Cinépanoramic(1953–1956)

Cinépanoramic was a trade name for an anamorphic widescreen process that aimed to compete with 20th Century-Fox's CinemaScope, which was introduced in France at a private demonstration in Paris in June 1953. Cinépanoramic was a French initiative that combined anamorphic lenses, stereophonic sound and an extra-wide screen. It was the brainchild of Jean-Placide Mauclaire, a cinephile businessman, film distributor, founder of the industry magazine Le Film français (1944) and of the Elysées-Matignon restaurant (1955), a hotspot of Parisian show business. He surrounded himself with a team of skilled professionals (including cinematographer Christian Matras, who carried out the first tests) to quickly launch the process– by employing a 2.50:1 and 2.35:1 alternate aspect ratio, as well as a standard positive print (thus avoiding the “Fox-hole perfs” of the 2.55:1 CinemaScope process) – Cinépanoramic looked to distinguish itself from competitors, most likely to avoid accusations of technical plagiarism. 

Technically speaking, though, Cinépanoramic was a close copy of the first form of CinemaScope (2.55:1 aspect ratio with 4 magnetic tracks). The first professional demos of the Cinépanoramic process took place in Paris in January 1954, with a screening of two short documentaries, one of them directed by Léon Joannon. The first feature film to be made using the process, L'Or des pharaons (directed by Marc de Gastyne and shot by Henri Decaë), began photography in Egypt in March 1954, but never received proper distribution (for more detail see the Selected Filmography). After over a year of delays, the first French feature film actually shot and widely released in Cinépanoramic was Walter Kapps' Mademoiselle de Paris (August 1955). Adoption of the Cinépanoramic process remained limited in France, with only seven feature films shot between 1954 and 1956, many of which were not released in stereophonic prints, nor in the intended 2.55:1 aspect ratio.

When it came to supplying theaters with their anamorphic lenses, Cinépanoramic equipped a few prestige theaters as well as some private screening rooms, although this paled in comparison to the number of CinemaScope lenses distributed by Professor Henri Chrétien’s Société technique d’optique et de photographie (STOP), which supplied the majority of French theaters during 1953 and 1954.

Following these early efforts, Cinépanoramic shifted focus towards the documentary film market and the export of its technology abroad. Starting in the summer of 1954, an agreement was signed with Reportfilm, an equipment rental company based in Rome, for the use of Cinépanoramic on Italian productions, specifically under other trademarks registered by the company (CineScope, CinepanoramicScope, Supercinescope, Superfilmscope, Cinepanscope). Cinépanoramic lenses were also distributed in Germany (Bavaria Filmkunst); Spain (Producciones Benito Perojo); the UK (Pathe Equipment Ltd), where the process was renamed CameraScope in November 1956; and the Soviet Union (Stankoimport). However, the contract signed with Hollywood's Republic Pictures in September 1955 was by far D.I.C.’s most successful export. The American studio, wishing to circumvent Fox’s CinemaScope monopoly, acquired anamorphic Cinépanoramic attachments, and adapted them to its Mitchell cameras for the production of some fifteen feature films (shot in the reduced 2.35:1 aspect ratio, with mono optical soundtracks, and rebranded as Naturama), including The Maverick Queen (1955) and Lisbon (1956).

In France, in addition to the production of some issues of newsreels (Les Actualités françaises, Eclair-journal and Pathé-journal) and a few advertising films in the anamorphic format, a dozen short and medium-length documentaries were produced in Cinépanoramic between 1954 and 1956, including Michel Rocca's Le Trésor de la mer rouge, which was presented at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, France.

Ultimately, the French Cinépanoramic process was unable to establish a strong foothold. In spite of support from the CNC (Centre national du cinéma, the agency of the French Ministry of Culture which partly subsidizes the French film industry) and “free” advertising in Le Film français, the Cinépanoramic company had to make do with low-cost domestic feature-film productions, for which it found itself in direct and fierce competition with a rival French process, DyaliScope, from 1956 onwards.

By 1956, the 2.55:1 aspect ratio and accompanying 4-channel stereophonic sound had been abandoned by French filmmakers. With the subsequent standardization of the new 2.35:1 anamorphic aspect ratio, Cinépanoramic-D.I.C. changed its name to the more clearly national Franscope. It soon supplanted its rival CinemaScope in France from 1957, before overtaking DyaliScope in popularity after 1962.