Why 3-D Isn't As Dead As You Think

Once again, another source, Cheddar News on YouTube, has proclaimed the Final Death of 3-D. Of course, they've done so with a ton of misinformation. What's particularly sad about this is the attempt to educate us about 3-D while knowing nothing about it. So let's go through this once again: 3-D is not as dead as you think or the haters want. Sorry to disappoint the haters.

Let's talk a little about the history for 3-D for a moment. The earliest 3-D experiments date back to at least 1915 with the first feature in 3-D being in 1922. The Cheddar News video does correctly attribute these to being in the anaglyphic (red/cyan) format. There was a mini-boom in the 20s, mostly shorts with a couple of features. Why did it go away in the 20s? I would think mostly because the big experimentation was for sound. Sound and the Great Depression put a kibosh on a number of film experiments at the time, including Widescreen.

During the 1930s, polarized 3-D was being developed. One of the earliest polarized films was shown at the 1939 World's Fair in NY, a stop motion film called In Tune With Tomorrow. It was remade the following year in color as New Dimensions. The shorts were done in dual strip polarized 3-D. According to Cheddar, polarized glasses as yellow and brown as opposed to red and blue. What this proves is that the person doing the video hasn't actually seen any 3-D movies, especially polarized ones. Polarized glasses are clear and made of polarizing filters that are at a 90 degree angle to one another. Yellow and brown indeed.

World War II put a hold on further 3-D experimentation until the 1950s. And frankly, 3-D has pretty much been with us in one way or another ever since. Don't believe me? Let's look at the evidence.

It's generally accepted that Bwana Devil kicked off 3-D in the 1950s, but you can actually take it back a year to the Festival of Britain in 1951. A number of 3-D shorts were shot and shown there and almost all of them ended up in America in early 1953 after the success of Bwana Devil. Bwana Devil and 99% of all the 3D movies of the 50s were done in dual strip polarized 3-D. There were a couple of part 3D Burlesque features in anaglyph, but the mainstream stuff was all polarized. How does dual strip polarized 3-D work? It's shot using two cameras, one for each eye. It's then projected through two projectors. The two projectors have to be in perfect synchronization. The screen has to be an actual silver screen to reflect the light back. And the polarizing filters that the image passes through on the projector have to be changed every few days. They also have to be clean of smudges and fingerprints, as do the glasses. In short, projection of dual strip 3-D was a very precise science and if just one thing went wrong, the whole presentation would blow up.

Naturally, projectionists didn't care to be that precise. If they couldn't get it to sync up right away, they'd just let it go. Even one frame out of sync can lead to headaches and nausea. There reports of film being a full 24 frames--one full second--out of sync. To give you an idea of what that might look like, picture watching House of Wax and your left eye sees a medium shot of Vincent Price and your right eye sees a two shot of Price and Charles Bronson. The theater owners would cheap out as well, painting the screen instead of installing a proper silver screen. The projectionist union demanded two projectionists in a booth for 3-D shows, 3 if the magnetic stereo soundtrack was involved. Theater owners fought that, too. The end result was many shoddy presentations which left patron sick. Audiences began avoiding 3-D movies for this reason.

While all this was going on, 20th Century Fox was developing CinemaScope, a widescreen process that only used a single projector and a special lens. Theater owners, projectionists, and eventually audiences preferred this over the precision of 3-D, so many 3-D movies started getting flat showings only. Universal rolled out one last 3-D movie in 1955, Revenge of the Creature, and that as they say was that.

But not quite. As early as 1957, 3-D movies were being successfully reissued. The first new 3-D movie after Revenge of the Creature was also the first one released in 3-D and CinemaScope: September Storm in 1960. September Storm became the last dual strip 3-D movie. The following year, The Mask became the first of the part 3-D releases, with 3 segments in anaglyphic 3-D. This was followed by a pair of Nudie Cuties also in part 3-D in 1962, The Bellboy and the Playgirls and Paradiso. A third Nudie Cutie, Adam and Six Eves, was shot in 3-D but released flat until it made a 3-D Blu Ray debut last year courtesy of the 3-D Film Archive and Kino. 3-D took another four years off before returning with 1966's The Bubble, the first single strip polarized 3-D film. Single strip 3-D was supposed to solve the problems of projection. Each image was printed on the same strip of film, either side by side or over and under. They were then projected--again on a silver screen--through a special beam splitter. The whole thing should have been idiot-proof. Never underestimate the idiocy of the American projectionist, however. I've seen far too many single strip presentations that were sometimes painfully mis-projected: the wrong type of screen, the wrong type of beam splitter, the beam splitter not put on correctly, as well as the film being cut incorrectly by the projectionists all could and did wreak havoc on unsuspecting audiences for literally decades.

