“It’s
often ‘oh those goofy glasses’ syndrome that we get,” says Daniel Symmes, whose
Dimension 3 Company is the world’s largest manufacturer of 3-D glasses. “The
bottom line though, is the public lines up to see 3-D whenever it’s done. It’s
always a successful phenomenon.”
3-D
movies came about somewhat accidentally in the 19th century. English physicist
Charles Wheatstone understood that the right eye and the left eye view the
world from slightly different angles. In1838 he introduced the first
stereoscopic viewer, which worked with mirrors and drawn pictures.
3-D
is shot with two cameras, and two projectors present the finished product. This
process mimics the eyes’ perception. When viewed through 3-D glasses, the
filters in the red and blue lenses decode the image so the left eye only sees
what the left camera saw and the right eye sees only what the right camera saw.
The brain combines the images creating depth and space.
But
who cares? It’s just plain cool.
The
first 3-D presentation was three shorts at the Astor Theatre in New York City
on June 10, 1915. There was a short on rural scenes in America, a dramatic
short called Jim The Penmen,and a travelogue of Niagara Falls.
Flash
forward to the 1950s: 3-D takes off.
“That
was the golden age of 3-D,” says Symmes. The era kicked off November 1952 with Bwana Devil, a low budget movie starring
Robert Stack about lions attacking railroad workers.
The
phenomenon extended into the mainstream, with major studios releasing alternate
3-D versions of popular releases like Kiss
Me Kate and Hitchcock’s Dial M For
Murder. The most popular film re-made in 3-D — perhaps the greatest 3-D
film ever — was Warner Brothers’ House
Of Wax (1953)starring Vincent
Price.
During
this boom, over 5,000 theatres nationwide were equipped to show 3-D movies.
Unfortunately,
3-D mania was short-lived. Besides the headaches involved in production and the
headaches from incorrect projection, 3-D films weren’t always the best movies.
Jeff
Joseph, whose SabuCat Productions owns the world’s largest collection of movie
trailers and stock footage, disagrees. “They’re talked about that way but
they’re really not,” he says. “If you look at the list of movies that were shot
in 3-D, they’re no better or worse than any other movies. Sure, there’s Robot Monster, but there’s also Dial M For Murder and House Of Wax.“
But
3-D remains underground — often lumped in with the B.
“I
call it marginalized,” says Symmes, “because the purse-string holders don’t
really understand it.”
When
Symmes showed a test version of a House
Of Wax DVD in 3-D, studio honchos declined, indicating a desire for glasses-less
technology.
“It’s
not 3-D then,” says Symmes. “Wearing the glasses is part of what makes 3-D
fun.”
“Hollywood
tends to ignore its history,” says Joseph. “Other than a few titles, there are
no prints available. The negatives have been damaged or lost. I don’t see a
real resurgence happening until someone comes up with a good way to present 3-D
that doesn’t require theatres to do something out of the ordinary.”
Symmes
considers the irony.
“It’s
silly that we sit in theatres watching a flat movie representing the reality we
otherwise deal with.”
It’ll
be 2-D one better when the Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman House, 900 East
Avenue, presents a 3-D festival: on Wednesday, December 29, House Of Wax at 5:30 p.m. and Inferno at 8 p.m.; on Thursday, December
30, a family-friendly 3-D Shorts Festival at 5:30 p.m. and Gorilla At Large at 8 p.m.; and on Friday, December 31, a repeat of
the 3-D Shorts Festival at 5:30 p.m. and Dial
M For Murder at 8 p.m. Tix: $6, $5 for students. Movie info line: 271-4090
—
Frank De Blase
This article appears in Dec 29, 2004 – Jan 4, 2005.
