Oscar Trivia Question

[silverscreenselect]

This one appeared in today's Atlanta Journal, but it's a good one.

What film's cast has won the most total Oscars?

This means Oscars in the four acting catergories, not honorary or special Oscars and not Oscars in other categories such as writing or directing. It also means most total Oscars, so if Tom Hanks is in a film, that counts as two Oscars.

Spoiler

The Player (13):

Jack Lemmon (2), Tim Robbins, Whoopi Goldberg, Cher, Louise Fletcher, Joel Grey, Angelica Huston, James Coburn, Marlee Matlin, Susan Sarandon, Rod Steiger and Julia Roberts (1 each). Syndney Pollack was also in The Player which would give it an unofficial total of 15. Many of these were cameo appearances.

If you want to limit it to regular billed cast with significant roles, then it's How the West Was Won (10):

Walter Brennan (3), Spencer Tracy (narrator)(2), Henry Fonda, Karl Malden, Gregory Peck, James Stewart and John Wayne (1).

BTW, in August, there will be a new DVD version of How The West Was Won. The existing DVD and most of the prints shown on television look terrible. This one is cleaned up and looks terrifice with the lines marking the edges of the Cinerama strips (which means the film on TV or current DVD looks like it's been divided into thirds) are gone. Also, the Blu-Ray version will have a curved screen option in which the film looks as it did on original Cinerama screens (like an hourglass on its side), removing the distortions that occur when it's projected on a flat surface.

Additional trivia. What was the only other dramatic film (not travelogues or documentaries) that was made in Cinerama besides West?

Spoiler

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm

[Bob Juch]

Spoiler

You obviously mean 3-strip Cinerama as many 70mm Cinerama films have been made.

[mellytu74]

OK. I am thinking it's

Spoiler

How the West Was Won.

You've got Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and Gregory Peck. Plus a combined five for Walter Brennan and Spencer Tracy, who was the narrator.

I keep thinking that one of the women was an Oscar winner, too, but maybe that's just wistful thinking on the part of my girl, Thelma.

I just checked sss's spoiler...

Spoiler

I would count all the cameos in The Player.

Now that you mentioned cameos, I wonder how many Oscar winners are in Around the World in 80 Days?

I can only think of four off the top of my head - Sinatra, MacLaine, Niven and Gielgud but there might be more in the cameos.

Did Noel Coward win the screenplay Oscar for In Which We Serve? He'd be another one.

Although Around the World in 80 Days may be one of those cases where the actors are famous and/or Oscar nominees without necessarily winning.

[silverscreenselect]

Spoiler

You obviously mean 3-strip Cinerama as many 70mm Cinerama films have been made.

Spoiler

The term Cinerama is a trademark used to refer to the three strip process. Those films are the only true Cinerama films ever made.

After the three-strip process was abandoned for financial reasons, studios started substituting films (including It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) using single strips of film which could be projected on a curved screen using a special lens. When these films were played in theaters with normal rectangular screens, they used different lenses in the projector.

The 70mm process resulted in a 2.76/1 aspect ration (normal Cinemascope is 2.35/1) which was incompatible with the screens in most theaters So they made 35mm versions of these films as well. Most people who saw Ben Hur in a theater in the last forty years or so saw the 2.35/1 version, but the 2.76/1 version is what's on the DVD.

So, a movie like Mad Mad World actually had three versions, a curved screen, a 2.76/1 flat screen and a 2.35/1 version. The curved screen version of the film was called 70mm Cinerama and the 2.76 flatscreen was Ultrapanavision 70. Only about a dozen films were made in this process.

Ironically, some of the footage in HTWWW, including the river raft sequence, were filmed in this single strip process then converted to three strip.

Also in the 1960's, a couple of similar, cheaper and narrower 70mm processes were used which could also be projected on a curved screen, Super Panavision 70 (2.20/1 aspect ratio)(including 2001 and Grand Prix) and Super Technirama 70 (including Circus World).

A total of about 30 movies were filmed, in whole or in part, in one of these processes.

[Bob Juch]

Spoiler

You obviously mean 3-strip Cinerama as many 70mm Cinerama films have been made.

Spoiler

The term Cinerama is a trademark used to refer to the three strip process. Those films are the only true Cinerama films ever made.

After the three-strip process was abandoned for financial reasons, studios started substituting films (including It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) using single strips of film which could be projected on a curved screen using a special lens. When these films were played in theaters with normal rectangular screens, they used different lenses in the projector.

