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As
soon as the 'gelatin dry plate' process of photography had replaced the
'wet collodion' process in the 1870s, the search was on for a lighter and
less fragile support than glass. Methods involving peeling the gelatin emulsion
from paper and other flexible backings were tried but all proved unreliable.
The first experiments at using celluloid as a film backing were by French
photographers David and Fortier, and by Waterhouse in England but the methods
were difficult and the film too uneven and streaky for photographic use.
John Carbutt, an English photographer who had emigrated to America, set
up the Keystone Dry Plate Works in 1879 to manufacture gelatin dry plates.
He persuaded the Celluloid Manufacturing Co. to produce a thin celluloid
film which was sufficiently transparent. They did this by slicing a thin
layer from a block of celluloid - this was then pressed between heated polished
plates to remove the slicing marks. Carbutt started to manufacture cut film
using this material sometime before1888, but it was slow to catch on. Two
key events which would make celluloid film a necessity had yet to happen
- roll film cameras and motion pictures.
Independently, Rev. Hannibal Goodwin had also devised a process for making
celluloid film and applied for a patent in 1887, but for various reasons
the patent was not granted until 1898. In the meantime, George Eastman had
started production of rollfilm using his own process. It was eventually
ruled that Kodak had infringed Goodwin's patent which by then had been sold
to Anthony & Scovill (Ansco) after Goodwin's death as a result of an
accident just as he was starting a company to manufacture his film.
Both
the zoetrope and phenakistiscope provided the break in the images by the black
space between adjacent slits in the disc or drum. However, this design was
adapted by Emile Reynaud in Paris in 1877 to form the praxinoscope. It used
a drum, just as the zoetrope had, with the
images drawn on a band placed around the inside of the cylinder. However,
rather than having slits through which the images were viewed, the cartoon
strip was reflected in a series of mirrors, mounted in a ring set halfway
between the outer edge of the drum and the central axle (see the picture below).
When the drum was spun, the viewer watched the progression of images in the
mirrors. A candle set above the axle allowed the images to be seen more clearly.
The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device. Though not
a movie projector—it was designed for films to be viewed individually
through the window of a cabinet housing its components—the Kinetoscope
introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic
projection before the advent of video: it creates the illusion of movement
by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a
light source with a high-speed shutter. First described in conceptual terms
by U.S. inventor Thomas Edison in 1888, it was largely developed by his
employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson between 1889 and 1892. Dickson and
his team at the 
Edison
lab also devised the Kinetograph, an innovative motion picture camera with
rapid intermittent, or stop-and-go, film movement, to photograph movies
for in-house experiments and, eventually, commercial Kinetoscope presentations.
In April 1894, the first commercial exhibition of motion pictures in history was given in New York City, using ten Kinetoscopes. Instrumental to the birth of American movie culture, the Kinetoscope also had a major impact in Europe; its influence abroad was magnified by Edison's decision not to seek international patents on the device, facilitating numerous imitations of and improvements on the technology. Film projection soon superseded both the basic exhibition system and the Kinetophone—joining the Kinetoscope with a cylinder phonograph—introduced in 1895. Many of the projection systems developed by Edison's firm in later years would use the Kinetoscope name.
CINEMATOGRAPH,
or Kinematograph (from KLin a, motion, and 'yp i tv, to depict), an apparatus
in which a series of views representing closely successive phases of a moving
object are exhibited in rapid sequence, giving a picture which, owing to persistence
of vision, appears to the observer to be in continuous motion. It is a development
of the zoetrope or "wheel of life," described by W. G. Homer about
1833, which consists of a hollow cylinder turning on a vertical axis and having
its surface pierced with a number of slots. Round the interior is arranged
a series of pictures representing successive stages of such a subject as a
galloping horse, and when the cylinder is rotated an observer looking through
one of the slots sees the horse apparently in motion. The pictures were at
first drawn by hand, but photography was afterwards applied to their production.
E. Muybridge about 1877 obtained successive pictures of a running horse by
employing a row of cameras, the shutters of which were opened and closed electrically
by the passage of the horse in front of them, and in 1883 E. J. Marey of Paris
established a studio for investigating the motion of animals by similar photographic
methods. 
The modern cinematograph was rendered possible by the invention of the celluloid roll film (employed by Marey in 1890), on which the serial pictures are impressed by instantaneous photography, a long sensitized film being moved across the focal plane of a camera and exposed intermittently. In one apparatus for making the exposures a cam jerks the film across the field once for each picture, the slack being gathered in on a drum at a constant rate. In another four lenses are rotated so as to give four images for each rotation, the film travelling so as to present a new portion in the field as each lens comes in place. Sixteen to fifty pictures may be taken per second. The films are developed on large drums, within which a ruby electric light may be fixed to enable the process to be watched. A positive is made from the negative thus obtained, and is passed through an optical lantern, the images being thus successively projected through an objective lens upon a distant screen. For an hour's exhibition 50,000 to 165,000 pictures are needed. To regulate the feed in the lantern a hole is punched in the film for each picture. These holes must be extremely accurate in position; when they wear the feed becomes irregular, and the picture dances or vibrates in an unpleasant manner. Another method of exhibiting cinematographic effects is to bind the pictures together in book form by one edge, and then release them from the other in rapid succession by means of the thumb or some mechanical device as the book is bent backwards. In this case the subject is viewed, not by projection, but directly, either with the unaided eye or through a magnifying glass.
