By 
Oklahoma (1955) immediately made something in my brain perk up and take notice. Something was off. I had never seen sky onscreen like in Oklahoma. What depth-of-field sorcery is this? It’s not normal. To the Internet for answers…
It turns out my instincts were not wrong. Oklahoma was the first film shot with a process called “Todd-AO.” The format relied on custom wide-angle lenses, like the 128-degree “Bug-Eye” manufactured by American Optical.
Bug-Eye lenses retained deep focus and clarity across expansive environments without anamorphic squeeze or blurry distances. Todd-AO was built to immerse viewers in films by keeping the entire foreground and background in crisp focus.
My eyes were so acclimated to modern film, I didn’t realize how thirsty they were for the scrumptious color, scope and clarity of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma and Todd-AO
Oklahoma and the birth of Todd-AO go hand in hand. Interest in a film version of Oklahoma went back to 1943. United Artists, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox and MGM all had interest. Oklahoma is based on the 1943 stage musical from Rodgers and Hammerstein, which was based on the 1931 play Green Grow the Lilacs. Other Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals include Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music.
Eventually, Magna Theater Corporation got the rights for $1 million, which is equivalent to $12 million today.
George Skouras (former president of United Artist Theaters), Joseph Schenck (one of the co-founders of 20th Century Fox) and Michael Todd, who was born in my neck of the woods (Minneapolis, Minnesota) founded Magna. Todd produced theater performances, films and was also one of the many men married to Elizabeth Taylor.
Todd developed the Todd-AO format. It cost $11 million to bring to fruition ($132 million today). The goal of Todd-AO was to compete with the Cinerama system, but with a simpler setup. Cinerama used a complicated system of three separate strips of film photographed simultaneously. Todd-AO required only a single camera and lens.
This is why Todd-AO was summarized as “Cinerama outta one hole.”
As an aside, my dad regularly spoke of seeing How the West was Won in a Cinerama theater and spent the rest of his life chasing that high. Cinerama was projected using three interlocked projectors (left, center and right). They operated with perfect synchronization to create a massive, seamless image that was wider than modern IMAX screens.
Todd-AO A Go-Go
Todd-AO used 65-millimeter film during production. It blew that up to 70-millimeter positives for distribution. Todd-AO soundtracks were also high fidelity and can compete with modern digital tracks above 40kHz. (Just nod like you understand…)
The original version of Todd-AO ran at 30 frames per second, which was faster than the standard 24 frames per second. This increased frame rate reduced flicker and made the films appear steadier and smoother onscreen.
Unfortunately, the extreme wide-angle photography of Todd-AO required a deeply curved screen to be properly projected. Most theaters could not take advantage. Nevertheless, Todd-AO had a decent run up until the 1970s. Todd-AO films included: Around the World in Eighty Days, South Pacific, The Alamo, Cleopatra, The Sound of Music, The Bible: In the Beginning, Airport and Patton.
Todd-AO then attempted to compete with Panavision in the 35-milimeter camera market. It built a series of lenses in the 2:35:1 format. Films shot in Todd-AO 35 included Conan the Barbarian, Mad Max, Dune and Logan’s Run.
This business pivot was finally abandoned in 1992. Eventually, all Todd-AO cameras and lenses were sold to Cinema Products in Los Angeles. They were restored and are still available to rent through Keslow Camera.
Oklahoma
Since many theaters could not display Todd-AO, Oklahoma was simultaneously shot in CinemaScope 35 to allow wider presentation. This was also a precautionary measure since Oklahoma was Todd-AO first real test.
That means two different versions of Oklahoma exist with entirely different takes, camera angles and sometimes variations in blocking.
Many modern versions of Oklahoma are Frankenstein-creations and include a mishmash of Todd-AO and CinemaScope 35 scenes. Such is the version I watched. It is easy to spot the difference between the formats. The movie switches between deep depth-of-field and then more shallow backgrounds.
It’s annoying, but it is also a good way to compare the superiority of Todd-AO in real time. Truly, the men who worked on such things were wizards.
Oklahoma: The Film
As a film, Oklahoma is a delightful romp through lost culture (other than the bad-dream sequence and the flippant attitude toward death at the end). Set in Oklahoma territory at the turn of the 20th century, it is the story of a farm girl with two suitors. Subplots include a secondary romance and a cattleman/farmer conflict.
Gordon MacRae gets the lead role of Curly. MacRae did his own singing, but his dancing was doubled by James Mitchell, who appeared on All My Children up to 2010. MacRae won a singing contest that enabled him to sing at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, which started his career. He worked on Broadway and radio before branching out into motion pictures and eventually ending up on TV. He died young at age 64 from pneumonia.
Shirley Jones stars as Laurey. It seems Jones is mostly remembered for The Patridge Family, which is a shame. She tore it up in Oklahoma, Carousel, Emer Gantry, The Music Man before transitioning into more standard fare.
Other familiar faces appearing in Oklahoma include Eddie Albert and James Whitmore. Gloria Grahame also deserves mention. She grew increasingly concerned about her physical appearance as time wore on. By the mid-1940s she started undergoing too many plastic surgeries, which ultimately led to nerve damage in her upper lip. For whatever reason, Grahame had a real problem with her upper lip. She even took to stuffing tissue under it to make it look “sexier” onscreen, and this is pretty apparent during her scenes in Oklahoma.
Standout performance unexpectedly goes to Rod Steiger as an ogrish lout fixated on Jones. He is a creep, yet Steiger infuses the character with a certain sympathy. It’s not easy being an incel.
Oklahoma Then And Now
Ultimately, the film won two Oscars: Best Scoring and Best Sound Recording. It was also nominated for Best Cinematography and Editing but lost to To Catch a Thief and Picnic. It still lives on to this day as one of the most commonly performed high school musicals.
Oklahoma is a reminder of how far people tried to push the science of the theater experience back in the day. It is easy to get lost in the digital age and think it is the end all, be all of motion picture development, but modern cinema is built on the shoulders of giants. Those folks dreamed big and built empires. Today movie theaters are mostly squeezed down into IKEA-like prefab units. At one time, they were practically churches. The Old Ways may be forgotten, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t noteworthy in their analog glory.
In the end, Oklahoma is no West Side Story (the original, not the Spielberg remake), but it is still more than OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOkay!
The post Retro Review: OKLAHOMA (1955) appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
