THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL (1965)

After Stanley Kramer scored on IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD/’63, everybody wanted to get in on overblown/overproduced RoadShow Comedy Packages. Premium-Priced Reserved Seating; Long Exclusive Runs; plus Overture, Intermission, Entr’acte & Exit Music for extra prestige (and to push the soundtrack album), why care that Epic Comedy was something of an oxymoron. How many classic comedies run over 90 minutes? Let alone 2½ to 3 hours? Three of these beasts showed up in ‘65: TRAIL; THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES; and THE GREAT RACE. More adventure pic with comic accents, FLYING made the most dough. RACE, certainly the best of the lot, barely earned out after phenomenal cost overruns. And TRAIL? The Booby Prize. Heavy-handed & purposefully over-scaled, it's got comedy novices in nearly every position: director John Sturges, writer John Gay, even its All-Star cast - excepting third-billed Jim Hutton. Composer Elmer Bernstein also deserves a pass even though he reuses some of his own 1961 COMANCHEROS score. A faux-historical tale (ripe with ‘funny’ authoritative narration) about a 60 Wagon Booze Run to Denver, shadowed by alcohol thirsty Indians; temperance ladies; military escorts; Irish teamsters up for a strike; and investors in the caravan. The first act gets by on some handsome cross-country views, sheer momentum and flashes of Burt Lancaster’s big, beautiful teeth. But things hit a literal standstill after all parties battle it out in a blinding sandstorm. The waste alone would kill any comedy.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The poster advertises CINERAMA! Not quite so. The film's copy line, ‘How the West Was FUN!,' refers to last true CINERAMA feature shot in the tricky interlocked 3-camera system (a 2.89:1 frame ratio) and since retired. TRAIL used Ultra-Panavision 70, which gave it’s 65mm negative a slight anamorphic squeeze to resolve on screen to a 2.76:1 frame ratio. (The missing 5mm? Reserved for 6-track stereo.) Confusing, no? Anyway, films like this (and later 2001), were often shown in those specially designed CINERAMA Theaters on slightly curved screens for total visual immersion. RoadShow CINERAMA; the IMAX of the ‘Sixties.