3-D Classics on Blu Ray

If you're a fan of vintage 3-D 2016 has been a pretty awesome year so far. MVD kicked things off in January with 1981's Comin' At Ya!. Admittedly, that's a terrible movie--all of the 80s 3-D films fail at being good movies--but it has a lot of goofy 3-D gimmick shots so it's kind of fun in that manner.

Kino Lorber in March released Gog courtesy of the 3-D Film Archive. I've mentioned before what a fantastic restoration it is and it bears repeating. Gog hasn't looked this good since its initial release in 1954. This is a restoration to rival restorations from the major studios, that's how well done it is. If you're a fan of 50s science fiction or classic 3-D movies, you really need to get this one.

Going back to 80s 3-D for a moment, last month Universal finally released all 3 Jaws sequels on Blu Ray. Included in this, of course, is Jaws 3-D. While they didn't make as big a deal about it as it can be argued they should have, that Blu includes the 3-D version listed as a special feature. But it's the 3-D Blu Ray edition, unlike Paramount's anaglyphic release of Friday the 13th Part 3. Some of the gimmick shots get way too close to the camera for comfort but the 3-D looks great. I have a warm spot for Jaws 3-D (despite knowing it's a bad movie) since it was my first 3-D movie in the theaters so I'm glad it's finally out the way it was meant to be seen. Besides, why would you want to watch it any other way?

The most recent release is a 1950s title from Twilight Time. Miss Sadie Thompson starring Rita Hayworth and Jose Ferrer shipped just this week. Sony did a beautiful 3-D DCP restoration a few years ago. I saw that DCP at the 2013 World 3-D Film Expo and it looked terrific. That's what Twilight Time is releasing. I'm looking forward to revisiting this soon.

There's more on the way, too. Kino Lorber and the 3-D Film Archive are working on 1976's A*P*E.  A South Korean Kaiju movie made to compete  with the Dino DeLaurentis remake of King Kong, A*P*E has a ridiculous looking 36 foot gorilla rampaging across Korea, kidnapping Joanna Kerns (the mom from Growing Pains), and flipping off the audience! While it wouldn't be my first choice for restoration, I'm confident the 3-D Film Archive will make it look better than it deserves. More exciting is the potential restoration of September Storm from the 3-D Film Archive. There's a Kickstarter campaign to fund the restoration at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/3-dspace/september-storm-1960-3-d-digital-feature-film-rest. If you are a fan of vintage 3-D, you owe it to yourself to contribute to this.

On top of that, Shout Factory has announced 1983's Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared Syn. Charles Band's second of three 3-D movies, Metalstorm stars Kelly Preston in the second worst sci-fi movie she was in (Battlefield Earth remains the champ) and Richard Moll in the part that got him the role of Bull in Night Court. It has just enough goofy 3-D effects to make it worth watching, too. The 3-D Blu Ray will be released on September 13.

Finally, Universal may be working on the 1953 sci-fi classic It Came From Outer Space. Originally, Panamint in the U.K. had announced a release set for this month but cancelled it when Universal said they were planning a release. It the Universal Blu Ray is the same as what Panamint was planning, it will include the short that originally played with the movie, Nat King Cole and Russ Morgan's Orchestra. Universal hasn't confirmed anything yet, however, so vintage 3-D fans wait eagerly for news.

For those of you who wonder why I get so enthusiastic about these old 3-D movies and not so much the newer ones, it's because I generally find the older titles have better 3-D. They take better advantage of the process with greater depth and more gimmick shots. Even the less gimmicky films of the 50s are deeper and, as a rule, have at least some pop outs. There are more recent titles that have     nothing coming out of the screen at all. They also usually don't take as much advantage of the depth as they could. There are exceptions, of course, but they aren't the rule. So until all modern filmmakers bring the fun back to 3-D, I'll continue to jump at any of these older titles.

3-D Thursday: Gog (1954)

To appreciate a film restoration, it helps to have seen what the movie looked like pre-restoration. Most restorations have a demo showing the movie in poor condition and then showing it looking nice and shiny and almost new. I have always had a hard time connecting with these demos, however, since I have no recollection of seeing the movies in question looking so bad. The Looney Tunes cartoons, for instance, I only ever saw look horrible in bad PD releases. In that sense, if the restoration demo was of Daffy the Commando and not one of the duck season/rabbit season cartoons, I'd have been impressed since I had only seen Daffy the Commando look like garbage.

