On Sunday 28th May went to the Prince Charles cinema,which is situated between Leicester Square and Chinatown in London,to see a 70mm print of Brainstorm in the downstairs cinema.This is the first time I had been to this cinema and what a change to go into screen where they still had curtains,yes beautifull red curtains covering the screen.
The film Brainstorm was made in 1983 and stars Chritopher Walken,Natalie Wood,Louise Fletcher and Cliff Robertson.The film was made in Super Panavision 70 and for the technical minded with ratios 2.2:1 and 1.7 to 1 hence the picture on the screen being in two sizes.It also has 6 track dolby stereo sound.
I think the film is best remembered as being the last film of Natalie Wood who died while the film was being made.The story is a sci-fi / thriller all about manipulating the brain.
I has not seen this film before and to be honest I went because it was a real film being shown in 70mm.
The lights went down the certificate came up on the screen as the curtains opened,but unfortunately the MGM lion did not roar,stiil we had picture and the sound came on as the credits rolled.It was nice to see a real film again the sound was excellent once the film was underway but the film itself is showing signs of age.There was a light blue tint surrounding the screen image and every reel change the colour was slightly different,but I guess for its age and the number of runs this print has had it has to be expected that it is not going to be perfect.
By the end I decided it was not my sort of film contents wise,but as I say it was Real film,and it brought back memories of times long gone.
If you are in London worth checking to see what is on as a week earlier they showed Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm.

It's a film I'd like to find one day on Super 8mm is Brainstorm.

Must say Andrew never seen on super8,but you never know📽

This came out on super 8 in the late 1980's when scope was fairly new on 8mm, the widescreen centre (Tony Shapps) was selling it, I remember that I was a member of the Enfield Cine Circle and we arranged for the Widescreen Centre to come and give us a display of scope and this was a film that he showed along with the rollercoaster ride at Blackpool.
Later on Brainstorm was available from Derann, I don't know if the film originally came out via Dr Van Tettering.

Me neither David, all I knew is Derann once distributed it as a full feature.

Gwyn, it's lovely that the Prince Charles is running 70mm. I saw a faded print of The Thing, and a much nicer print of Die Hard there recently, although of course those titles were blow-ups from 35mm. I believe that was common at the time more for the improved quality of the mag sound than the image (although of course that is also improved due to the smaller magnification of scratches, dirt etc). My only issue is that because it's quite a small cinema it looked as if they couldn't achieve sharpness across the whole of the image with the sides being fairly soft. Thankfully the BFI South Bank can still show 70mm as well, and in my opinion is a much better quality environment to view film. As I say though, kudos to the PCC for keeping reel film alive!

Stuart,yes it is a shame the screen is not better I think my expectations were a little too high having not been there before but it was nice to see film.
As you say the B F I also have 70mm but nothing was on when when I was up so beggars can't be choosers as they say,mabe next time.