Last week I posted an nice photo of the Tallmantz B-25N camera ship, that being N1042B. In the text that I wrote to accompany that photo, I noted that the first use Tallmantz had for their new B-25 was help film the 1962 Cinerama production How the West Was Won. Well, in the ensuing week, I’ve done a bit more digging and it is now clear that this distinguished B-25 was not the one used by Tallmantz for the filming; rather, it was the other even-more-distinguished Tallmantz cameraship, B-25H N1203. So, what follows is what I have gleaned about Tallmantz Aviation and the Cinerama filming of that epic saga How The West Was Won. Plus, some other stuff.
First of all, a very brief introduction to Cinerama. Cinerama the process whereby three 35 mm motion picture cameras were integrated into a single unit that shot simultaneously to provide a whopping 142 wide field of view when later projected. It was largely a development as a response to up-and-coming television and other challenges facing Hollywood in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Cinerama was first widely demonstrated in 1952 with This Is Cinerama, as 115-minute documentary film that introduced the public to its possibilities.
Paul Mantz was integral to the story of Cinerama as his B-25H, N1203 (otherwise known as The Smasher) was modified to carry the heavy and bulky camera assembly in the nose. Beginning with This Is Cinerama, Mantz and his B-25 were utilized for most, if not all, of the six subsequent genuine Cinerama productions that continued through How the West Was Won in 1962. For This Is Cinerama, Mantz took film goers on a reportedly unforgettable extended low-level aerial tour of parts of the western U.S.
This history of Paul Mantz and Cinerama deserves its own dedicated page on my Tallmantz Aviation website, so that is in development. (Along the same path, Paul Mantz and his companies were heavily involved in the Walt Disney CircleVision projects that also used B-25H N1203 and, later, B-25N N1042B…so a dedicated page to CircleVision is also in the works.)
But…back to my error posted last week about the use of N1042B (since corrected on pertinent pages…). According to the bill of sale in the FAA registration file, Tallmantz Aviation purchased N1042B on May 17, 1962. The addition of the custom “Cinerama” camera nose was completed on July 2, 1962 by Potter Aircraft Service at Burbank.
However, as can be seen below, what is probably the last scenes shot for How The West Was Won was completed by Paul Mantz on May 16, 1962, the day before Tallmantz purchased N1042B. Thus, it is quite evident that Mantz’s original B-25 The Smasher was used for filming. Not earth shaking, but worth noting.
The image below is from the excellent Wide Screen Museum website where you can learn everything you want to know about Cinerama. (I am using this image from the site…if I am stepping on anyone’s toes doing so I will delete the photo…but I think it is all a cooperative effort to complete the history.)
With a bit more information, production notes at IMDB show filming dates from May 28, 1961, to November 30, 1961. The film was released on November 1, 1962, so the Tallmantz filming on May 16, 1962, was most certainly some fill-in shots the film producers need to complete someone’s last-minute vision.
Finally…note that the 70th Anniversary of the release of This Is Cinerama is on September 30, 2022. Get your party hats ready…