Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I am missing this whole damn thing, but even Harry has decided to catch a few of the films. Anybody at the Egyptian on Sunday the 21st might want to keep their eyes open for our very own Grande Rojo. In the meantime, check out this excellent report by AB...
More Info from The World 3-D Film Expo
I thought SPY KIDS 3-D was a fun movie, but if that's what you're judging 3D by, you've got another thing coming. Everything in the 1950s, and everything at the Expo (almost the same thing) was projected with a separate projector for each eye using polarized lenses to direct the correct images to the appropriate eyes. The system's hardly been used since, so most of us (people reading this website - not, by far the mostly older crowd who's here!) have never had an opportunity to see it.
There's no ghosting, and because two projectors are used (along with a more reflective screen), the picture isn't any dimmer or blurrier than anything else you'd see in a theater. In fact, since many of these are brand new prints, they look substantially better. Don't knock 'til you try it, really. It doesn't look any worse than anything you've seen in a normal theater, but it's in 3D.
At the souvenir stand (or their website) they have cardboard, plastic ("birth control" as they say in the military), and (my favorite) big-ass clip-on 3D glasses. If you already wear glasses, the clip-ons are great because you can just leave them on and not worry about losing or breaking them (or getting popcorn butter on them). You might look a bit geekier than normal, but if you're watching five shows in one day, that ship, my friend, has sailed.
Day Two: Very Special Guests
The second day was long. It may end up being the longest day (unless next Saturday beats it). Five features, three shorts, and a bunch of wonderful guests.
GORILLA AT LARGE
Looking at the title, you expect the movie to be about a Gorilla running around causing trouble. That's about right, but the movie's better than I expected. Not that that matters much for the task at hand - we're here to see 3D.
The real joy of it though was the mindblowing new print. It was just jawdropping. Ask anyone who was there. The color was so good and the picture so pure it looked like it was brand new - which the print, at least, was. So far, if I had to pick one of these to show people how great 3D looks, this'd be the one.
Warren Stevens was there to talk about the movie. Most of the rest of the cast, believe it or not, were Oscar or Emmy nominated or winning actors (not for this film, though), and were probably too busy or dead to show up.
GORILLA AT LARGE was available at some point as an anaglyph on video.
ADVENTURES OF SAM SPACE
Next up was a stop-motion animation. It had been restored from a collector's print and looked pretty good for it's age.
It had originally been made to play with a movie from the 50's (they said which, but I don't remember- let's guess CAT-WOMEN since that's where it's shown), but wasn't released until 1960, and then in 2D.
CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON
I've got the anaglyphic tape of this, which is hardly in 3D at all. Big surprise - the movie was originally in decent 3D. Still not a masterpiece of modern literature, but it looked really good here. After the movie, the "Queen of the Cat-Women", Carol Brewster, came out to talk. She was a lot of fun, and ended every story with "So what else ya wanna know?" No, she didn't wear the costume.
GOG
This one was a big surprise to me. All I knew was it had a killer robot in it. Turns out it's got some pretty good science, and the labs and equipment look like vintage 1950s gear to me. We were throwing away stuff that looked just like that in the Physics Department at Purdue a few years ago. Really.
The left eye print was really faded. It had turned nearly pink. The right eye print looked great, though, and the effect was pretty good as a result. For video purposes, it could be cleaned up digitally, but that's about as good as it's going to get on film without some big bucks.
The movie might have been shown at the Paramount theater in LA in 3D (there was some argument in the lobby about whether it really had or not), but certainly hadn't anywhere else ever as far as anyone knew. We were the first in 50 years to see it properly, and, if they don't save that print, we'll be the last. :-(
There are supposedly alternating-field copies out there on video. Don't know where they came from or how good they are. It's out in a nice 2D copy and is shown on Turner sometimes.
The director Herbert L. Strock, and one of the actors, William Schallert were on hand to talk about the movie. Strock talked about the writers being big science nerds (thought so), and him mostly going along with it even when he didn't get it.