Cinematograph films produced by ordinary photographic processes, being
in black and white only, fail to reproduce the colouring of the subjects
they represent. To some extent this defect has been remedied by painting
them by hand, but this method is too expensive for general adoption, and
moreover does not yield very satisfactory results. Attempts to adapt three-colour
photography, by using simultaneously three films, each with a source of
light of appropriate colour, and combining the three images on the screen,
have to overcome great difficulties in regard to maintenance of register,
because very minute errors of adjustment between the pictures on the films
are magnified to an intolerable extent by projection. In a process devised
by G. A. Smith, the results of which were exhibited at the Society of Arts,
London, in December 1908, the number of colour records 
was
reduced to two. The films were specially treated to increase their sensitiveness
to red. The photographs were taken through two colour filters alternately
interposed in front of the film; both admitted white and yellow, but one,
of red, was in addition specially concerned with the orange and red of the
subject, and the other, of blue-green, with the green, blue-green, blue
and violet. The camera was arranged to take not less than 16 pictures a
second through each filter, or 32 a second in all. The positive transparency
made from the negative thus obtained was used in a lantern so arranged that
beams of red (composed of crimson and yellow) and of green (composed of
yellow and blue) issued from the lens alternately, the mechanism presenting
the pictures made with the red filter to the red beam, and those made with
the green filter to the green beam. A supplementary shutter was provided
to introduce violet and blue, to compensate for the deficiency in those
colours caused by the necessity of cutting them out in the camera owing
to the over-sensitiveness of the film to them, and the result was that the
successive pictures, blending on the screen by persistence of vision, gave
a reproduction of the scene photographed in colours which were sensibly
the same as those of the original.
The cinematograph enables "living" or "animated pictures"
of such subjects as an army on the march, or an express train at full speed,
to be presented with marvellous distinctness and completeness of detail.
Machines of this kind have been devised in enormous numbers and used for
purposes of amusement under names (bioscope, biograph, kinetoscope, mutograph,
&c.) formed chiefly from combinations of Greek and Latin words for life,
movement, change, &c., with suffixes taken from such words as uKcnrE6v,
to see, ypa4Et y, to depict; they have also been combined with phonographic
apparatus, so that, for example, the music of a dance and the motions of
the dancer are simultaneously reproduced to ear and eye. But when they are
used in public places of entertainment, owing to the extreme inflammability
of the celluloid film and its employment in close proximity to a powerful
source of light and heat, such as is required if the pictures are to show
brightly on the screen, precautions must be taken to prevent, as far as
possible, the heat rays from reaching it, and effective means must be provided
to extinguish it should it take fire. The production of films composed of
non-inflammable material has also engaged the attention of inventors.
In
the past, the films of Auguste and Louis Lumière have principally been
available in badly-worn dupes, making it difficult to appreciate their work.
Now, Kino on Video (in association with the Institute Lumière) has
made available in the U.S. the first-ever authorized collection of Lumière
films, mastered from the original 35mm materials. The Lumière Brothers'
First Films is an amazing journey that provides us with an enlightening portrait
of the birth of cinema.
Filmed between 1895 and 1897, these short films represent, in the words of Bertrand Tavernier (the video's narrator), the point where "the history of invention stopped ... and the history of filmmaking began." Tavernier guides us through a selection of 85 full-length "actualities" (50 seconds each) filmed by the Lumières and their associates, selected from over 1,500 "actualities" in the Institute Lumière's archives. Chosen, organized, and edited by Thierry Fremaux (Director of the Institute Lumière), these films present a fascinating portrait of the genesis of film.
Antoine Lumière (the father of Auguste and Louis) considered the potential of motion pictures when he watched a demonstration of Edison's Kinetoscope in Paris. Very impressed, he returned home and described what he saw to his sons, but he also added, "You can do better. Try to get that image out of the box." Following their father's advice, Auguste and Louis began work on creating their own camera. Within a matter of months, the Lumières had patented their own device, then nameless, for "obtaining and viewing chronophotographic prints." On March 19, 1895, the Lumières used their invention to film workers passing through the front gate of the Lumière and Sons factory. This is the date that has gone done in history as the moment when "cinema" was born.
The Lumières saw their invention with the eyes of entrepreneurs
and soon opened a theater for exhibiting their films. Lines stretched down
the block. Audiences were enthralled. Soon the Lumières trained additional
cameramen and sent them on missions around the world. Lumière camera
operators ventured to Mexico, Russia, Australia, Japan, and most points
in between. In fact, the only continent that they did not step foot upon
was Antarctica. 
