, then.

Paul Mantz Gets a B-25

Paul Mantz started flying for Hollywood with stunt flying for The Galloping Ghost in 1931. In the decade that followed, Mantz rose to the top of the food chain of Hollywood stunt pilots, primarily because he was a shrewd businessman as well as a talented pilot. Mantz’s company, United Air Services at what was then the United Air Terminal, now Burbank Airport, provided a one-stop shop for stunt pilots, airplanes, camera ships, and aerial coordination for any Hollywood studio looking to make a movie that needed airplanes. He ended up reigning as the “King of the Hollywood Pilots” for three decades. In the 1930s and early 1940s, Mantz operated several specially-modified camera ships as part of his fleet. These included a Boeing 100 (P-12 fighter), a Stearman C3B, and a Lockheed Sirius. For the World War II years, most civil flying on the west coast was suspended, so film productions needing airplanes declined, but Mantz still remained busy in supporting the war effort as he helped produce military films.

When World War II ended, Mantz looked forward to resuming his work with the Hollywood studios. In the course of things, he and some partners ended up purchasing a large field of war surplus bombers and fighters located at Stillwater, Oklahoma, in 1946. He culled out a number of airplanes from the airfield for special use, among them B-25H s/n 43-4343. Mantz had it rebuilt by his mechanics as his new primary camera ship, becoming N1203 in the process. At this stage, N1203 featured camera mounts in the tail, at each waist position, and in the nose compartment, which remained a stock B-25 glazed nose. The tail and waist positions could film in the open air through hatches. Cameras mounted in the nose section could film through the emergency hatch or through the Plexiglas windows as needed. This initially proved satisfactory for his purposes.

1951: Along Comes Cinerama

The Cinerama filming process was an outgrowth of a 1930s effort to bring the film experience closer to perceived reality, and developed further to aid the war effort. A closer look at Cinerama can be found at The Cinerama Wing of the American WideScreen Museum, an entertaining and informative website well worth perusing if you have such an interest. For our purposes here, the Cinerama process used three cameras carefully mounted to a platform and filming simultaneously. When projected the same way on a special curved screen, it created an image with a width of more than 140 degrees, the human brain enjoying a much-more realistic experience with the peripheral vision included in the watching experience. Take that infant television with your 12-inch black & white screens!

Making money from the process was the goal of the Cinerama Corporation, and the first wide-release feature filmed using Cinerama was This Is Cinerama, a 1952 film that showcased the technique. It was essentially a travelogue hosted by one of the first real “influencers,” Lowell Thomas. The film producers, Thomas included, decided that some aerial footage using Cinerama would be perfect for the film and they came to Mantz. The Cinerama cameras were bulky and heavy, but with a bit of a nose job on his B-25, they fit. As can be seen, this first attempt to mount the Cinerama cameras were a bit crude and jury-rigged. Nonetheless, in the summer of 1952 Mantz and his B-25 set off on a tour of America and the sequenced filmed provided the final thirty minutes of the resulting This Is Cinerama when released in September 1952 to rave reviews.

The Cinerama process proved unwieldy and expensive, however, and required special theaters and equipment for distribution. In the end, only seven true three-strip Cinerama films were produced, though there were numerous other faux-films released as Cinerama. But, Mantz filmed sequences for five of those true Cinerama films from the nose of the B-25.

Prior to filming of the second Cinerama production (Seven Wonders of the World), though, Mantz developed a new camera nose for his B-25. The main feature of the new camera nose was a large wrap-around Plexiglas camera window that featured near-distortion free camera views. The curved part of the Plexiglas was a cylindrical section that flatted out at the sides. Components from a B-17 ball turret, most likely the ring gear, were used to construct a rotating camera mount on the floor of the camera nose. Other windows were added for additional filming ports and a large hatch provided access from the outside to load cameras and equipment.

The custom nose was built to Mantz specifications by Long Beach Airmotive at Long Beach Airport, and mounted to the B-25 in April 1954. Though the nose has been called a Cinerama nose, it was actually just a versatile camera port suitable for all filming such as Panavision, CinemaScope, Vistavision, Todd-AO, Superscope, Ultra Panavision, Super Panavision, and all the other ‘scopes’ and ‘visions’ to keep people in the theaters and away from their televisions. And Mantz put it to work immediately on a non-Cinerama film, Strategic Air Command, the resulting B-36 footage he shot remaining memorable to this day. So Mantz and his special B-25 became well-known to the general public as he was featured as a Hollywood celebrity in his own right, and Hollywood came calling often for his expertise and hardware.

So much so, that he was ready to take on a partner to allow him to ease up on the throttle. In November 1961, he and fellow stunt pilot Frank Tallman formed Tallmantz Aviation at Mantz’s base at Orange County Airport at Santa Ana, California.