KISS ME KATE
You might've seen this one flat. I hadn't, and was glad to finally see the show I'd heard the songs from since I was a kid. The sound was even in stereo.
This print was in really good shape, but was missing some off the left edge. I guess the recent video copies are the same way. The reason is that the people who copied/transferred it skipped the space where the audio goes, but it was recorded separately and the whole width was used for picture. Older LDs are right.
This was recently released on DVD in 2D. I don't know of any 3D video versions.
After the movie, two of the main actors, Kathryn Grayson and Tommy Rall were on hand. Oddly (and incorrectly) they both insisted they had to do scenes twice, once for 2D and once for 3D. Hey, you can't remember everything fifty years later.
IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
The last feature of the night was IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, in 3D (of course) and 3-channel stereo sound. Best of all, the special guests (before the movie) were Kathleen Hughes, Forrest Ackerman, and Ray Bradbury!
Ray was in a wheelchair, but answered questions readily. I'd always wondered if he was happy with the way the movie turned out. I didn't have to ask because he answered it for us in his recollection of the making of the film. He says they shouldn't have shown the aliens, and if they'd let him cut that 30 seconds or so out, he'd approve of the film wholeheartedly.
The print wasn't in great shape, and there was some mismatch between the left and right sides that was a little distracting, but it was pretty good. The sound was being played from a computer in sync with the film because the film copies didn't have the stereo tracks.
The movie was put out as an anaglyph on VHS back in the '80s or so.
NAT KING COLE WITH RUSS MORGAN'S ORCHESTRA
But wait, there's more! Last thing of the night was this short which was originally shown after IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE as it was here. Nice little variety show bit with the orchestra playing, Cole singing, dancers dancing a mock bullfight, and some acrobats doing crazy flips and stuff.
Just Getting Started
That's the best I can do here after the fact. Should've written it up sooner, but as you'll see, the next day was only a little shorter. It's an amazing thing, and you really should come down and take a look.
Only DIAL M FOR MURDER is sold out of the shows that haven't played yet, and standby people have been getting in, so even that's worth a shot.
GORILLA AT LARGE actually played on AMC this week as an anaglyph, but I remember in the ‘80s, they showed in on TV in 3-D, and you could buy your glasses for it at 7-11. I wish they did that more now. That was fun. Anyway...
The third day was another long one. The schedule is five short days with two shows and five long ones with five. One of the things that makes it easier to see so many shows in one day is the intermissions.
Because two projectors are used simultaneously to show the 3D, they can't change over to another projector to keep the show running continuously. This gives us about a ten minute intermission about an hour into each show. Some of them aren't timed well in terms of the story, but it makes it easy to get a chance to hit the restroom.
On the other hand, they apparently didn't take these intermissions into account when they drew up the schedule, so the "meal breaks" are pretty short. Also the Q&A sessions tend to make things run longer, so there's a lot of running around between screenings.
Day Three: Bits and Pieces and Bits and Pieces and...
On paper, it's five shows, but one is made of shorts, and another has a bunch of trailers. Add in the features and shorts, and it's a lot of material in one sitting.
STARDUST IN YOUR EYES
This short was originally made to show in front of ROBOT MONSTER, but was probably never shown until the Expo. It's comedian Slick Slaven doing a bit were he impersonates stars of the day (most of whom are still famous). Looks like it was shot in one take out in a parking lot or something. In fact, an interesting thing happens.
He's barely into his bit when we hear a jet flying overhead. The picture cuts away to stock footage of a jet and Slaven says "Hey, what's that doing here? And it's not even in three dimensions! Bye-bye 2-D!" and then it cuts back to his act. We were guessing a jet really did fly over and they patched it instead of reshooting. Probably funnier this way anyway.
ROBOT MONSTER
Yes, that ROBOT MONSTER. This is out in as an anaglyph on VHS, and it looks awful there. I was startled to see how good the 3D really was originally. It's still the same movie, though, which might be enough to keep some people away.
