The Jonas Bros. rock out in 3D.
Have your eyes popped at a 3-D movie yet this year? Chances are they will. Maybe you winced and ducked as body parts flew at you in My Bloody Valentine 3-D or felt like you were crawling between surreal worlds along with the young heroine of Coraline. Whatever your preference, the technology has come a long way since the days of those chintzy anaglyph red-and-blue glasses—at least on the big screen. That’s exciting news for studios, which have a vested interest in luring butts off living room couches and into theaters. Since the realistic-looking Real D effects currently used in multiplexes can’t be replicated at home just yet, it’s not surprising that there will be at least nine 3-D movies in theaters this year, including the upcoming Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience, Monsters Vs. Aliens and Final Destination 4.
Theaters have shown 3-D screenings as far back as 1922, but they really began to embrace the third dimension starting in 1952 with Bwana Devil. Vincent Price became typecast as 3-D’s go-to guy with starring roles in House of Wax, The Mad Magician, Dangerous Mission and Son of Sinbad. Soon other types of films were jumping on the bandwagon, including the MGM musical Kiss Me, Kate, John Wayne’s Hondo, Rita Hayworth’s Miss Sadie Thompson and Money From Home with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Creature from the Black Lagoon became one of the most famous 3-D movies and its sequel, 1955’s Revenge of the Creature, marked the end of 3-D’s golden era.
Those stylin’ 3-D glasses might be the oldest and most enduring movie gimmick in the annals of cinema history, but there have been other, often laughable attempts at expanding the theater experience. For that, director William Castle should be given a posthumous lifetime achievement award. During the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, Castle cooked up various well-publicized stunts for his barrage of B-movies. Moviegoers who checked out his Macabre got a $1,000 life-insurance policy from Lloyd’s of London in case he or she died of fright during the film. To up the ante, fake nurses were stationed in the lobbies and hearses were parked outside the venues. For The House on Haunted Hill, an inflatable glow-in-the-dark skeleton soared over the audience on a wire during a key scene (if shown today, it would be a moving Goobers target). Castle also provided special Illusion-O glasses for 13 Ghosts so that patrons could block out ghosts on-screen if they became too frightened.
Castle’s most memorable stunt is still for 1959’s The Tingler, starring Vincent Price. Filmed in what Castle called “Percepto,” The Tingler was about an otherwise harmless critter that lived in the spine and became agitated by fright. The only way to kill it was to scream, which Castle tried to get audiences to do by rigging some seats with large joy buzzers that were activated when a voice announced, “Scream for your lives!” The effect garnered more giggles than shrieks, but Castle left his mark, sometimes literally, on audiences.
In the ‘70s disaster movies reigned, and 1974’s Earthquake really made the earth move thanks to Sensurround. For the film’s premiere in Los Angeles, giant subwoofers on steroids were installed at the Chinese Theater that shook the venue when the ground split open on-screen, causing one guy to suffer a cracked rib due to the boosted booming. The risky gimmick got shelved after 1977’s Rollercoaster.
Director John Waters didn’t invent scratch-and-sniff cinema (producer Mike Todd Jr. used Smell-O-Vision in 1960 for Scent of Mystery), but the Pope of Trash took it to stinky extremes for his 1981 feature Polyester starring Divine and Tab Hunter. Moviegoers were handed Odorama cards when entering the theater and were instructed to scratch and sniff the numbers on the cards when the corresponding number flashed on-screen. Then they got a whiff of gas fumes, skunk, dirty shoes, pizza and more. The cards became sought-after collectibles on Ebay until, in 2001, the movie was released on DVD with a miniature Odorama card included.
Most movie-gimmick gamblers smelled success with 3-D, however, and the format enjoyed a resurgence in the ‘80s, when it was employed to inject life into the third film in a franchise (think Friday the 13th Part 3, Amityville 3-D and Jaws 3-D). Ultimately though, 3-D was largely relegated to IMAX theaters until more recently with the success of movies like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Monster House, Beowulf and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Those movies, and the ones currently in theaters, use new polarized glasses that provide clear images and true color, unlike the glasses of yore. The next installments of Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Cars and Toy Story will all jump to 3-D as well as James Cameron’s anticipated sci-fi epic Avatar. If the King of the World is embracing 3-D, it’s now officially the one gimmick to have graduated to mainstream acceptance. Somewhere in another dimension, Price, Castle and other gimmick pioneers smile down at us—no glasses needed.
Robert DeSalvo is the associate editor of Playboy magazine, where he oversees the movie and DVD sections in addition to interviewing celebrities, filmmakers and Playmates and contributing articles to Playboy.com. The L.A.-based writer has written for Movieline, Contents, The Holland Herald and others.
Send feedback on this column to
editorial@fandango.com.