Seven Wonders of the World

These images are from a publicity brochure that must have been given out to patrons who attended the 1956 Montreal airing of Lowell Thomas's Cinerama spectacular "Seven Wonders of the World."  (It's a large brochure--9X12 inches, 24 pages.  I've no idea where I got it.)  Lowell Thomas, among other things, made Lawrence of Arabia famous.  He was a globe trotter, and got the idea to travel around the world by plane filming its wonders.  Cinerama was a very complex photographic process invented by Fred Waller, which made its debut in 1952.  Only a handful of theatres invested the large sums needed to install the three projectors and other complex equipment required to show these films.  The last film made using the process was in 1963, although some of the original theatres have enjoyed a recent renaissance. 

For more history on this technology (and to find out about the Cinerama device called the "Gigolo"), visit The Widescreen Museum.