Cinerama: Search for Paradise (Blu-ray + DVD)

Join Lowell Thomas and follow in the footsteps of Marco Polo in this new, digital restoration of Search for Paradise, the fourth of the original, 3-panel Cinerama travelogues. Released in 1957, the motion picture takes you to the "Roof of the World," the Himalayas and Karakoram mountains of Central Asia, the highest region on Earth. You'll become part of the adventure as explorer Lowell Thomas searches for paradise in ancient cities, wild river rapids, and the lush gardens of mountaintops.

Your first stop is the Forbidden Kingdom of Hunza, a hidden valley bordered by China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, home to a legendary warrior tribe. Next, you'll challenge the rapids of the Mighty Indus River, fed from a fantastic galaxy of monumental glaciers draining from some of the greatest heights known to man. From there, find respite in the romantic Shalimar Gardens in the Vale of Kashmir, then fly to Katmandu for the coronation ceremony of King Mahendra of Nepal. The adventure concludes with a trip to a U.S. Air Force base, where Thunderbird jet planes cut across the sapphire blue sky overhead at supersonic speed.

Flicker Alley and Cinerama, Inc. are proud to present Search for Paradise in the Smilebox® Curved Screen Simulation. Unseen theatrically since the early 1970s and never before issued on home video, Search for Paradise has been digitally remastered from original camera negatives. The film captures the imagination and asks what your dream paradise would be: beauty, adventure or peace.

Bonus Materials Include:

The original Search for Paradise breakdown reel the same one used in its 1956 theatrical run.
Behind-the-scenes video of the Cinerama crew setting up for the Air Force base shoot and on location 16mm footage of the Nepal shoot.
The 3-panel 2012 Cinerama short In the Picture, as well as The Last Days of Cinerama, which goes behind-the-scenes of the making of In The Picture.
A 1998 interview with director Otto Lang
David Coles Search for Paradise presentation
Demonstration on how the original negatives were restored
A brand new rerelease movie trailer, a 1950s black & white announcement trailer, and image gallery
Plus a facsimile representation of the original program booklet.

Cinerama, a three-camera widescreen process designed essentially to pry filmgoers away from their TV screens in the early 1950s, was rooted in the "Triptych" process invented by director Abel Gance for his 1927 epic NAPOLEON. Most American theatre managers of the 1920s couldn't be bothered with the bulky equipment and huge, curved screen necessary for Gance's Triptychs, but by 1953 they were willing to try anything that would improve business. The first Cinerama effort, appropriately titled THIS IS CINERAMA, thrilled audiences with its peripheral-vision shots of roller coasters and auto races. The second feature film, CINERAMA HOLIDAY was essentially a travelogue. Number three in the Cinerama series, SEARCH FOR PARADISE (1957), was distinguished by its breathtaking aerial and underwater shots. Lowell Thomas narrated the film, while Dmitri Tiomkin supplied most of the stereophonic-sound musical score. In the early 1960s, Cinerama ventured into "story" films with HOW THE WEST WAS WON and THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM. These were successful financially, but only when the Cinerama people abandoned the three-camera technique (and those irritating "creases" separating the three screens) in favor of a single wide-gauge camera would the process be aesthetically satisfying (vide IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY).