WINDJAMMER: THE VOYAGE OF CHRISTIAN RADICH (1958) 15553 CINEMIRACLE

British Quad Original Release 30x40 Poster Rolled Near Mint CINEMIRACLE

British 30x40 for the nautical documentary film WINDJAMMER (1958), directed by Bill Colleran and Louis de Rochemont III. The film was financed by the protean filmmaker, Louis de Rochemont. Rochemont grew up in a small town in Massachusetts. He began a long career in filmmaking by filming his neighbors and selling the footage to local theaters under the guise of a program called "See Yourself as Others See You." It's not clear if, even in this era of selfies, we would want that playing at our local cineplexes. But it was popular and soon Louis de Rochemont had a knack for putting news on film. He joined up with Roy E. Larsen from Time Magazine and produced the premier newsreel, "The March of Time". These newsreels were produced monthly and they were not the only newsreels at theaters, but they defined the craft of the newsreel from 1935 to 1951. De Rochemont then began to produce feature films, and they tended to be film based on true stories. He produced a film about Martin Luther, and got the CIA to finance an animated film of the George Orwell classic ANIMAL FARM (1954.) He also had a fascination with large format film and got involved with the Cinerama crowd. He produced the second Cinerama documentary feature, CINERAMA HOLIDAY. He also produced a 70mm short subject, THE MIRACLE OF TODD-AO, introducing the widescreen process to audiences before the first features were made in the process. Branding his own version of Cinerama, and borrowing heavily from its technology, he produced this feature documentary-travelogue about a group of appealing young Norwegian sailors and their romance with a full rigged sailing ship, The Christian Radich. The group sails from Oslo to the Caribbean and back, all the while being filmed by the enormous apparatus that is the three-strip camera. He called his process Cinemiracle and the film was WINDJAMMER (1958), and while there are some small differences with Cinerama, it gives the audience the same kinetic kick, sharp images projected on a large, deep-curved screen. The actual filming of WINDJAMMER was supervised by de Rochemont's son, Louis de Rochemont III, and the talented TV director Bill Colleran. This British quad (30x40) poster is quite rare, and definitely originates with the first release in the UK, in May of 1958. Even the venue, the Odeon on Tottenham Court Road, in London, is advertised. This poster is rolled and in very fine plus to near mint condition. It is very rare, and it has not been seen in any U.S. auction that we know of. MovieArt Austin does not sell reproductions.

BILL COLLERAN - Director
LOUIS DE ROCHEMONT -