Nonetheless, The Bubble begat a system that was used for decades. It was followed by Paul Naschy's La Marca del Hombre Lobo in 1968, released in the US in 1971 as Frankenstein's Bloody Terror. 1969 gave us the infamous porn The Stewardesses, which set off a decade of similar films. There were some mainstream films in the 70s, including the part 3-D horror film The Flesh and Blood Show,  the 1974 gorefest Andy Warhol's Frankenstein,  the 1976 South Korean Kaiju flick A*P*E, and a couple of Kung Fu movies. While not everything was mainstream, 3-D was still alive and kicking for practically the whole decade.

3-D took a 3 year break before returning with Comin' At Ya! in 1981. That film started a new mini-boom that lasted until 1985 and produced 18 movies in 3-D. Maybe not as much as the 50s boom, but 3-D was very front and center for a few years in the 80s. Why did it die this time? I suspect projectionists had something to do with it as well as the simple fact that all 18 movies are actually terrible movies. The 50s had some bad films, too, but by and large the 50s batch was pretty good. There wasn't a single good movie released in 3-D from 1981 to 1985. I know because I've seen most of them. I can't imagine that the few I haven't seen are much better than the ones I have.

Six years went between 1985's Starchaser: The Legend of Orin and 1991's Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, which was another part 3-D anaglyphic affair. But that's not the full story, either since IMAX 3-D was ramping up starting in the mid-1980s and Disney was having a lot of success with Captain EO at their theme parks. In fact, IMAX 3-D (and porn ironically) carried 3-D through the 90s. And it was an IMAX 3-D release, James Cameron's 2003n Titanic documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, coupled with that same year's part 3-D anaglyphic release of Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over that set the current boom in motion. But even before that there were a few more mainstream releases: a terrible 1995 film called Run For Cover with Adam West in it and a 1997 Charles Band horror comedy called The Creeps. Plus there were 3-D made for video horror films in the late 90s like the atrocious Camp Blood. To say nothing of all the theme park attractions in 3-D like T2 3D: Battle Across Time, Shrek 4-D, MuppetVision 3-D, etc.

Ever since Spy Kids 3-D, there hasn't been a year without 3-D movies. Part of the longevity now seems to be the fact that projection is finally Projectionist-proof. Outside of forgetting to turn the 3-D filter for the projector on (I've seen this happen), there's no way the image can be screwed up nowadays. It also helps that there's much better movies being made nowadays as opposed to the batch from the 60s through the 90s. While there's definitely been some stinkers in the past 17 years, there's been plenty of movies like Hugo, Gravity, Life of Pi, the various Marvel and Star Wars movies, etc. that can stand alongside the classics of the 50s. The circular polarized glasses are better, too. More comfortable and you can tilt your head without losing the effect. Of course, Hollywood did itself no favors with some lousy rushed conversions like Clash of the Titans, but now even the conversions look great. Watching The Force Awakens or The Walk, you'd hardly believe they weren't actually shot in 3-D.

Yes, there's not as many 3-D movies as there were 7 or 8 years ago, but there's still some high profile releases. Yes, TV manufacturers stopped making 3-D TVS, but you can still get 3-D projectors for the home. Frankly, bigger is better with 3-D anyhow. There's a huge difference between seeing The Force Awakens in 3-D on a 50 inch TV screen and seeing it on a 100 inch projection screen. And while it is also true that not as many 3-D Blu Rays are being released in America, you can still get many of the big releases from Europe. I've gotten the last half dozen Marvel movies and the last 3 Star Wars movies all from the UK on 3-D Blu Ray, and all region free. On top of that, the 3-D Film Archive is still releasing several titles a year on 3-D Blu Ray. Taza, Son of Cochise will be out from the 3DFA and Kino later this month. And unless Covid-19 kills movie theaters totally forever, there are some high profile releases coming this fall like Black Widow and Wonder Woman 1984.

So no, 3-D is not totally dead. And it really hasn't been totally dead for nearly 70 years. Even when it goes away, it only goes away for a few years before poking back up in some fashion. The longest gap between movies since the 50s has been five, and that was right after Revenge of the Creature. All the other gaps have been an average of 3-4 years. So I have to say it: 3-D, like the Force, will be with us always.

The 3-D Nudie Cuties Collection

In between the Burlesque shorts of the 1950s and the Hardcore porn of the 1970s there was a brief period of time where Nudie Cuties titillated our imaginations. Nudie Cuties followed through on the promise of the Burlesque short by actually showing us naked women, but didn't go as far having anyone have sex like what would follow in their wake. They for all practical purposes were almost innocent in their content and the way they dealt with their subject matter. Perhaps too innocent, which is why they only lasted a few short years before giving way to porn as we know it today. But in that time, a few notable people shot them, including Russ Meyer, H.G. Lewis, and Francis Ford Coppola. Naturally, 3 Nudie Cuties were shot in 3-D in between 1960 and 1962,  The good folks at the 3D Film Archive and Kino Lorber have revived two of them for modern audience perusal.

