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3-D Movies Turn 50 ... Sort Of 132

Posted by chrisd from the red-plus-blue-equals-three dept.
jonerik writes "The Associated Press has this article on the 50th anniversary of the release of 'Bwana Devil.' Released on November 26th, 1952, the film would be largely forgotten today if not for the fact that it's generally regarded as the first full-length 3-D movie, kicking off a burst of 3-D filmmaking which lasted into the mid-'50s and which still takes place today, particularly in the adult film industry and on the IMAX circuit where this year's 43-minute 'Space Station 3-D' has brought in about $33 million so far. 'Bwana Devil' utilized the Polaroid method, which used two lenses filming, and involved lightwaves passing in perpendicular planes to the other lens. However, considering that a long string of 3-D films were made as far back as 1922 using more primitive processes, the claim that 'Bwana Devil' was first can be regarded as open to question. Either way, Robert Stack, who starred in 'Bwana Devil,' is somewhat ambivalent about his small part in movie history, saying 'I'm not sure it was anything to be proud of. It's an honor like being the world's tallest midget.'"
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3-D Movies Turn 50 ... Sort Of More

3-D Movies Turn 50 ... Sort Of

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  • good 3D movies (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kelerain ( 577551 ) <[moc.liamtoh] [ta] [retsampam_cva]> on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @10:11PM (#4807395)
    The really good 3D movies turn 360.

  • Not Polaroid...polarized! (Score:3, Informative)

    by i22y ( 10479 ) <mike@isl e r p h o t o . com> on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @10:13PM (#4807409) Homepage
    Devil' utilized the Polaroid method, which used two lenses filming, and involved lightwaves passing in perpendicular planes to the other lens.

    This is incorrect...light is polarized...has nothing to do with Polaroid(TM).

    • Re:Not Polaroid...polarized! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @10:23PM (#4807484)
      It's both. Polaroid developed the method.

      More information on this whole subject, including the adult films, can be found here [badfads.com].
    • http://www.rowland.org/land/land.html Land thought up embedding long molecules (read: antennas the right length for absorbing visible EM) in plastic. When he read about the tiny crystals in the urine of a dog that had been treated with quinine, he researched it, refined the process, and came up with polaroid film, an inexpensive alternative to cementing two large feldspar crystals together.

  • Stack has a short memory (Score:4, Interesting)

    by efedora ( 180114 ) <efedora@yahoo.com> on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @10:16PM (#4807432) Homepage
    "Robert Stack, who starred in 'Bwana Devil,' is somewhat ambivalent about his small part in movie history, saying 'I'm not sure it was anything to be proud of."
    As opposed to his stellar performance in 'Airplane' (which WAS something to be proud of).

  • Hitchcock (Score:3, Informative)

    by colfer ( 619105 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @10:17PM (#4807439)
    Dial M for Murder, dir. by Alfred Hitchcock in 1954, is the best one I've seen. It was at a film festival, and they had the cardboard glasses. All 3-D movies at IMDB are here [imdb.com] (215 matches).

  • If you are really interested, read... (Score:4, Informative)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @10:18PM (#4807440)
    "Foundations of the Stereoscopic Cinema" by Lenny Lipton, ISBN 0-442-24724-9

    A masterful piece of work full of history and technical details.

  • It's an honor like being the world's tallest midget

    Wow, this guy is really enlightened. If his production skills are anything related to his intelligence, maybe its a GOOD thing we never heard of his movie...

    • Wow, this guy is really enlightened. If his production skills are anything related to his intelligence, maybe its a GOOD thing we never heard of his movie...

      I think the only intelligence you bring into question with this comment is your own. The fact you fail to understand something someone says doesn't necessarily mean they are wrong, it could also mean that you are just dense. Stack is saying that being the worlds tallest midget is unique, but not necessarily great. The same would go for starring in a mediocre film that just happened to be the first of its kind.
    • Sarcasm is scalpel, not a club...please don't wield things that you don't understand...leave that to the professionals. The man was, in his own crotchity way, displaying a certain amount of humility. He's a little rough around the edges, but you will be too if you make it to the age when being regular for a week straight is something to talk about at the retirement home.

