Wow - Sixty years later and this is STILL one of the best shot 3-D movies to date.Bob Furmanek said:Sixty years ago today, Warner Bros. premiered one of the greatest 3-D movies of all time: HOUSE OF WAX, starring Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk, Carolyn Jones, Paul Picerni and Charles Buchinsky (a.k.a. Bronson.) Directed by Andre DeToth and produced by Bryan Foy, it told the story of a crazed sculptor seeking revenge for the fiery destruction of his wax museum.
And back then, premieres were true events!Bob Furmanek said:The gala world premiere took place on April 10, 1953 at the magnificent 3,600 seat Paramount Theatre on Times Square. All the stars from the film were there, and the film proved to be a tremendous moneymaker for the studio. Boosting ticket sales was the stage show headlined by RCA recording star Eddie Fisher, making his first appearance back from a tour of duty in Korea. He performed such hits as "Any Time," "I'm Walking Behind You," "Wish You Were Here" and "Tell Me Why." The bobbysoxers lined up for hours to see the popular crooner, and filled the massive theatre for six shows a day!
I know! I wonder how many more tickets his review sold? I certainly would have made a bee line to the theater to see and hear for myself if I hadn't planned to go earlier.Bob Furmanek said:I feel the same way, Matt. After I read his comments, I thought: "I've GOT to hear this!"
Crowther was one of the very few critics who didn't like Lawrence of Arabia.Bob Furmanek said:I sure hope so. Here's an idea of what the directional sound was like on WAX, according to Bosley Crowther, a man who never saw a 3-D movie he liked:
Yes, Stereovision did have an over/under, almost a Techniscope frame, as all 6 of the Earl Owensby 3D movies of the early to mid 1980's were shot with Chris Condon's lenses. The quality of the glass in the lenses (a single lens mount with side-by-side lenses) was poor.pinknik said:I believe Bob is referring to the Stereovision side-by-side format that was used to film THE STEWARDESSES. It had an anamorphic squeeze, but still only managed a 1.37:1 aspect ratio. I think Stereovision eventually had a system that was also over/under for a 2.35:1 projection ratio, as did Arrivision and several others. These systems would have been used for the whole 80's 3-D revival including Comin' at Ya!, Friday the 13th III, Amityville Horror 3-D, Jaws 3-D, etc. All the examples of 80's 3-D films that I've seen transferred to HD (Jaws 3-D and Friday the 13th) seem to suffer in comparison to that still of The Bubble. Dunno if that's down to optics or what. An old Starlog book had an interview with Murray Lerner who made Sea Dream with the Spacevision system. It has a quote from him saying that of all the 3-D systems he did test footage with, Spacevision's was the sharpest. Andy Warhol's Frankenstein was also shot with Spacevision, and I assume that Oboler's Domo Arigato may have been as well. There are some good movies out on blu-ray 3D right now, but I'm most excited about some of these older features finally showing up. I can finally retire some of my old field sequential, um, "found" DVD's.