INSIDE OUT, a computer-animated feature from Disney-Pixar, is one of the season’s very best theatrical releases: a dazzlingly original must-see treat. It also is the latest major film to be made available theatrically in 3-D. To be sure, 3-D is not a new technology. Experiments in 3-D date from the early 20th-century and, at the dawn of the 1950s, 3-D feature films produced in Hollywood became fashionable and marketable.
Flicker Alley, a company which specializes in unusual, fascinating older films, recently released to home entertainment 3-D RARITIES, which it appropriately describes as “a collection of 22 ultra-rare and stunningly restored 3-D films.” As you view them, you can trace the development of 3-D as well as get a glimpse of our world and our culture as they were at specific points in history.
The earliest images in 3-D RARITIES date from 1922 and 1923 and were produced by a company called Plasticon Pictures, which promised to allow viewers to enter a “third dimension.” Content-wise, they were nothing more than shots of Times Square and Washington DC monuments. These images are included, it seems, primarily for historical purposes.
By far the more attention-grabbing material in 3-D RARITIES came out of the 1940s and 1950s, as the technology became more highly developed. Several are promotional films. One example, which dates from 1940, is titled THRILLS FOR YOU and was produced by the Pennsylvania Railroad. THRILLS FOR YOU offers up a textbook example of what then was “modernism in rail transportation.” Today, it allows a glimpse into what cross-country travel was like back in the day.
Another promotional film, which dates from 1952, spotlights what then was a new kind of camera: a Bolex Stereo, to be used for the filming of “three-dimensional movies.” Here, you really get a sense of what the world was like in 1952. For one thing, the post-war economy allowed Americans to purchase the latest technology: a Bolex Stereo movie camera. As illustrated, this camera could be taken on vacations to Haiti, Hawaii, New York City, or anywhere. Yet at the same time the male was always in charge, and we are privy to what then was the perfectly acceptable concept of the “male gaze” of the female form. Also, as we see Haitian or Hawaiian blue collar workers agreeably smiling for the tourists who were filming them, and who were on vacations that they never could afford, well... this film is a history lesson as it reflects the sense of the Caucasian superiority that in 1952 was unquestioningly accepted here in the U.S.
3-D also was combined with animation. In 1940, a film titled NEW DIMENSIONS, produced by the Chrysler Corporation and described as a “three-dimensional Polaroid film in color,” visualized the construction of a car. Then in the early 1950s, Norman McLaren, a pioneering animator best recalled for his work with the National Film Board of Canada, also worked in 3-D-- and the dazzling, eye-popping animated shorts included in 3-D RARITIES are proof-positive that innovative animation does not only exist today. Indeed, the creations of McLaren and his fellow National Film Board animators are lots of fun. As you watch them, it is hard to believe that they were produced over six decades ago.
3-D RARITIES includes coming attractions for a number of the early 1950s Hollywood features shot in 3-D. At the time, movie attendance was nosediving, and these trailers are examples of how the industry was marketing the technology in an effort to lure viewers away from their TV sets and back into theaters. (Finally, 3-D RARITIES can be watched in a 3-D version. To see it in this format, you’ll need a 3-D HDTV, comparable 3-D glasses, a Blue-ray 3-D Player or Playstation 3 System, and a High-Speed HDMI cable. If these are unavailable, the film may be seen in a Blu-ray version which can be viewed on any Blu-ray player.