  • Bwana Devil Was Not First (Score:4, Informative)

    by RainMan496 ( 239840 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @10:22PM (#4807469) Homepage
    Nat Deverich's "Power of Love" predates by thirty years. It premiered on September 27, 1922. Using an anaglyphic process developed by Harry Fairall, it starred Terry O'Neil and Barbara Bedford.
  • I wonder if this is how Robert Stack feels about his portrayal of Ultra Magnus in the Transformers movie.
  • I had the pleasure of seeing 'Dial M for Murder' in 3D at a film festival a couple years ago. It's a great movie, and 3D is cool, but I don't think 3D was really necessary in this case. Clearly an example of using a new (at the time), trendy technology as a gimmick. No disrespect to Hitchcock intended. Was this technique overused when it first became available?

    I think Tron would be cool in 3D.

    • ...go through a period where they are overused (or just used to impress audiences). Then filmmakers begin to discover ways to use the new technology cinematically to better tell a story. That's when the new technology really takes off.

      Hitchcock considered 3D to be a gimmick, but was forced by the studio to use it in Dial M for Murder. In spite of this, this was the movie which moved 3D into the cinematic. Hitchcock tried to improve the storytelling with 3D in three scenes:

      • The Phone Call -- Grace Kelly's husband and the guy he hires to strangle her make a miscalculation. The husband's phone call is used to lure her to the curtain where the strangler hides. But, when she picks up the phone, she inadvertently protects her neck with her arm. Hitchcock shot it to make the audience feel they were standing as close to the two of them as they were to each other.
      • The Desk Scene -- Once she set down the phone and is attacked, Kelly falls on her back on a nearby desk. Hitchcock shot this so that when she falls on the desk her arm reaches out of the screen, desperately seeking help (as if the help was being sought from the audience).
      • The Courtroom Scene -- Hitchcock shot this as a surrealistic montage of lights swirling around Kelly as snippets of courtroom dialogue are played.

      The first two worked; the third didn't. Hitchcocks seems to have realized that we not only figure out where other things are (in a 3D environment) using our stereoscopic vision, but also where we are. He also seems to have understood that we are not afraid for ourselves in the movies, but for characters we care about but are helpless to help. (Other 3D filmmakers have never seemed to learn this and are constantly firing flaming arrows - or something - out of the screen at us.) He shot the phone call so it feels like we are standing close enough to interfere. And he shot the desk scene so it looks like she's reaching out to us for help. Just as we see the scissors, her hand finds them. It almost feels like we have put them in her hand.

      The phone call works in both 3D and 2D. The desk scene looks strange in 2D, but works in 3D. The courtroom scene doesn't work either way.

  • I would seriously like to know what adult films were shot in 3D, that sounds crazy! Enough of the conservatism with the porn, this is an honest request for more information on 3D nudie flicks.
    • A few years ago at the local indy theatre in my home town of Albany NY (the spectrum) they ran a 3d film series. One night they had a 3d porn. Yeah I went, and let me tell you /., the line for this flick ran out the door and around the block! Men, women, freeks and geeks, everyone loves the 3d porn. It was like opening night for episode I. Maybe some albanian can back me up on this.
    • ... a few years back on one of the cable channels over here in the UK they did a TV 3D month including a special kind of TV 3D which involves having the camera moving horizontally and special glasses ... don't know how it worked but they did lots of "going around the four poster bed" type shots until one was quite dizzy!
    • Personally, I don't feel we invest enough money in the advancement of better porn. You can reply back with some huge amount of money in the industry, but whatever it is ... there should be even more.
    • There is a rather large catalog of them at http://www.3dmagic.com/
      I just found the place but they look to have a great selection of Field-sequential 3D videos.
  • I want to hang a 3d picture in my bathroom. The 3d glasses would be attached to a big *you-cannot-steal-these-3d-glasses* chain. My visitors could view a largish 3d version of my choice (large banana, close-up of a freckle, or Guy Smiley) while they use my bathroom.

