Deutscher Text

THE MOVIE
WINDJAMMER, the first presentation in Cinemiracle, is the record of a 239 days lasting training cruise with 17.000 miles on sea of the full-rigged S/S Christian Radich from Oslo across the Atlantic, through the Carribbean, to New York and back home again. The towering beauty of the Norwegian school-ship, one of the last of the great windjammers still in active service, is the focal point of an uncommonly engrossing journey, one that encompasses the 1958 hurricane "Helene", New Year's eve at Madeira and a breathtaking sleigh ride in Funchal, spectacular underwater scenes, the last meeting with the German sail ship "Pamir", later to be lost on sea, festivals in the Caribbean, New York at night and visits to such distiguished artists as Pablo Casals and Arthur Fiedler. Erik Bye served as the ships scribe during the voyage and also narrated the films English-language version, without credit. He has been credited not until the 2010 restoration of the movie. In the German dubbed version Hans Clarin was the narrator, being at that time the German voice for Edward "Kookie" Byrnes in "77 Sunset Street". The world-premiere was at Graumann's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood on April, 08th, 1958 and the movie ran for an amazing 36 weeks (hey, it was primarily a documentary - and not a "Hollywood Block Buster", see.).
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THE STORY
The crew of the S/S Christian Radich headed by Captain Yngvar Kjelstrup on his last journey before retirement, consists of 16 officers and 42 teen-age cadets, and the mascot, a dog named Stump. In the course of their 17.000-mile journey, the trainees pass through a series of remarkable adventures, including their encounter with the furious hurricane "Helene" in the Bay of Biscay that caused such ships as the Liberté to return to port. In Madeira on New Year's Eve they ride the famous basket sleds on an exhilarating spree. Crossing the Atlantic, by extraordinary luck, they meet the German training-sail-ship PAMIR, later to be lost in another tropical storm. The crew hears of this by radio in consternation. In San Juan they are received by Pablo Casals, one of the world's truly great artists, who plays for them on his cello in the garden of the Governor's palace. In Curacao girls from Peter-Stuyvesant-College take them on a fascinating Dutch picnic, while in Charlotte-Amalie the trainees explore the undersea world. At Port-of-Spain they find themselves surrounded by the famous Trinidad Steel Bands and Limbo dancers, and in New York they are caught up in the excitement of the city at night. And still many more adventures follow before the handsome windjammer returns to its home port after a thrilling journey.
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THE TECHNIQUE
The fabulous sights and sounds of WINDJAMMER are captured in Cinemiracle, a (then) new screen process that envelops the spectator in its sweep. Its basis is a three-headed six hundred pound electronic camera and a seven-channel hi-fi system of sound reproduction, producing realism heretofore considered impossible. Two other movies of this short-living style (previously called Cinerama) were the western How the West was Won with James Stewart and the MGM-movie The wonderful world of the brothers Grimm with Karlheinz Böhm. Cinemiracle and Cinerama were too complicated and replaced with Cinemascope. "WINDJAMMER" later was copied to Cinemascope and came back to the theatres. When looking attentive you can notice the white lines, parting the left and right screen-picture from the middle picture. Several times this movie has been shown in television, but in terrible full-"screen", so 50 percent of the movie could not be seen. The invention of Cinerama and Cinemiracle was made in a time, when television ripped the viewers out of the cinemas. To stop this, several projection-processes were developed, that television could not air. To these belong various 3D-processes starting with the anaglyph red/green-movies (that hurted the eyes too much) followed by the Polaroid-process to allow color-movies. The disadvantage of these processes was, that the viewers had to wear stereoscopic glasses. Then several wide-screen processes were developed, faking the audience with pseudo-3D-movies. The first Cinemascope-movie "The Robe" was advertised as an 3D-Movie you can see WITHOUT glasses, but that, of course, was totally wrong. The movies were absolutely flat, only the screen was bent so the audience seemed to "be" in the movie. Top of theses processes was the Cinemiracle-projection, carried out simultaneously with three combined projectors on a gigantic bent wall-to-wall screen. Literature: Peter A. Hagemann: Der 3D-Film, Verlag Monika Nüchtern, München, 1980 Sponsored by the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Germany
