This was the fourth (out of five) Cinerama travelogues and the final one hosted by Lowell Thomas. It is by far the worst. It has the weakest premise of the five and is most boring. The problems are many. Most of the film is shot on hazy days (after all, the locations are all hot and humid), making the film seem pale and washed out. The focus is far from crisp on all shots. There is very little of beauty, either natural or man-made, as the first half takes us on an exploration of Himalayan foothills, all gray and barren, broken only by a brief hiatus among the greenery of Hunza. The second half briefly stops off at the Shalimar Gardens, then laboriously chronicles a coronation in Nepal, Katmandu, which goes on for half an hour, a quarter of the running time. The buildings are hundreds of years old, look quite medieval, and the poor are everywhere. Very squalid and run down, dry and hot.
There is some beautiful footage in the second act in the Shalimar Gardens and River Boat sequences, but this gives us only fifteen minutes of the two hour running time. The last quarter hour is a tribute to the Air Force with plane maneuvers photographed from the air.
Thomas' narration is as always puerile and condescending, as if he were talking to fifth graders. He is able to get in many jibes at the Red China Communist delegation that attends the coronation, thus providing anti-Communist propaganda.
It is one great crashing bore. The usual physical beauty of locations world over that are part of the other Cinerama productions is completely absent in this film.
The score by Tiomkin with four songs badly written and badly sung by Robert Merrill is a complete embarrassment. One of the worst musical scores ever written.
If you are collecting the eight Cinerama films, you must of course have this, but be warned that it is the least entertaining, the most boring, and the most visually empty of the eight.
There is some beautiful footage in the second act in the Shalimar Gardens and River Boat sequences, but this gives us only fifteen minutes of the two hour running time. The last quarter hour is a tribute to the Air Force with plane maneuvers photographed from the air.
Thomas' narration is as always puerile and condescending, as if he were talking to fifth graders. He is able to get in many jibes at the Red China Communist delegation that attends the coronation, thus providing anti-Communist propaganda.
It is one great crashing bore. The usual physical beauty of locations world over that are part of the other Cinerama productions is completely absent in this film.
The score by Tiomkin with four songs badly written and badly sung by Robert Merrill is a complete embarrassment. One of the worst musical scores ever written.
If you are collecting the eight Cinerama films, you must of course have this, but be warned that it is the least entertaining, the most boring, and the most visually empty of the eight.