Audience Watching Bwana Devil

3D Glasses Used for Bwana Devil

History

Early patents and tests

The stereoscopic era of motion pictures began in the late 1890s when British film pioneer William Friese-Greene filed a patent for a 3-D movie process. In his patent, two films were
projected side by side on screen. The viewer looked through a stereoscope to converge the two images. Because of the obtrusive mechanics behind this method, theatrical use was not practical.^[1]
Frederick Eugene Ives patented his stereo camera rig in 1900. The camera had two lenses coupled together 1 3/4 inches apart.^[2]
On June 10, 1915, Edwin S. Porter and William E. Waddell presented tests to an audience at the Astor Theater in New York City. In red-green anaglyph, the audience was presented three reels of tests, which included rural scenes, test shots of Marie Doro, a segment of John Mason playing a number of passages from Jim the Penman (a film released by Famous Players-Lasky that year, but not in 3-D), Oriental dancers, and a reel of footage of Niagara Falls.^[3] However, according to Adolph Zukor in his 1953 autobiography The Public Is Never Wrong: My 50 Years in the Motion Picture Industry, nothing was produced in this process after these tests.

Early systems of stereoscopic filmmaking (pre-1952)

The earliest confirmed 3-D film shown to a paying audience was The Power of Love, which premiered at the Ambassador Hotel Theater in Los Angeles on September 27, 1922. The camera rig was a product of the film's producer, Harry K. Fairall, and cinematographer Robert F. Elder.^[1] It was projected dual-strip in the red/green anaglyph format, making it
both the earliest known film that utilized dual strip projection and
the earliest known film in which anaglyph glasses were used.^[4]tinted prints is unknown, but it is the first documented instance of
dual-strip projection. After a preview for exhibitors and press in New York City, the film dropped out of sight, apparently not booked by exhibitors, and is now considered lost. Whether Fairall used colored filters on the projection ports or whether he used
Early in December 1922, William Van Doren Kelley cashed in on the growing interest in 3-D films started by Fairall's
demonstration and shot footage with a camera system of his own design.
Kelley then struck a deal with Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel to premiere the first in his series of "Plasticon" shorts entitled Movies of the Future at the Rivoli Theater in New York City .^[5]
Kelley, who was primarily a producer of color films, used his color system, Prizma, to print his anaglyph films. In early 1923, he shopped around a second Plasticon entitled Through the Trees - Washington D.C., shot by William T. Crespinel, which consisted of stereoscopic views of Washington, D.C., but found no buyers. ^[5]

Also in December 1922, Laurens Hammond (later inventor of the Hammond organ) and William F. Cassidy unveiled their Televiewpersistence of vision,
thereby creating a true stereoscopic image. The only theater known to
have installed this system was the Selwyn Theater in New York. Only one
show was ever produced for the system, a groups of shorts and the only
Teleview feature The Man From M.A.R.S. (later re-released as Radio-Mania) on 27 December 1922 in New York City.^[6] system. Teleview was the earliest alternate-frame sequencing form of
projection. Through the use of two interlocked projectors, alternating
left/right frames were projected one after another in rapid succession.
Synchronized viewers attached to the arm-rests of the seats in the
theater open and closed at the same time, and took advantage of the
viewer's
In 1923, Frederick Eugene Ives and Jacob Leventhal began releasing
their first stereoscopic shorts made over a three-year period. The
first film entitled, Plastigrams, which was distributed nationally by Educational Pictures in the red/blue anaglyph format. Ives and Leventhal then went on to
produce the following stereoscopic shorts in the "Stereoscopiks Series"
for Pathé Films in 1925: Zowie (April 10), Luna-cy (May 18), The Run-Away Taxi (December 17) and Ouch^[7] (December 17).
The late 1920s to early 1930s saw little to no interest in stereoscopic pictures, largely due to the Great Depression. In Paris, Louis LumiereL'Arrivée du Train, this time in anaglyphic 3-D. shot footage with his stereoscopic camera in September 1933. The
following year, in March 1934, he premiered his remake of his 1895 film
In 1936, Leventhal and John Norling were hired based on their test footage to film MGM's Audioscopiks series. The prints were by Technicolor in the red/green anaglyph format, and were narrated by Pete Smith. The first film, Audioscopiks, premiered January 11, 1936The New Audioscopiks premiered January 15, 1938. AudioscopiksAcademy Award for Short Film - Novelty in 1936. and was nominated for the
With the success of the two Audioscopiks films, MGM produced one
more short in anaglyph 3-D, another Pete Smith Specialty called Third Dimensional Murder (1941). Unlike its predecessors, this short was shot with a
studio-built camera rig. Prints were by Technicolor in red/blue
anaglyph. The short is notable for being one of the few live-action
appearances of the Frankenstein Monster as conceived by Jack PierceUniversal Studios outside of their company. for
While many of these films were printed by color systems, none of
them was actually in color, and the use of the color printing was only
to achieve an anaglyph effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_movies