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Some of the 3-D films

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Author	Topic: Some of the 3-D films

John C Winfrey Standard Userer	Before Cinerama and later things came out, some of the 3-D and gimmick films were kind of interesting. Some of them include putting on the glasses. Looking at some of them later on on regular TV you can tell some of them are made for 3-D because of the screen effect. For example, those Three Stooges ones in the 50s. Everything comes into the camera. Example: "Knives are silent" and he throws it into the camera lens and so on. He turns on the bahnsen burner and the flame comes into the camera. He squirts oil on the camera lens and so on. Here are some of them I recall from back then: The Mask(1963) when Paul Stevens puts his mask on you put yours on Thirteen Ghosts-Castle film. If you believe in ghosts you look through one color, if you dont you looked through the other color. LOL. Gorilla At Large-several years back in this area they gave out the glasses and we tried to do this on our TVs. It didnt work too well. And several others including a film in the 60s about skin diving for treasure and sharks with Mark Stevens. One of the last major films with this before Cinerama. J.
posted 04-18-2006 12:08 AM PT (US)

Lou Goldberg Standard Userer	I had the opportunity to see a lot of 3-D films at a special series. Inferno is not a great film but it looked AMAZING in 3D. Blew me away. had a score by Paul Sawtell too. Come to think of it, few of the 3D films are that good, but the process itself produces a real spectacle. I saw Gorilla at Large, The Mad Magician, Miss Sadie Thompson, Dial M for Murder, House of Wax, Phantom of the Rue Morgue, the Stooges shorts, and others.
posted 05-12-2006 09:20 AM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Standard Userer	Of all those you listed I liked House of Wax the best. And Buttolph's score is pretty good too. J.
posted 05-13-2006 09:24 AM PT (US)

Lou Goldberg Standard Userer	I saw The Mask projected as well but at a different event. It's only partially 3-D. With that gimmick: Put on the Mask, Put on the Mask. And when the character puts it on, that's when you put on your glasses and see his vision in 3-D. It's a B&W Canadian film from the early 60s and so it's a bit off from the main Hollywood films. I've also seen Creature from the Black Lagoon which has an underwater 3-D sequence and some neat Russian 3-D films and things like the Arch Oboler film from the 60s with Deborah Walley about a giant bubble jail whose name escapes me right now. I've seen Bwana Devil and I've seen a few 3-D films like The Maze "flat" that is not in 3-D. There are 3-D IMAX films now with a process that tops any of this older stuff. It's such a tough balance. If you go to a 3-D film you want the gimmick, things coming out of the screen at you. But those don't really work as films. The one of two times they tried to integrate a real drama with the effect, it worked if you kept the towards you stuff to a minimum and just used the depth effect where you look into the space in depth. Dial M for Murder was based on a stageplay and takes place mostly in one room and even though things come out at you the main effect is the feeling of looking into the room as if you are looking into a stage setting. Still, the two best things I ever saw in a 3-D film: the very opening of Inferno, you pan around this desert landscape looking deep into it and then you pan into a road sign that comes up right into your face, the whole audience gasped, Woah. Wow. A ballroom set in Phantom of the Rue Morgue, lots of depth into the background and from the ceiling they drop balloons which come down more or less in front of you. But if you're looking for a real drama, the process and your expectations of it probably get in the way. I mean I suppose you could do a film like Ben-Hur in 3-D but (even if Wyler loved Deep Focus) you wouldn't want him to do The Best Years of Our Lives in the process.
posted 05-13-2006 12:04 PM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Standard Userer	I caught part of the Bwana Devil on TV a few years ago. What a funny film. The gorilla scenes were really funny and one scene really cracked me up where the gorilla is throwing men around like rag dolls. Yes those gimmicks are quite funny. J.
posted 05-13-2006 06:46 PM PT (US)

Graham Watt Standard Userer	Back when I was a teen in Scotland, they used to do Sunday showings of old movies on the big screen. One of them was HOUSE OF WAX. That bit near the end when Charles Bronson lurches out of the foreground was a great moment - it was obviously planned so that we would think that the guy in the row in front had just got up out his seat, and that is indeed what I thought for a second. Also fun was when the guy is outside the waxworks pinging his balls at the audience (don't try this at home, kids). And you're right John, the Buttolph score is pretty good - there's even a touch of the Leonard Rosenmans in the string section. Or at least that's what I think. True, many of those films were fairly standard fare, or even weak, but the 3D effects were fun at the time. Makes me wonder if there was ever a gimmick which was used really artistically, or is that a contradiction?
posted 05-14-2006 03:28 PM PT (US)

Dylan Standard Userer	Around 10-11 years ago I saw "Creature from the Black Lagoon," "It Came from Outer Space," and "The Maze" in 3-D (what a silly film, The Maze; remember when the frog jumps off the balcony? I laughed for hours afterwards).
posted 05-14-2006 05:21 PM PT (US)

Ken S Standard Userer	And dont forget JAWS 3-D, in which all the money in the budget went to those lame 3-D effects ...resulting that they couldn't afford a good swimming shark effect into the climax... ("the miniature rubber shark is going to hit us!") KEN NP. haaaaaaaaaaaard rock halleeelujaaaaaah [Message edited by Ken S on 05-22-2006]
posted 05-22-2006 11:43 AM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Standard Userer	Graham, yes I like that pingpong sequence in House of Wax a lot. i recall that part. J.
posted 05-22-2006 09:21 PM PT (US)

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