    Why. Oh god. Why? Nothing much else to do in my bathroom but take this stupid test [tilegarden.com]

    .
    • Actually, I remember seeing 3D cameras for sale in the early 80's at K-Mart. I forget who made them, but you didn't need 3D glasses to view them. It didn't go over very well. Sorta like that "holographic" arcade game that came out about 7 or 8 years ago...it would give you a headache if you looked at it for too long.
    • A while ago here in the Netherlands you could get stereo throwaway cameras, the pictures of which would be put on those corrugated transparent plastic cards that produce a 3D effect without needing 3D glasses. They must still be around somewhere...
  • Lord at 12 or 13 in 1983 I had to go see this 3d flick. Space, 3d, and Molly Ringwald

    The other cast.

    Peter Strauss
    Ernie Hudson
    Michael Ironside

    This movie was such total crap even at 13 I was disgusted. I mean I had Buckaroo Banzai and Flash Gordon under my belt.

    Anyone else remember this one?

    Wait. I think Milly showed her titties.

    Putp
    • Space hunter -- the forbidden zone IT SUCKED.

      However I just looked it up on yahoo and it got 4 out of 5 stars. Tells you something about sample bias.
    • All of your comments are fair, and with all due credit to the creators of 'Space Hunter' it was not miss Ringwald's finest 3D effort.

      I am of course referring to the deluxe 3D 'Sixteen Candles' IMAX Redux.

      Characters like 'Long Duk Dong' and Anthony Michael Hall's 'The Geek' are imbued with even stronger presence (thanks largely to IMAX) and the performances of all actors are much more rounded (due to the introduction of 3D)

      Simply put: Poetry in 6 storey, 3 dimensional motion. 5 stars
    • There was another one that came out at that time called Treasure of the Four Crowns. [imdb.com]

      Tagline: Share The Ultimate Modern Adventure In Wonder-Vision 3-D

      mmm wondervision I wonder if the movie is as crappy as i remember it.
      somebody needs to ressurect it and put it on tape or dvd.
    • Yeah, I saw that one. Was it supposed to be that funny?

      I actually liked Buckaroo Banzai. Campy, but it was supposed to be. John Lithgow was great as Dr. Lizardo.

      • I recall that some members of the audience choffed during the chase scene as dust seemed to float over their heads.

        ALL 3D movies seemed to delight in shooting (guns, arrows, flames) straight at the audience!

        A TV Station in Brisbane, Australia had a 3D screening session some 15 (or more) years back and broadcast "Fort Ti(?)" & the Three Stooges one. I taped the broadcast and I was able to view the cassette with Red-Green specs. Trouble is - the cassette is Betamax!!!
        .

  • Adult 3D? (Score:5, Funny)

    by CleverNickName ( 129189 ) <wil@wilwheaton . n et> on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @10:39PM (#4807571) Homepage Journal
    I've got this, uh, friend, you know.

    He doesn't own a computer, so he thought I should ask Slashdot what, uh, adult movies are 3D, and where he could, uhm, get them, or something.

  • IMAX 3D works, the fifties movies didn't... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @10:40PM (#4807576) Homepage
    A couple of years ago I was attending an Apple Computer conference and managed to spend an evening at the Palo Alto Theatre, which was having a 3D festival. I saw "Miss Sadie Thompson" and "Kiss Me, Kate." They were newly struck prints, the projection was good, I had a very good seat--I am sure what I experienced was as good as it would have been when the films were released.

    And it seemed gimmicky, like looking into a Viewmaster.

    Oh, it had its moments. In "Kiss Me, Kate" you had such a sense of the living presence of the performers that the audience applauded after each musical number. (The 3D process was VERY unflattering to actresses; in 2D, makeup can smooth the contours of the face but in 3D you see the actual contours, makeup or not). It was nice--but it was a gimmick.

