I have to admit that I just loved those 3D films released in the early / mid fifties – and I have looked it up online and there are as many as 62 of them released between 1953 and 1956.
The craze died away as quickly as it had come and I don’t know why because some of the films were very profitable indeed.
One of my own favourites was ‘The Phantom of the Rue Morgue’ with Karl Malden but I didn’t get to see any of these films until later – maybe into the early sixties when the odd one – such as this one – came round again.
Many of the films I have seen later in normal format – for instance Hitchcock’s ‘ Dial M for Murder’ was made in 3 D but I doubt many of us ever saw it that way. I for one wish that I had.
House of Wax was one of the biggest hits of 1953 – made at a cost of 1 million dollars it earned 23.75 million dollars worldwide – where as ‘Dial M For Murder’ was again successful but with a much lower success at 6 million dollars
Devil’s Canyon 1953
House of Wax
Now let me pose something for comment and maybe correction, but I have looked through the list of these films and it seems to me that there were no 3D films made in England during that period when they were so popular – and I wonder why.
One film which depicts England – Well Scotland in fact – was ‘The Maze’ a real favourite of mine – set in an eerie Scottish Castle that hid a dark secret, we only learned of the truth in the final minutes of the film.
I liked ‘The Maze’ – here again though, I have seen it but never in 3 D
The Maze – with an interesting second feature
More 3D features – never heard of either ABOVE.
The Atom Bomb Doom Town film is about the Nevada A Bomb tests
The only 3D film I remember seeing at the cinema was, “Kiss Me Kate”, in the mid fifties.
I clearly recall having to duck when a banana came out of the screen & nearly hit me!
Unfortunately I remember little else about the film!
Philip. Many Thanks for that comment. It shows that it was the 3D effect from the film that you remember. I remember in ‘The Phantom of the Rue Morgue’ there was a knife thrower in a circus and you can imagine how that was done. Also another sequence when a man kills someone by throwing a large boulder at the person, as they bend down in a small boat. Again you just know that we will be looking straight into the hurtling boulder. I liked 3 D. Neil