AllMovie

At the end of 1963, The Best of Cinerama was released -- marking the end of the pioneering three-projector widescreen system when single-system Panavision was rapidly becoming the industry norm. A greatest hits package, this lengthy film features the finest moments from the Cinerama travelogues -- the ballet of Navy jets and the stomach-turning rollercoaster ride from This Is Cinerama; the excursion in St. Moritz from Cinerama Holiday; the Oriental vistas from Seven Wonders of the World, and the death-defying leaps of the island natives from an elevated platform from South Sea Cinerama. Lowell Thomas is still the host as he guides the audience through Cinerama's finest (and past) moments. But with the release of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in the single camera Ultra Panavision 70 process under Cinerama's auspices that same year, this compilation film also services as an epitaph to the unique widescreen process that was Cinerama.