    In IMAX 3D, the screen looks perfeclty sharp, but it is SO BIG that the edges of the screen are almost out of your field of view. This is very important because ugly things happen at the screen edges in stereoscopic viewing, particularly if the objects you are viewing are "in front of" the screen.

    I've now seen four movies in IMAX 3D--"Across the Sea of Time," "Space Station 3D," "Cirque Du Soleil: The Journey of Man," and "Into the Deep." They're fabulous. They give you more of a "you-are-there" feeling than anything else I've ever seen in a movie theatre (and I saw "This Is Cinerama" on its first run). The 3D feels natural. Objects closer than the screen seem comfortable.

    Actually, the part of "Space Station 3D" I liked the very best were the scenes filmed on the earth at the Russian Cosmodrome. I was RIGHT there on the gritty pavement, on that walk where they planted a tree for every cosmonaut who had flown in space.

    No eyestrain, no motion sickness, just this incredible sense of "really being there."

    At least two of the films, "Across the Sea of Time" and "Cirque du Soleil" went beyond a simple travelogue. They weren't exactly narratives, but they were a genuine creative use of the medium.

    I hope we see a lot more IMAX 3D. (I hope it isn't going to get killed off by cheap IMAX blowups of 2D 35mm films...)
    • I know the ISS is a multi-billion-dollar make-work scheme for NASA and the Russian space agency, and Tom Cruise's narration really annoyed me, but that movie was the most visually stunning imagery I've ever seen.

      I wonder could you fit IMAX 3D cameras on the next Mars lander? :)

      • I saw it at the IMAX in the Science Museum in London. "Awesome" is not the word.

        The is a scene where the astronautes are having Christmas dinner. One of them is throwing M&Ms to the others. The chocs sail across and are caught in the mouth. Of course, there is someone working the camera too and it would be rude exclude them from the choccy treat! An M&M then comes sailing towards the camera (and you). I swear I saw a dozen people in the audience try to catch it in their mouths.

  • SCTV anyone? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Alien Being ( 18488 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @10:46PM (#4807608)
    3D House of Pancakes

    Oooh, that's scary.
  • In Disneyland in Tokyo, they have 3-D "Alladin", and in Florida, they have the movie "Captain EO" staring Michael Jackson.

    In the games world, 3-D hasn't caught on that much yet, but back in the 80s, SQUARE actually experiented with 3-D for the NES/Famicom, using red-blue glasses. There were at least 2 titles I remember, 3-D Worldrunner and Rad Racer which used this (albeit primitive) 3-D technology.

    There seems to be some use of 3-D in the scientific world. SGI and several other companies have LCD glasses which are synchrnoized to a monitor/projector, displaying alternating left-right eye images. I've been in SGI's RealityCenters which are basically rooms surrounded by wall-sized screens on all sides, and are used for visualizing extremely large data sets, such as large molecules in the pharmaceutical industry or geologic data in the petroleum industry. With 3-D glasses used, the experience in one of those places can literally cause some people to vomit (and I've seen it happen)!
    • Actually in Epcot (Florida) theyve thankfully got rid of Captain EO and replaced it with a much better "Honey I Shrunk The Audience" 3d flick with all the cast members from the movies, as well as Eric Idle. Well worth seeing.

      And who can forget the best 3d show in the world? The 3d Muppet movie at MGM is hilarious.

      Also Disney is working on a new 3d attraction for the Magic Kingdom, opening next year I think.

      At least the Imagineers have kept 3d alive.

      Oh, and if your'e in Florida, check out the Terminator 3d movie at Universal. :)

  • 1-D Films? (Score:3, Funny)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @11:07PM (#4807696) Homepage
    I'm a minimalist. So here's my short 1-D Film ---> .

    Its protected by the MPAA so don't copy it!

    • Since that's 1 pixel by 1 pixel, it is still 2-D. =P
    • THIS WEEK'S REVIEW: "."

      This all too brief foray into pared down cinematics was, to say the least, tedious. Dull, lifeless, 1-dimensional performances punctuated a scant script which drastically needed to be fleshed out. The art of story-telling plays a distant second to this vulgar onanistic show of avant-garde.