My favorite line from the tape, which always sounded like a bad dub anyway ("Hmmm, maybe I could get a date with the girl.") wasn't in the original print. Wonder when they added that?
Joe Dante was on hand to introduce a special guest: Ro-Man! Apparently he's in the new Looney Toons movie. The new Ro-Man suit looked really nice and probably cost a lot more than ROBOT MONSTER did. They really should've played his theme song when he walked out, though. That's my favorite part of the movie.
FLIGHT TO TANGIER
Man, this one looked great. But what the heck is up with that story? It opens like some kind of thriller, and a lot of people risk their lives to do... something... for... some reason. I talked to some guys who'd seen it before and they didn't really get it either.
Looked swell in 3D, though, and had some big names in it.
NOW IS THE TIME (TO PUT ON YOUR GLASSES)
This was the first of five shorts shown under the heading "Stereo-Techniques", which were run together back in the fifties. Four of them had previously been run together in England a few years earlier and probably inspired Hollywood to get interested in 3D in the first place.
This one was an animation of simple colored drawings. A field of clouds below and a bunch of suns above gave a sense of perspective and then a blobby ink stickman came out and flew around and stretched into different shapes. I've seen worse animation demos.
A SOLID EXPLANATION
This one was fun. A professor type comes on screen to explain the wonders of stereoscopic film. His talk is intercut with zoo footage that he comments on. It was funny and the photography was great, but it would have been a lot better in color.
THE BLACK SWAN
A ballet number staged for film and shot in 3D. Ballet's a good choice for 3D because it's like seeing a live performance. This looked great and was in crisp black and white.
ROYAL RIVER
Nice color footage of England in and around the Thames with a voiceover reading poetry. I imagine this was a showstopper back in 1951, and it looks pretty darn good today too.
AROUND IS AROUND (IS AROUND IS A FILM)
An early electronic animation made from oscilloscope traces. Pretty clever for people who didn't have computers to animate for them. It also showed things that wouldn't have made sense flat, so it was a pretty good 3D demo. If you can't picture what I mean, it mostly consisted of coily-looking things spinning, which in 2D would've looked like wavy things wiggling.
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON
You might've seen a murky anaglyph of this. It looks a lot better when projected properly. There were quite a few scenes that had serious brightness mismatches between the eyes, so it was harder to watch than it should've been. Too bad they couldn't have made a new print of this one, because there's some wonderful stuff here - especially underwater.
Julie Adams was on hand to talk about the movie. She was yet another actress who when asked about the difference between acting in 2D and 3D films said that you have to be careful what you stick at the camera with a gesture toward her breasts. We must've heard this four times already, and it always gets a big laugh. (And it's true too.)
3-D TRAILERS
Next we got a bunch of 3D trailers. Some are on the DVD for the show, others were scrounged up at the last minute. Might've been nice (and sold more tickets), if they'd sprinkled these throughout the week.
CHARGE AT FEATHER RIVER
A Western with a high body count, which means a lot of arrows, spears, and guns pointed at the audience! Moved along nicely as a story, too.
This film, like a lot of these, shows a shortcoming of production techniques used. They couldn't get stock footage that was in 3D, so scenes that used it were flat. They also didn't try (it would've been tough) to do any process (rear-projection, etc.) shots with 3D footage.
The results were sometimes quite good (and always interesting) anyway with 3D action in front of a 2D background. I didn't see it as a problem, but some people thought it was funny (or that they were really cool for noticing it and to make a lot of noise so everyone else would know how cool they are too). I guess for all the complaints about CGI, it's all that will make some people shut the hell up.
A Brief Pause
The next couple of days have fewer shows. That's make an easier schedule if I weren't a glutton for punishment and heading to the Cinerama Dome for a couple of shows tomorrow.
There's still time to come on down and see some 3D. Put The Mask On Now and walk to the Egyptiannnnn...
ab
Great work, man, and it sounds like you’re having a blast.
"Moriarty" out.
