Through the years with 3-D films
It’s hard to evaluate what the best 3-D movies might be, as the definition of the format has changed over the years, but here are a few milestones in the now half-century- long effort to make things fly off the screen and into your eyeglasses.
• HOUSE OF WAX(1953)— Warner Bros.’ response to the 3-D landmark “Bwana Devil” was directed by the great, eye-patch- wearing Andre de Toth, who was blind in one eye and thus couldn’t experience the effects of his own three-dimensional horror-thriller. Vincent Price starred as the maddened killer whose museum displays his paraffin-coated victims.
• GORILLA AT LARGE (1954) — For a cheesily titled entry into the 3-D canon, this mystery boasted quite the cast, including Anne Bancroft, Lee J. Cobb, Raymond Burr and Lee Marvin. Fortunately for them, the flick is remembered best for its special effects.
• DIALMFOR MURDER (1954) — Using 3-D sparingly, Alfred Hitchcock created an intricately plotted thriller in which a jealous and homicidal Ray Milland plots the ruination of his adulterous wife (Grace Kelly) and her lover (Robert Cummings). Interest in 3-D faded, though, and a 2-D version was released.
• THE STEWARDESSES (1969) — 3-D didn’t die after the ’50s, exactly, but new inventions were required to further the cause. This soft-core sex comedy used Stereovision (a single strip of 35 mm film on which two images were squeezed side by side). The film played a long time in certain markets, but it probably wasn’t because of 3-D. A remake was reportedly planned for this year.
• HELL’S PIT (2004) — Music video by Insane Clown Posse becomes the first 3-D film shot in high-definition video.
• THE POLAR EXPRESS (2004) — Ambitious but cast with creepy characters, Robert Zemeckis’ Christmas movie was released as IMAX’s first full-length, animated 3-D feature, and the returns from the 66 IMAX theaters accounted for 25 percent of the returns from a total of 3,584 2-D theaters. Hence the industry enthusiasm for more 3-D. — Newsday
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