      RATING: */*****

  • You can still rent 50s/60s 3D-movies for cheap! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Hanno ( 11981 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @11:24PM (#4807760) Homepage
    Three years ago, I wanted to do something special for my birthday party, so I tried to find a genuine anaglyphic 3D movie to show during the party.

    To my surprise, it's easy to find one, at least here in Germany (so I guess it will be just as easy in the US). Most movie distributors offer a 16 mm rental service mostly used by University film clubs and by tiny home-run community cinemas. They also have the classics and you can rent these movies very cheap for non-commercial showings.

    In the end, renting a copy of "Creature from the Black Lagoon" over the weekend, a couple of red/green glasses, a 16 mm projector and a small silverscreen was cheaper than renting a video projector and a DVD player. (Ok, that was three years ago and video projectors are much cheaper now. But still.)

    They also had "It came from Outer Space" on rental. And the folks at the movie distributor were extremely helpful and really nice folks to deal with.

    If you want a special movie evening, I can only recommend you to ask the 16 mm rental service of the large movie distributors to help you out with a classic, be it 3D or not.
  • of this guy. [lugos.si] or this guy [dougbedell.com] and these dudes. [nylug.org]
  • OK, 3D porn production stills [3dcompany.com]. Site requires red and green glasses. Are you happy now?
  • i think i'd rather play a fps [edimensional.com] in 3d.
  • I saw Jaws 3 in 3D when many moons ago, thought it was pretty poor. I saw a bit of it on TV the other day in 2D it was even worse than I remebered!!
  • I recently (like 2 months ago) saw a 3D IMAX movie about Dinosaurs ... I forget the exact title, but it involved a young girl going back in time (or so she thought).

    While it was extremely boring, I have to admit: the 3D effects where absolutely phenominal. I have seen a scattering of 3D movies (starting with that lovely SciFi thriller: Parasite) and I honestly didn't know the technology had progressed so far.

    I was impressed.

    I was also nauseous. I had to take my glasses off once every 10 minutes or so to let my stomach settle down. But I am perfectly willing to entertain the idea that it was my age causing the sickness, not the technology.
  • You can make your own 3d movies with a standard camcorder with this device NuView Camcorder Adapter [razor3donline.com]

    You need to play them back through a device with lcd glasses
  • So if I forget to wear my glasses, does the movie appear in 1.5-D?
  • ... think of the possibilities!!

  • ...for the lions and tigers they had jumping out of the screen at the audience. They shot it with circus animals which were trained to jump over a pole strung between the two cameras, which were spaced between four to six feet apart during filming.

    Unfortunately, depth of field is not the only information our brains derive from stereoscopic visual data. In fact, the depth of field information is not just relative (this is closer than that, etc), it is also absolute. In other words, we can tell how far away things are. Absolute depth plus visual size gives us absolute size. In other words, if the lion looks like he's four feet away and he fills up half our vision, we know he's a big cat. Good 3D camerawork requires that the two lenses be separated by approximately the same distance as the average human eyeballs are separated.

    Consequently, when Bwana Devil set up their cameras so widely spaced (so the cats could jump between them), they messed with everybody's size perceptions. The lions looked like kittens made up to look like lions. Tigers looked like painted cats. To audiences Robert Stack didn't look like Robert Stack. He looked like a Robert-Stack doll. Instead of having audiences leaving the theater saying, "Wasn't it incredible the way the lions jumped out of the screen?" they had: "Wasn't it amazing the way they made the cats look like miniature lions?" Think of it as if the audience was turned into giants whose heads were so big their eyes were five feet apart.

    To my knowledge no one made use of this effect for cinematic purposes before the Honey, I Shrunk the Audience 3D show at Disney World.

  • In the late '70s I was assistant manager at the Tiffany Theatre on Sunset Strip, and we showed "Dial M for Murder" with the original two-projector setup for 3D, which hadn't been done since the 1950s and to my knowledge hasn't been done in a regular theater since.

