Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Please Put On Your Special Cardboard Glasses #2

From Ryan Leasher:
Hey, Bill...minor nitpick with the 3D post. There were plenty of 3D movies in the 50s that used dual interlocked 35mm projectors and polarized 3D glasses rather than the single strip crap anaglyph with the colored lenses. In your post it really sounds as though the 3D films of the 50s--arguably the Golden Age of 3D--were all anaglyph when many (even most, I believe) were actually polarized and damn well done at that.

I've seen some very interesting 3D films but the one that stands out is one called "Doom Town" from 1953. This 13 minute short is a documentary of sorts showing in stereo viewing of the effects of a nuclear blast. Surreal to say the least.

Ryan is right. Ironically, this was one of the few things in the post I didn't check because I was "sure" I knew that part of the history (and I should have known better).

Good things come out of dumb things, though (in my case, all the time). The Wikipedia entry for 3-D film is fascinating, and has a ton of historical information.

Among other things I discovered in that entry, I never knew that "Kiss Me Kate" and "Dial M For Murder" were both filmed in 3-D. And there's a nice explanation for why 3-D originally failed: technical complexity, not quality.

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