Enter Stage Right: A Second B-25

A few months after Tallmantz was formed, the company purchased a second B-25 for use as a camera ship, this being VB-25N s/n 44-30823, with the civil registration of N1042B. For this airplane, a second camera nose was built by Potter Aircraft at Burbank. Supposedly built to the same specifications as the original Cinerama nose, this second one had a slightly different profile, had no windows aside from the special wrap-around Plexiglas, and looked to be a much-refined installation. N1042B, as an updated B-25N, became the primary camera ship for Tallmantz over the following decade. The older, outdated N1203 was still used, but it took a secondary role, especially after Paul Mantz was killed filming The Flight of the Phoenix in July 1965.

And the Tallmantz A-26 Invader

Tallmantz also purchased a Douglas A-26 Invader in October1962, this being A-26C s/n 44-35505 flying as N4815E. According to the lore, Tallmantz purchased the A-26 because Douglas Aircraft at nearby Long Beach wanted a Douglas product to film the Douglas airliners for commercials, one of the steady Tallmantz film projects it conducted. But it was not until August 1965 that the Cinerama camera nose, also constructed by Potter Aircraft at Burbank, was mounted on the A-26. This nose section was considerably longer than those built for the B-25s, possibly for weight and balance purposes. In any event, the A-26 lacked waist and tail camera positions, so the A-26 was little used for anything other than to drip oil on the Tallmantz ramp. It ended up finally being used for a couple of specialized military projects with the camera nose replaced with a standard A-26C nose, but it was ultimately sold by Tallmantz in 1977.

Out with N1203; In with N9451Z

In 1975, Frank Tallman had an opportunity. He ended up with a number of upgraded B-25Ns leftover from filming Catch-22 in 1969. And, he had an the old Mantz B-25H that was becoming maintenance intensive. The result was the old switcheroo. B-25H N1203 had its special camera equipment, including that original Cinerama nose, removed. Lacking any sentimental sensitivity, no doubt due to financial reality, Tallman placed N1203 up for sale. In its place, he had one of the B-25Ns, s/n 44-30493 (N9451Z) overhauled and all the special gear from N1203 installed. Thus, the new Tallmantz cameraship emerged from the Tallmantz hangar resplendent in its new white and blue Tallmantz paint scheme, the Tallmantz icon added to the vertical stabilizers, and the special camera nose.

N1203 ended up being sold in July 1975. Its tale does not end happily, though, as it ended up crashing to destruction near Santa Marta, Colombia, a bit more than a year later, allegedly being used as a drug smuggler.

Tallmantz Aviation Heads West

Tallmantz Aviation used both N1042B and N9451Z extensively through the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, Frank Tallman was killed in an airplane crash in 1978. Primary B-25 cameraship pilot Frank Pine took over as the president of the company. However, contracts began to wane with growing competition from other operators employing higher-performance Learjets with special camera gear. And, Frank Pine passed away in 1984, and shortly afterwards the company threw in the towel. Tallmantz Aviation placed itself up for sale. Before the sale, the large collection of vintage aircraft were sold, mostly went to Kermit Weeks. Tallmantz itself was then sold to an investor group that ran it out of business completely within a few years.

So, What Was The Fate of Those Cinerama Camera Noses?

The two B-25s and their special camera noses? Both were sold to Sherman Aircraft Sales of West Palm Beach, Florida, on April 1, 1985. N1042B was quickly placed up for resale, and the company that eventually purchased N1042B continued to operate it as a cameraship. It was employed in 1989 to film The Memphis Belle in England.

It went through several more owners, its camera nose eventually being replaced with a standard glazed nose. However, the unique camera nose went along with the airplane each time it was sold. N1042B currently flies as God and Country with the Mid-America Flight Museum at Mt. Pleasant, Texas. The museum still holds that camera nose in storage, and is developing plans that one day might put it on display at the museum.

N9451Z had a different fate. As noted above, the B-25N was sold with the original Paul Mantz Cinerama camera nose. It went with N1042B to Sherman Aircraft Sales. It was actually used by Denny Sherman, owner of Sherman Aircraft Sales, with his son Kent Sherman to for a one-off filming project for an episode of TV’s Miami Vice.

The Original Paul Mantz Cinerama Camera Nose?

Then, in early January 1986, N9451Z was traded to the Air Force Museum program. On January 4, 1986, pilots Ken Sherman and Brian Hoffner ferried the airplane from Florida to Malmstrom AFB, Montana, for display. Before departing Florida, however, the original Mantz Cinerama camera nose was removed and replaced with a solid gun nose. That Cinerama nose was last seen in a World Jet hangar at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in the mid-1980. It may have moved around with World Jet, possibly ending up at a storage yard at Fort Collins, Colorado. The historic airframe part probably still exists and its current custodian may not even realize what it is. If anyone knows where it got off to, please contact me. We’d all like to know.

As for N9451Z, it remains on outdoor static display at Malmstrom AFB.

And that camera nose built for the A-26 Invader? It’s also still around. It was obtained from Tallmantz in 1985 by Bill Klaers of West Pac Restorations at Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is currently on loan to the Tennessee Museum of Aviation at Sevierville, Tennessee, and is on static display with its original Tallmantz markings intact.

And that’s the story of the Mantz Cinerama camera noses.