First up is The Bellboy and the Playgirls, one of two such Nudie Cuties directed by Coppola.* The producers of the film took a 1958 black and white German sex comedy called Sin Began With Eve and told Coppola to shoot some color footage to insert into the film. It was decided to do the finale in 3D, making this one of those part 3D affairs from the 60s and 70s. Most reports say that the 3D footage runs about 20 minutes. It doesn't. It's 14 minutes from beginning to end. Which means we have to endure nearly 80 minutes of some unfunny 2D material.

The film starts off promisingly with a great opening theme. Unfortunately, it's downhill from there. The plot, such as it is, is two-fold. The German footage concerns the trials and tribulations of a theatrical troupe. The director is trying to convince his prudish leading lady (future Bond girl Karin Dor) to do a sex scene on stage by telling her tales of sex through the ages. How exactly that was supposed to convince her, I'm not sure. The color footage concerns George (Don Kenney), the titular bellboy of the Happy Holiday Hotel, who wants to be the House Detective and be popular with women. George is determined to find out what goes on in Room 229 of the hotel, where there are a bunch of naked women, one of them named Madame Wimpepoole  (Playboy bunny June Wilkinson, here credited as June Wilkenson). George assumes she's that type of Madame and all the other girls are Ladies of Ill Refute as Archie Bunker would say. Naturally, the ladies are all lingerie sales models, but George is too stupid to know that. The two plots hang together by way of George, who sneaks over to the theater to observe the director and learn about women then run back to the hotel and screw up.

The problems with this movie are many. It has been accused of being a bait and switch, and not incorrectly. Much of the footage is taken up by George, a character so annoying he makes Jar Jar Binks look like Jonathan Winters. Don Kenney sorta kinda tries as George but his material is hopelessly unfunny. I'm not even convinced it was funny in 1962. Since so much is sucked up by George, there's not a lot of time devoted to exactly why an audience would be watching something like this: the naked women. To make matters worse, the two most high profile women in the thing--Dor and Wilkinson--never even take off their clothes. Dor I can almost forgive given the nature of her character but Coppola blowing getting Wilkinson naked makes me want to smack the man. Wilkinson is frankly the best looking woman in the film. She's also just about the main reason to watch. When the 3D finally shows up, the depth is fairly good and the movie almost lives up to it's potential with a 3 minute segment of just the topless women. Then they bring George back onscreen. Bleh. It doesn't help that some of the 3D footage looks out of focus, no doubt due to either the fact that it was shot on 16mm or it really was out of focus (or both). Watching this, it's hard to believe that a decade later Coppola would go on to direct The Godfather.

Fortunately, there's a second feature to be watched and is it ever a hoot. I won't go so far as to call Adam and Six Eves a good movie, but for this type of movie it's a bona-fide classic. Shot in 1960 using the old NaturalVision rig--previously used on such classics as House of Wax, Bwana Devil, Gog, and Charge at Feather River--Adam and Six Eves was only released flat in 1962. The 3D Nudie Cuties Collection Blu Ray is it's 3D debut. Watching it, I can definitively say 1960s audiences missed out big time.

The movie concerns a fat guy in a Hawaiian shirt prospecting for gold with his wisecracking mule in the desert. He comes across an oasis of beautiful naked women, who do everything under the sun to distract him from his search. He's clueless however, just looking at them with a dopey grin and wondering why they have no clothes on before continuing his search. The donkey comments on everything (no, you didn't misread that). That's literally the plot of the whole thing. But it doesn't matter. If Bellboy and the Playgirls was a bait and switch, this was a bang for the buck if ever there was one. The director wisely focuses his camera on the women, knowing that's what his audience is here for. And my God are the women in this one gorgeous. There's literally someone here for anyone's taste. The prospector's cluelessness is nowhere near as annoying as George and the donkey, while not exactly Triumph the Insult Dog, is actually funny from time to time. Best of all, the movie only runs an hour, so it doesn't overstay it's welcome. To top things off, the 3D in this is spectacular. I mean, it should be considering the camera that was used. But it really looks great. Nice levels of depth and some fun pop outs.

A pair of shorts are also included on the disc, a 1953 Burlesque short called Love For Sale and a study of 3-D Kodachrome nudes from 1951. Both are impressive. It should be noted that Love For Sale was previously available in a cut down anaglyphic version from Something Weird. Seeing it here is a real revelation.

