Because of this we wanted six soundtracks, three for the screen speakers and three for the three sets of surround speakers. The problem was that there was not room on the 65mm film. The solution was to go to 70mm film. However, it was extremely desirable to be able to run the camera film and print film on the same sprockets, so the extra 5mm was added outside the perforations and the soundtracks were placed out there.

Magnetic sound recording had surpassed optical sound in quality, and the best was using the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company’s (3M Co) so-called green oxide, which had the ferrite crystal all oriented so the noise level was much better than with the liquid applied striping on motion picture film. We initially went that route but there was one big problem. 3M (of all people!) had trouble with the adhesive used to laminate it to the film. The sound track would peel off on the projection room floor. Hence we ended up with liquid striping for our prints with two sound tracks outside the perforations and a third track was inside the perforations on each side.

In those days, (and I presume still today) multitrack sound was recorded on 35mm magnetic film with standard 35mm perforations and this was run at standard motion picture speed of 96 perforations per second (24 four perforations frames per second). We used a 5 hole pull down at 30 frames per second, and so our film moved at 150 perforations per second. Of course, this is the same ratio as 64 perforations (one foot) to 100 perforations (which we named the “gleep”). Since standard sound recording equipment was to be used, the editing “sync machines” had to be built with 65/70mm picture sprocket with a larger diameter than the sound film sprockets in the ratio of 100/64. We built a series of sync machines with one picture sprocket and from one to six sound film sprockets on the same shaft.

The Westrex machine was far superior, so we had them build them for our film. They couldn’t handle the optics, so we provided the eight sided rotating prisms. In addition to a magnificent direct view of the film, we designed them so that the editor could project the image onto a curved screen so as to be able to better visualize the effect in a theater.

Another modification was to have the sound film run at a different speed than the picture film i.e., one foot of sound film to one gleep of picture film so that they would stay in synchronism (the 64/100 ratio).

Splicers had to be made for the film. We had Bell & Howell build a treadle splicer for us and we built a few hand splicers.

Mike Todd in Spain filming “Around the World in 80 Days”

Initially we intended to have only the “Bug Eye” lens, analogous to Cinerama’s equivalent of only one “lens”. However, the Hollywood types insisted that they must have a series of “longer focus” lenses for close-ups etc. We tried to explain to them that they would lose the audience participation effect if they went to narrower angles, but they insisted that they would only use them for close-ups. As a result we gave them 64, 48 and 32 degree lenses in addition to the 128 degree Bugeye. It was the biggest mistake we ever made!! These great “professional” cinematographers and directors didn’t have the faintest idea how to use the wide angle or participation effect, and so in the whole of “Oklahoma!” the Bugeye lens was used for two shots, the opening scene dollying through the corn, and one cut from the runaway buckboard carrying Laurie and Jud to the Claremore party. The rest was all shot with the narrow angle lenses. Mike [Todd] used the wide angle a bit more in “Around the World in 80 Days” but not a great deal more.

Some interesting sidelights on the corn in “Oklahoma!”. In the San Rafael valley south of Tucson, near the Mexican border where they built Aunt Eller’s house, it was too cold and dry to grow corn very well. They hired a plant pathologist from the University of Arizona to try and do it. By starting it early and watering it daily from a tank truck driven up from Nogales, he was able to get a small corn field grown near the house. It was so short, that for shots of Father Carnes coming through the corn field, James Whitmore had to squat down to make the corn look tall enough! We estimated that the corn cost about $8.95 per ear. For the 19 second opening shot through the corn to a panoramic shot they had to inject each stalk of tall corn (corn never had been transplanted before), put it in a pot, and truck it up to the top of the hill to make a corn field just for that shot. The shots of Curly riding past corn singing “Oh What A Beautiful Morning” were all taken in the valley down near Tucson at some farmers stand of tall Mexican June corn. Finally they got corn “as high as an elephant’s eye”.