    Most Polaroid system 3D movies use a single film with both images in each frame, either one on top of the other or side by side. These images are distorted in order to squeeze them both onto one frame of film. The images are projected through a beam splitter and then sent through an anamorphic lens to get the correct aspect ratio and remove distortion. When viewed through the Polaroid glasses, which are dark like sunglasses, these films tend to appear very dim because the amount of light reaching each eye is less than half of the light from a normally-projected film. There is also a great loss of image detail because each frame is only one-half the size of a normal film frame, and sent through extra optics to boot. Coupled with the fact that theatres tend to project movies much dimmer than they should in a misguided attempt to stretch bulb life, modern 3D projection is pretty damned unsatisfactory.

    The two-projector system, which is the way these movies were intended to be viewed, is frankly a bitch to set up, but wow, what a difference. There are two different prints of the film, one for each eye, and each shot from that eye's viewpoint. The films must be threaded into the two projectors, making sure that they both start on exactly the same frame. (This little requirement is the reason for all the "3D causes eyestrain and headaches" bad press 3D got in the 'fifties, by the way. Untrained and/or uncaring projectionists could ruin a 3D movie.) In order to ensure that the projectors remain in sync with each other, a steel rod actually connected the takeup reels with each other across the projection booth. Since each image receives the entire illumination from the projector lamp, after putting on the glasses the 3D film looks just as bright as any other film. There is no loss of image quality because each image is a full frame.

    We also showed a 3D Hong-Kong martial-arts period piece called "Dynasty."

    On a side note, the article linked to claims that the Soviets never had an operational glasses-less projection system. This is incorrect. A friend of mine saw a 3D movie without glasses in a theater in Moscow in the mid-eighties. It was a lenticular screen, and the theater itself was much narrower than usual to ensure the correct viewing angle.

    Now, don't get me started on how morons in suits have ruined every attempt to do 3D on television.

  • Relating to 3D, but on a television - back in the 80's (when I was a kid) I watched an episode of "That's Incredible" about these two individuals who had created a new 3D system for television broadcasting. Basically, it was a "black box" type device that hooked up in the video signal stream, and modified it in such a way so as to appear 3D to the viewer, without glasses.

    That's Incredible showed some footage - and incredibly it had "depth" - it showed footage of people throwing a frisbee (to a dog?), and some other things - the TV seemed to gain "depth" (in other words, things didn't "pop-out", but rather it looked like there was depth into the TV). Even more amazing, you could close one eye - and you could STILL see the effect. You could even videotape it, and replay the tape - and view it - I had a tape of the show at one time, but eventually it was lost (I think my dad taped over it).

    Anyhow, since then, I have not seen anything on how it was done, nor can I remember who did it, etc - I do remember that the video seemed to be shaking up and down - so I don't know if there was some funkiness going on with interleaving frames (fields) in the NTSC signal to achieve the effect or what...

    Has anyone here seen this, or know what I am talking about? It was a very interesting system...

    • Well, I'm not sure, but from what you're describing it sounds like they just flipped back and forth between stereo pairs rapidly. You can see this effect if you take a standard stereo pair and make a looping animated GIF out of it. I've put up an example I made out of an old stereograph slide here [atomicdeathray.com]. By the way, you can get synthetic stereo from any two successive frames of video or film as long as the object being viewed is either slowly rotating, or the camera itself is dollying sideways (NOT panning).
  • Men's skin is different from women's skin. It is usually bigger, and
    it has more snakes tattooed on it. Also, if you examine a woman's skin
    very closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gently
    tracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her ...

    [EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important world events
    such as agriculture, we're going to delete the next few square feet of the
    woman's skin. Thank you.] ... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking your
    cigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up of
    billions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"! And what is even more
    interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying! This is a fact. Your
    skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where the older veteran
    cells, who have finally worked their way to the top and obtained offices
    with nice views, are constantly being shoved out the window head first,
    without so much as a pension plan, by younger hotshot cells moving up from
    below.
    -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"

    - this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...

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