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THE MUSIC
To provide the stunning musical score for WINDJAMMER, producer Louis de Rochemont enlisted the help of Morton Gould, one of America's best known composers at that time. Gould (on the left) died at the age of 82 in 1996. For the Cinemiracle production he had composed a score of wide-ranging colors and contrasts, mirroring the excitement of various ports, the calm days at sea and on watch, and the enthusiasm of the young Norwegian cadets. The original songs for the production were written by the three men known as The Easy Riders - Terry Gilkyson, Richard Dehr and Frank Miller. In addition to their highly popular Marianne, they have contributed a group of other delightful numbers, some in the calypso vein, others in that remarkable blend of folksong and popular balladry that is theirs alone. These songs, sung by the cadets and also used by Mr. Gould in many passages, help to underline the youthful exuberance that characterizes the WINDJAMMER atmosphere. (By the way: Terry Gilkyson was also responsible for writing Balu's song "The bare necessities" of Disney's "Jungle Book".) Also appearing on the soundtrack of the movie and in movie on the screen is the brilliant cellist Pablo Casals. Internationally famed for his incomparable artistry, the great Casals was in Puerto Rico in preparation for the Casals Festival when the Christian Radich and its crew arrived. Although illness later prevented his participation in the Festival itself, Casals greeted the young voyagers warmly and agreed to play for them the Catalan Melody (Song of the birds). In the background of the track can be heard the actual song of birds, the voices of reintas, birds indigenous to Puerto Rico. Cadet Sven Erik Libaek had a great moment in the movie when he was invited by Arthur Fiedler and the famous Boston Pops Orchestra to play Grieg's "Piano Concerto in A minor". The Concerto was played live in the docks of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
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The Soundtrack
Soundtrack - Cover The ship enters New York harbour.	Original Music MORTON GOULD Songs TERRY GILKYSON, RICHARD DEHR and FRANK MILLER (The Easy Riders) sung by the men and boys of the full-rigged S/S Christian Radich including Lasse Kolstad, and the Cadets Harald Tusberg, Sven Erik Libaek and Kaare Terland. participating artist Pablo Casals Jack Shaindlin conducting the Cinemiracle Symphony Orchestra Produced by Louis de Rochemont III Directed by Bill Colleran and Louis de Rochemont III Book by Captain Alan Villiers and James L. Shute A National Theatres' Presentation 142 minutes, premiere on April 8th, 1958 at Graumann's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood. Running for 36 weeks!
Side 1 Overture, 3:31 */** Windjammer (The Ship), 3:08 * Life On The Ocean, 1:15 ** The Sea Is Green, 2:54 ** Madeira, 2:08 * Music Of Porto Santo, 1:47 *** Everybody Loves Saturday Night (Vocal), 1:37 ** Catalan Melody (Song Of The Birds), 2:45 **** * Morton Gould ** Gilkyson/Miller/Dehr (The Easy Riders) *** traditional **** Pablo Casals ***** Moller Sound Clip Windjammer - Overture, 1:14, Stereo Jack Shaindlin conducting the Cinemiracle Symphony Orchestra     (RealPlayer required) • Complete video with the overture at Youtube.		Side 2 Night Watch (Lullaby), 2:13 * Kari Waits For Me, 2:12 ** Marianne, 1:19 ** Everybody Loves Saturday Night, 2:40 ** Sugar Cane, 1:25 ** Don't Hurry Worry Me, 2:11 ** The Happy Wanderer, 2:22 ***** The Crew (Hornpipe), 1:13 * The Village Of New York / Windjammer (Reprise), 2:32 * additional music in the movie by Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fiedler The Wilber de Paris Band The Camacha Dancers of Madeira The Hotel Savoy Orchestra Mountain Shepherds Band and Dancers The Silvertones Steel Band The Boys' Town Steel Band The March of Dimes Singing Sextet The Limbo Dance Group Peter Rapsey's Ocean Extravaganza Band The Port-of-Spain Police Brass Band and Mounted Officers
Silvertones Steel Band - Don' t hurry worry me
