Robin Johnson

As before, I have no clue as to the text, but the image on page 14 of the Japanese souvenir program for Times Square is another frame from the movie. The photo of Pammy and Nicky on page 15 is the promotional shot which was used for the cover of the Italian “Help Me!” single, and as the illustrations on the soundtrack album’s paper sleeves. The color shot of Johnny and Pammy on page 15, accompanied for some reason by a button featuring black and white hands cradling a dove, looks like a frame from the film, but isn’t. It will turn up later as a lobby card in Germany. For some reason, it’s reversed.

Both photos on page 17 are frames from the film. The photo of the Sleez Girls on page 18, featuring coulda-been-Nicky Zoe Lund, is a frame from the film, but the shot of Nicky just below is a promotional photo that previously appeared in Joepie No. 365. And Pammy and Nicky dancing at each other in the Cleo Club on page 19 is a shot that had been used as a UK lobby card. Whether they were really “honoring America” is a question only they, and perhaps the Japanese, could answer.

Look again at the photo on page 14, and compare it to the frame capture below. There’s a bit more at the bottom, and lot more at the top, of the photo in the program book. This is the first evidence I’ve seen that Times Square was shot “full-frame;” the entire frame of the 35mm film was exposed with a normal lens, and its widescreen aspect ratio achieved by matting the top and bottom when the prints were made. If it was shot so the extra space was clean of production detritus, a film shot that way could be shown on television using that full frame instead of making a pan-and-scan version and losing the sides of the image. It’s been decades since I’ve seen a television-formatted version of Times Square. Does anyone know if the TV/video print was full frame or pan-and-scan? Because if it was full frame, that would be worthy of preservation in its own right.