St. James Theatre

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Uploaded on: October 31, 2026

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MGM was an early adopter of Fox’s CinemaScope widescreen process. In the US/Canada they supplied exhibitors with aspect ratio 2.55:1 release prints featuring 4-track magnetic stereo as per Fox’s original specification. However foreign territories like Australia had to make do with 2.35:1 aspect ratio optical sound prints with ‘fake stereo’ Perspecta encoding. Metro eventually introduced magnetic sound prints of major titles following the launch here of “Ben-Hur” in 1960. “Knights of the Round Table” opened at the St James on Wednesday 13 April 1954 and ran for 5 weeks. Colorized newspaper advertisement.

Throughout the 50s MGM made a big deal in local advertising about the ‘enchanting wonder’ of their Perspecta Stereophonic Sound presentation. Yet when they introduced actual genuine four-track stereophonic sound using magnetic prints from 1960 there was narry a mention in any of their St James advertising.