I mention all of this because one movie I have seen in lesser form that has been restored is 1954's Gog. For decades, the 3-D version of Gog was considered lost to the ages. As Bob Furmanek of the 3-D Film Archive tells it, the color version was gone, too. It would play in 2-D, black and white, and full frame. A color 2-D version surfaced in the 1980s.When the 3D version finally surfaced in 2003, the left eye print was red as a beet while the right eye had color, though not too vibrant. That's the way I saw it in 3D in 2006 at The World 3-D Film Expo II and while not ideal, it was better than not getting to see it in 3D at all.

So imagine my reaction to the new Kino 3D Blu Ray of Gog. I have just three letters to describe this: O.M.G.

You know how great the Warner 3D Blu Rays of House of Wax and Kiss Me Kate look? Yeah, this looks that good. Not only has the color been restored to the red left eye but the color in general is more vibrant. Anyone who has scene this either in it's poorer 3D version or even the TV version that's shown up can tell you that the color was okay but not particularly vibrant. But if you want a good example of improvement, watch the scene where Richard Egan and Herbert Marshall first meet. The chair Egan sits in is practically Technicolor red!

The restoration, of course, is courtesy of the 3-D Film Archive. And for those of you who are gonna groan "here he goes talking about those guys again!", yeah! I am! I thought the 3-D Rarities disc was their crowning achievement. But this---THIS---is nothing short of a miracle. Watching Gog here was like watching it for the first time ever. This is undoubtedly what the movie looked like upon original release. Maybe even better.

Gog is the third--and by all accounts best--of the Ivan Tors Office of Scientific Investigation trilogy. It starts when two scientists--serial fans will recognize them as Aline Towne and Micheal Fox--are murdered in a freeze chamber in an underground base dedicated to the space race. O.S.I investigator David Sheppard (Richard Egan) is called in to investigate by base leader Dr. Van Ness (Herbert Marshall), Van Ness suspects that there's a saboteur on base but can't find him. Sheppard is assisted by Joanna Merritt (Constance Dowling), another OSI agent undercover on the base already. The suspects are many: the slightly perverted Dr. Elzevir (Philip Van Zandt) and his jealous wife (Valerie Vernon; arrogant scientist Dr. Zeitman (John Wengraf), who theoretically controls super computer NOVAC and deadly robots Gog and Magog; Dr. Burden (David Alpert), who is in charge of the computer pile; and Dr. Engle (William Schallert), Dr. Zeitman's assistant all top the list. The real enemies turn out to be the Godless Commies, who built a powerful radio transmitter and receiver into NOVAC during construction and are now using it and the robots to kill various scientists on base, with the ultimate goal of setting off a nuclear reaction that will destroy it.

Gog is an interesting piece of Cold War paranoia, a peek back at a time when the Red Under the Bed was a threat both real and imagined. Zeitman, for instance, so obviously seems to be the saboteur because he's an arrogant foreigner. The movie knows we'll think this and plays it to the hilt.

Surprisingly, the movie's science isn't as dodgy about space travel as many of it's ilk. Indeed, some of what goes on in the movie is even in use today. For instance, there's a sense involving a centrifuge. Okay, so there's a little goofiness--one character suffers from radiation poison, then is later told she's going to be just fine--but overall this is a pretty smart movie with more science fact than fiction.

Gog was the last movie shot with the Natural Vision 3-Dimension camera system by Lothrop Worth.This was the system used on House of Wax. Like that earlier film, the 3-D is spectacular. There's a great sense of depth throughout despite the limits of the sets. There's also some occassionally fun pop-out effects as there always seemed to be in these things.

According to Greg Kintz of the 3-D Film Archive, every single shot needed no less than 7 levels of correction. As I said, the left eye was red and the right eye was faded and damaged. But you wouldn't know it to see the final Blu Ray. It looks every bit as spectacular as other 50s sci-fi films released to Blu Ray like Forbidden Planet. If you want a good idea of what the film looked like before and after, there's a dandy restoration demo on the Blu. There's an even better demo on http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/gog.

If you're a fan of 50s sci-fi, this is a must buy. Even if you've seen it before and casually dismissed it, you should check it out. As any movie buff will tell you, a large part of enjoyment comes from presentation. And the presentation here is nothing shy of spectacular. Gog may be the 3D Film Archive's finest hour yet.

IMAGES COURTESY OF THE 3-D FILM ARCHIVE