As usual, the 3D Film Archive did a bang up job. The restoration on Adam and Six Eves is perfect. The movie looks like it was made yesterday. Bellboy and the Playgirls doesn't look as good, but they worked with what they had and some of it was never going to look perfect. As a curio and a peek into a time that no longer exists, this is a disc worth getting. Indeed, Adam and Six Eves is worth the price of admission alone. I wish I could say better things about Bellboy and the Playgirls, but that's not the Archive's fault. This disc is literally a case of taking the good with the bad. Fortunately, the good outweighs the bad.

*Coppola's other Nudie Cutie was the 2D release Tonight For Sure. As that film also has Don Kenney in it, this particular reviewer has absolutely no curiosity about watching it. One Don Kenney movie is one too many.

3-D Classics on Blu Ray: 3-D Rarities

Someone give the 3D Film Archive an Oscar. Seriously. Bob Furmanek, Greg Kintz, and Jack Theakston need to be given an Oscar and the right to restore any vintage 3D movie they want. Their work in the restoration and preservation of our 3D heritage is as important as it is astounding. 3-D Rarities, now out from Flicker Alley, is as good an example as any I can think of.


Covering material from 1922-1962, 3-D Rarities literally has something for everyone. The disc is broken into two parts: Dawn of the Stereoscopic Cinema, covering from 1922-mid-1952, and Hollywood Enters the Third Dimension, covering from November 1952 -1955, with bonus material giving us a peek at some 1960s footage. This Blu Ray is the motherlode, a 3D fan's dream come true. Test footage, trailers, cartoons, industrial shorts--it's all here. Every short and clip perfectly aligned and looking better than ever.


Part One starts with the oldest existing 3D footage from 1922. Some of it is test footage while a bulk of it is a fascinating glimpse at Washington, D.C. from that time frame, shot through the trees. Part one chugs along through the 20s with more test footage, mostly fun gimmick shots. Those shots were used in a variety of 3D shorts back then, all of which are lost. Some 1930s test footage, used for the Pete Smith Metroscopix shorts from 1936-1941 (all three of which do exist) updates a few of the gags from the 20s while adding to their own. You could literally stop the disc right there and have seen more 3D gimmick shots than in almost any ten modern 3D films you can name. But then you would miss the real highlights of Part One: Thrills for You and New Dimensions.

These two shorts were done for the 1940s World's Fair. Thrills for You played in San Francisco while New Dimensions played in New York. The former short is a wonderful snapshot at a time gone by: the era of traveling by locomotive. It was produced by the Pennsylvania Rail Road and not only shots the trains being built, but gives a glimpse into what riding on those trains was like. It was a lost short until 2006 when it popped up at the World 3-D Film Expo II. If you are any sort of train enthusiast, this is a must see short.


New Dimensions will appeal to car lovers. It's a color re-do of the previous year's black & white In Tune With Tomorrow, a stop motion animation short of a full size Plymouth being built, set to music. For years, fans of the short could only see the edited version RKO released in 1953 called Motor Rhythm. This disc restores the complete short as seen by audiences in 1940.


If animation is your thing, there's four Canadian 3D shorts from 1951-1952. Two of them were by Norman McLaren. They're interesting examples of 3D animation. An industrial short for the Bolex 3-D camera rounds out part one.


Part Two kicks off, appropriately enough with the short that opened Arch Oboler's Bwana Devil, M.L. Gunzberg Presents Naturalvision 3-Dimension or as it came to be referred to in later sources, Time For Beany since it features Beany and Cecil the Seasick Serpent. Oh, Lloyd Nolan is in it, too, along with Shirley Tegge, Miss 3-D. It's a humorous explanation of the Naturalvision camera system.


Other highlights for Part Two include four trailers, a Casper Cartoon (Boo Moon),a short about Atom Bomb testing (Doom Town), a Burlesque short (I'll Sell My Shirt), the Rocky Marciano-Joe Walcott fight film, and the short that opened for Robot Monster with comedian Slick Slavin (Stardust in Your Eyes). The bonus material includes two minutes from the 3D footage Francis Ford Coppola directed for the 1962 3D nudie film The Playgirls and the Bellboy. Mr. Furmanek has threatened to unleash the rest of that film on us in the near future.

Personally, I most enjoyed the Time For Beany short and another puppet cartoon on the disc called The Adventures of Sam Space. But the truth is, there isn't a bad piece of footage on this disc. The product of five years work, it's a great celebration of all things 3D and a perfect showcase for the diversity the process once had before settling into cartoons and comic book movies. Not only should any 3D fan get this disc, but anyone who wants to make 3D movies should get it, watch it, and learn from it.


So yeah, get the 3D Film Archive an Oscar for this one. This is hands down the Best 3-D Blu Ray you'll ever own.