The 70mm process resulted in a 2.76/1 aspect ration (normal Cinemascope is 2.35/1) which was incompatible with the screens in most theaters So they made 35mm versions of these films as well. Most people who saw Ben Hur in a theater in the last forty years or so saw the 2.35/1 version, but the 2.76/1 version is what's on the DVD.

So, a movie like Mad Mad World actually had three versions, a curved screen, a 2.76/1 flat screen and a 2.35/1 version. The curved screen version of the film was called 70mm Cinerama and the 2.76 flatscreen was Ultrapanavision 70. Only about a dozen films were made in this process.

Ironically, some of the footage in HTWWW, including the river raft sequence, were filmed in this single strip process then converted to three strip.

Also in the 1960's, a couple of similar, cheaper and narrower 70mm processes were used which could also be projected on a curved screen, Super Panavision 70 (2.20/1 aspect ratio)(including 2001 and Grand Prix) and Super Technirama 70 (including Circus World).

A total of about 30 movies were filmed, in whole or in part, in one of these processes.

Spoiler

From the same Wikipedia article you're obviously using:

Cinerama continued through the rest of the 1960s as a brand name used initially with the Ultra Panavision 70 widescreen process (which yielded a similar aspect ratio as the original Cinerama, although it did not simulate the 146 degree field of view.) Optically "rectified" prints and special lenses were used to project the 70 mm prints onto the curved screen. The films shot in Ultra Panavision for single lens Cinerama presentation were It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Battle of the Bulge (1965), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), The Hallelujah Trail (1965) and Khartoum (1966).

Following the use of Ultra Panavision 70, the less wide but still spectacular Super Panavision 70 was used to film the Cinerama presentations Grand Prix (1966), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Ice Station Zebra (1968), and Krakatoa, East of Java (1969), which also featured scenes shot in Todd-AO.

Two films were shot in the somewhat lower resolution Super Technirama 70 process for Cinerama release: Circus World (1964) and Custer of the West (1967). By then, what was advertised as "Cinerama" was a pale reflection of the original three film process.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Cinerama name was used as a film distribution company, ironically reissuing single strip 70 mm and 35 mm Cinemascope reduction prints of This Is Cinerama (1972).

[silverscreenselect]

Spoiler

There was one theater in downtown Atlanta that kept the curved wide screen until the late 1980's. I did see some of the "faux Cinerama" films there, including Custer of the West and Krakatoa East of Java on an "east/west" double feature.

The theater also showed current releases in a curved widescreen process. I remember seeing The Untouchables and one of the Timothy Dalton James Bond films there. The action sequences even in standard movies were far more spectacular on the curved screen. Sadly, they tore the theater down about 20 years ago.

I've never seen a commercial film in Imax, but I'm gathering it has the same type of feel to it.

[Bob Juch]

Spoiler

There was one theater in downtown Atlanta that kept the curved wide screen until the late 1980's. I did see some of the "faux Cinerama" films there, including Custer of the West and Krakatoa East of Java on an "east/west" double feature.

The theater also showed current releases in a curved widescreen process. I remember seeing The Untouchables and one of the Timothy Dalton James Bond films there. The action sequences even in standard movies were far more spectacular on the curved screen. Sadly, they tore the theater down about 20 years ago.

I've never seen a commercial film in Imax, but I'm gathering it has the same type of feel to it.

Spoiler

I went to special showings at the Arclight Cinerama Dome when I lived in Hollywood. I saw How the West Was Won there when I was a kid.

[KillerTomato]

Interesting question if a bit open-ended. I'd have started thinking about Kate Hepburn or Meryl Streep movies first.

Here's another:

Of the 7 primary actors (basically the majority of those with speaking parts) in this movie, four have won Oscars, and two of the others have been nominated. These six men have been nominated a total of 26 times, and have won a total of 6 Oscars.

Spoiler

Glengarry Glen-Ross. Winners are Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Alan Arkin, and Al Pacino. Alec Baldwin and Ed Harris were nominated. Only Jonathan Pryce has thusfar been left out.

[ulysses5019]

I went to special showings at the Arclight Cinerama Dome when I lived in Hollywood. I saw How the West Was Won there when I was a kid.

So that was you blocking my view. I remember seeing this movie at the Cinerama Dome. We made a special trip in from the suburbs to go to the theater which is in Hollywood (near Sunset and Vine).

[Bob Juch]

I went to special showings at the Arclight Cinerama Dome when I lived in Hollywood. I saw How the West Was Won there when I was a kid.

So that was you blocking my view. I remember seeing this movie at the Cinerama Dome. We made a special trip in from the suburbs to go to the theater which is in Hollywood (near Sunset and Vine).

I made the trip from Oakland.