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Of the soundtrack several records existed, official CompactDiscs are not known at present. Also it is not known if there are any videos of the movie on the market (well, not quite right, see last sentence at "The Ship - Today"). Anybody knowing about this is asked to write. LP: CBS S 62 349 "Re-channelled for STEREO" color cover, German edition with original english liner notes on the back (cover picture and tracks see above). LP: Columbia CS 8651 "Electronically re-recorded to simulate Stereo" black/white-cover, American edition (picture on the right). LP: Columbia CL 1158 "guaranteed highfidelity" Color-Cover without frame, English liner-notes on back-cover, unknown if in Mono or Stereo... LP: Philips Minigroove BBL 7250 "Mono-LP" color cover, English edition with original liner notes on the back. EP-Single: CBS EP 6015 with 5 tracks (but only 4 are mentioned on the cover) Part 2: THE STEEL BANDS (picture at the music-part above) EP Part 1: ordering-number and tracks not known. Single: Polydor 23 812 NH (mono) with the tracks Kari waits for me   and Im Hafen von New York sung by "Die Teddies" and Ralf Paulsen (German translation of the tracks: "Kari waits for me" and "The Village Of New York") Freddy Quinn - Kari waits for me (1969) of the album "Auf hoher See" was reissued on the album "Fernweh & Sehnsucht" (music-video on Youtube) The main theme of "Windjammer" was also recorded by Mr. Gould on the Varese Sarabande record "Digital Space", JVC JVDM-1002 (LP) and VDC47229 (CD), also featuring the first digital recordings of STAR WARS and THE BIG COUNTRY. The "Main Theme" also is available on other CDs. Just have a look at the "Google"-search-engine for "+Windjammer +Gould". An excellent Swedish site in English also remembers the movie WINDJAMMER: "Windjammer and the Cinemiracle experience", showing some rare photographic material.
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THE SHIP - TODAY
The full-rigged S/S Christian Radich was built in 1937 at Framnaes Mek. Verksted of Sandefjord, Norway. Today it is owned by the private foundation "Stiftelsen Skoleskiptet Christian Radich" in Oslo. Current captain is Kaare Omsted. You will find the ship online at www.radich.no The sail-training-ship today (2002) still is on active duty. In the recent years it attended several Windjammer-meetings around the world, also at the Sail 1995 at Bremerhaven, Germany (that is the port, where Elvis landed for his military service in Germany). Again at Bremerhaven the ship was during the SAIL2000. From these visits are the photos around here. During the final parade on Sept. 3rd, 2000 the stern of the Norwegian vessel "Stadsraad Lehmkuhl" collided with the Christian Radich, that lied at anchor. Her bowsprit was damaged. The Christian Radich has also attended the Sail 2005 at Bremerhaven. After several minor re-designs the ship is 72,5 m long, has a width of 9,70 m, a depth of 4,50 m and 1234 square-meters of sails. The main crew has 10 men, to which the 20 cadets come on the cruises. Also 60 guests can be hosted on board. The foundation had transferred the movie to VHS-video-cassettes (in PAL-format). Regrettably all copies are currently sold out. If and when copies are again available may be inquiried at postmaster@radich.no Restoration Efforts of restoring the orginal prints are going on. On this page and on this page you will find some English texts concerning the hard word being done on the damaged film-originals - and some real hard work it is, as time did its desastrous destructions quite well. On the second page you already can see, what the work on the false-colors of some originals has done. • Clip of restored material with restored filmtrailer. It's done - Restoration finished! Spread the word: from mid September 2012 the movie will be available on DVD - not as bootleg, but very official! The combination of normal DVD with Blu-Ray in one box will have over one hour of bonus material and will be region free! The German buyers will be disappointed though, that the German dubbing with Hans Clarin is not included.
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Video at YouTube (5:58) More film-clips at YouTube.
The above text is partly adapted from the original liner notes of the soundtrack-LP. The Cinemiracle-Projection-foto is from the book Der 3D-Film. The black&white-crew-fotos are from the back of the Soundtrack-LP. The actual fotos of the Christian Radich are from the author of this page. Artist and orign of painting unknown (actually it's from an plate to put glasses on). The pictures from the Windjammer-book were provided by Mrs. Georganne Holt. My apologies if any copyrights have unintentionally not been mentioned.
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Filmmusic by MARTIN BÖTTCHER or Filmmusic by PETER THOMAS

© Wilfried Wittkowsky