Magnafilm (56mm)(1927–1929)

Magnafilm was a 56mm-wide film format developed by Lorenzo del Riccio for Paramount Pictures that debuted in 1929. Paramount gave one exhibition featuring subjects filmed on 56mm Magnafilm in the summer of 1929, but despite publicity claims that this format would be used for an unspecified number of titles in its 1930–31 slate, Paramount abandoned Magnafilm by the end of 1929. 

Del Riccio and Paramount, in conjunction with Publix Theatres in New York City, had previously introduced a process of enlarging the standard 35mm film image in select theatrical exhibitions by employing mechanically controlled masking around a large screen that could be expanded to increase the area covered by the projection to 40 ft x 30 ft (12.19m x 9.14m) (Belton, 1992: pp. 37–8; Rubin, 1928: p. 404). Marketed under the name Magnascope, this effect was widely publicized, especially in its use for selected scenes from the exhibition of Old Ironsides (1926) at the Rivoli Theater (Rubin, 1928: p. 403). In early 1927, industry publications announced that Paramount, following the success of Magnascope, put del Riccio in charge of an experimental lab at the old Realart studio in Hollywood and gave him the title of “cinemaengineer” (Film Daily, 1927). Del Riccio, in an interview with the Exhibitors Herald, promised “ideas in projection which will make the magnascope [sic] slide into insignificance” (Exhibitors Herald, 1927a). However, that same publication later reported that del Riccio spent six months in this lab working on Magnascope effects for Paramount’s Wings (1927), using the effect to “intensify dramatic action” through a screen expanded to triple its size (Exhibitors Herald, 1927b). 

Following his work on Wings, del Riccio came back to the East Coast to shift his work from novelties at the point of projection (magnification and altering the size of the screen) to a new film format. According to industry sources, del Riccio “equip[ped] a new laboratory across the street from the Paramount Studio in Astoria, Long Island, and there for the last two years” worked on a new process dubbed Magnafilm (Film Daily, 1929). Magnafilm had an image size of “about 1.62 [in] x 0.74 [in]” giving it a printed aspect ratio of 2.18:1, but “shown on a 2 x 1 aspect ratio screen” (Sherlock, 2004: p. 5). One contemporary source noted that Magnafilm was intended for screens that measured 40 ft wide by 20 ft high (12.19m x 6.10m) (Motion Picture Projectionist, 1929b), though the exact size of the screen could vary depending on the nature of the exhibition venue. 

The first demonstration of 56mm Magnafilm took place at an invitation-only event at the Rivoli Theater in New York on July 18, 1929. According to Paramount’s in-house publication, the audience of “publishers, editors, bankers, scientists, and motion picture executives” were treated to “scenes of the seashore and a country road, as well as a four reel talking and singing feature” (Paramount Around the World, 1929). The “feature” was You’re in the Army Now (1929) which, according to Motion Picture News, ran for 36 minutes and consisted of excerpts from a successful stage production of that title filmed using 56mm Magnafilm in Paramount’s Astoria Studios (Motion Picture News, 1929a). 

The unveiling of 56mm Magnafilm at the Rivoli initially received widespread positive coverage in film industry publications. The Hollywood Filmograph, for instance, ran its article on Magnafilm with the large headline “Third Dimension Films Shown in New York” furthering the frequent (and soon discredited) claim that the larger pictures gave a stereoscopic effect (Hollywood Filmograph, 1929a). Motion Picture News, enthusiastically reporting on the movement toward wide film more generally, provided an illustration of Magnafilm’s 56mm width next to a standard 35mm film under a headline that insists that wider film “Will Aid Realism of Talkies” (Motion Picture News, 1929b). 

Following the initial demonstration at the Rivoli Theater, industry sources reported that Paramount planned to roll out public screenings of Magnafilm on Broadway and beyond. The Hollywood Filmograph, describing You’re in the Army Now as a “four-reel talking and singing feature,” declares that “it is now ready to be shown in theaters” (Hollywood Filmograph, 1929b). In early 1930, the Film Daily’s page one feature about Paramount’s 1930–31 season notes that studio head Jesse Lasky said that the studio “has not yet decided how much of its new program will be made on Magnafilm” (Film Daily, 1930a), which teases the possibility that several Magnafilm productions would soon be available. 

However, technical issues with the Magnafilm process and a reluctance of Paramount to commit to the 56mm format in the face of competition from wide formats in development with other studios put a halt to these plans. Not long after the breathless reporting of Magnafilm’s debut, coverage shifted to a more critical and skeptical view of the future of Paramount’s efforts to expand its wide film offerings. The Motion Picture Projectionist reported in September, just two months after the Rivoli event, that del Riccio was “on the West Coast seeking further data on production methods with an eye to improving his process” (Motion Picture Projectionist, 1929b), addressing in particular problems with the lack of sharpness across the entire picture. By the end of 1929, the same publication noted that after the initial showing of 56mm Magnafilm, “the uproar that was occasioned by it seems to have died away to a whisper” (Motion Picture Projectionist, 1929c).

There is no evidence that Paramount shot any additional films on 56mm Magnafilm that were made available for exhibition. Instead, Paramount and del Riccio began to experiment in 1930 with a 65mm wide film format that would also go by the name “Magnafilm.” (Film Daily, 1930b). As for the films exhibited at the Rivoli in 56mm Magnafilm, examination of industry publications indicates no further screenings of the four-reel You’re in the Army Now or any other Magnafilm production. 

56mm Magnafilm was one of several efforts to develop larger-format films by Hollywood studios in the late 1920s, including Widescope, Fox Grandeur, RKO’s Natural Vision, MGM’s Realife and Warner Bros.’ Vitascope (Rogers, 2024; Belton, 1992). The hype surrounding this possible alteration of standard film practices often far exceeded the actual production, distribution and exhibition of wide-format films. 

The adoption of wider format film at this time was further hindered by the fact that exhibitors had to determine how to juggle – if at all – competing formats with often incompatible technical features. Film technicians and exhibitors led a charge against any conversion to wide film unless one single standard could be established. In the words of James R. Cameron, an editor for Projection Engineering, the advent of wide film “threatens to throw the whole motion picture industry into a state of chaos, unless something is done immediately with respect to standardization of the film width” (Cameron, 1929). The impetus to make another major conversion in film exhibition by adopting a wider film, even with one uniform standard, eventually ground to a halt when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences stepped in and mandated a 1.37:1 aperture (the so-called “Academy ratio”) that would correct the more “square” picture created by the addition of a soundtrack to 35mm film in the previous standard 1.33:1 aperture (Arnold, 1931; Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1932). 

56mm Magnafilm had a short and limited history as a format for producing or exhibiting motion pictures seen by audiences. But the flurry of attention it received, however brief, reveals that seemingly stable elements of commercial film production and exhibition in the major Hollywood studios experienced frequent challenges and disruptions.