In a filmed introduction to “This Is Cinerama” (1952), the broadcaster Lowell Thomas didn’t simply explain the wide-screen format that viewers were about to see. He narrated a history of art, from cave painting to the Sistine Chapel to early movies. Cinerama, he promised, would be the next step in that evolution: “an entirely new medium, which we believe is going to revolutionize the technique of motion picture storytelling.”
Source: Long Before Imax, the Curious Tale of Cinerama – The New York Times