Almost from the moment that This Is Cinerama opened on Broadway, Mike Todd was busy getting his new concept in the public mind, if not actually in operation. Within six months a lot of Todd-AO's specifications were carved in stone and early tests were soon being shot. It would be almost 2 1/2 years before Todd-AO and Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! appeared before paying audiences, but the publicity about Todd-AO never let up. As the system came into being, space at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was leased for further development, testing, and demonstrations for the various studio heads around the city.

Because of its impressive dimensions and ability to nearly duplicate Cinerama's field of vision, the giant "bugeye" lens was always at the center of all pubicity on Todd-AO. But that lens wasn't as unique as Todd and Magna thought. The real accomplishment in the development of Todd-AO was the entire system itself, from the new film gauge to the development of unique optical printers and the marvelous Norelco built Todd-AO 35/70 universal projectors.

This article on Todd-AO was released during the same period that Twentieth Century-Fox was ballyhooing their upcoming CinemaScope system.