Bertrand Tavernier clearly loves the Lumière films. He isn't just a hired narrator. He knows the history of the Lumières and he's able to provide many insightful comments. One of the most surprising aspects of the video is the way that Tavernier illuminates how the Lumières actually shaped their films. The Lumières weren't merely recording life on the street; they were making decisions about how to best present images on film. Rarely do you find a static, full frontal view, for example: the Lumières always looked for the diagonal as a way to reinforce the illusion of depth. Louis Lumière was an experienced photographer and he brought a fine sense of composition to his work with the motion picture camera. In later years, he claimed that the films were made to simply "reproduce life." And many critics have pointed to these films as part of a realistic tradition--in contrast to the fantastic works of Georges Melies. However, as Tavernier points out, when seen in these marvelously sharp and detailed prints, the Lumière Brothers' films belie an artistry and elegance that elevates them above mere scientific recordings. "Train arrival in the station of La Ciotat," for example, which shows a train pulling into a station and the passengers disembarking, contains striking compositions: "the movement is not frontal, is not lateral, there is always a sense of the perspective, the composition of the diagonal."
On many occasions Tavernier compares the compositions of the Lumières to Russian directors of the '20s, as in "Small boat leaving port," and to the work of noted Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, as in the low-angle composition of two men smoking opium, "Indo-china: Opium den." Other compositions provide multiple levels of action, as in "Carnaux: Taking out of the coke oven": factory workers in the foreground remove red-hot coke from an oven while workers on an upper level haul materials in carts. In another film, "Washerwomen on the river," we see a battalion of women washing clothes on the lower level, men watching them on the second level, and trucks passing on the top level.
Tavernier is also quick to point out how the Lumières influenced the behavior of the people in front of the camera, such as an "overacting" waiter or some "overworking" railroad workers. In one telling example from "Jumping on a blanket," Tavernier describes how Louis Lumière placed a man at the back of the scene. The man watches as the other men toss their friend into the air. He laughs and throws his arms into the air, keying us into how we should respond to the scene. During another street-scene film, Tavernier speculates that the Lumières paid people to attempt to cross the street and thus add to the action.
Tavernier also supplies some hilarious side notes on the films, as when he comments on a strange film that shows soliders of the French Army vaulting onto a horse: some soliders gracefully land on the horse's back while others unceremoniously bounce off the horse's ass. Tavernier says, "Just seeing the film you can understand why we lost so many wars. I mean this is a thing which was not directed by Yakima Canutt" (the great Hollywood stuntman).
These films serve an invaluable role in documenting life at the turn of the century. Particularly in these beautiful prints supplied by Institute Lumière, the startlingly clear images show horses pulling wagons down city streets, trains passing over bridges, firefighters assembling ladders, and passenger ships sliding into the water. These films provide powerful documentary-style portraits of another era. But the Lumières also created comedy films, such as a delightful film called "Mechanical delicatessen trade," which shows a pig being loaded into one end of a box, and after a large wheel is set in motion, the workers open the other side of the box and pull out sausages, hams, and other pork products.
Oberlin Smith published a description of magnetic recording in Electrical
World, Sep. 8, 1888, based on his visit to Edison's lab in 1878, using an
electromagnet with a string covered with iron filings. He may have built
a working model but no device has survived. Above is the "original
drawing of Oberlin Smith (1840-1926) published in the Electrcial World of
8.9.1888. The spoken words are transformed by the telephone A into an electrical
sound signal and are recorded in the form of magnetization patterns on the
sound carrier C, passing through the recording head B. F = battery, E =
take up reel, D = supply reel, J = reel brake." (from Heinz Ritter,
1988) Valdemar Poulsen in 1894 discovered the magnetic recording principle
while working as a mechanic in the Copenhagen Telegraph Company. In 1898
he patented the telegraphone, the first successful magnetic recording device.
Valdemar Poulsen in Denmark would succeed in 1898 where Smith had failed.
He built and patented the first working magnetic recorder called the Telegraphone
with wire wrapped around a drum and a recording/playback head that moved
by a screw thread on top. Poulsen had become a telephone engineer at the
Copenhagen Telephone Company in 1893 and began to experiment with magnetism
to record telephone messages. By 1899 he filed U.S. patent 661,619 for a
vertical wire-covered cylinder, and in 1900 demonstrated improved drum and
horizontal wire cylinder models at the 1900 Paris Exhibition. While making
these improved models, Poulsen and his partner Peder O. Pedersen discovered
the application of a direct current to the recording head, called dc bias,
improved the sound quality on a steel tape 
version
of the Telegraphone. At the Paris fair, Poulsen recorded the voice of Emperor
Franz Joseph, today preserved in the Danish Museum of Science and Technology
as the oldest magnetic sound recording in existence. Listen to sound excerpt..
Poulsen stopped his work on magnetic recording and turned to radio after
1902, and only a small number of his machines were made in Denmark and Germany.
The American Telegraphone Company acquired the patent rights in 1905 and
made dictating machines, selling 50 to the Du Pont Company. However, the
signal remained weak without amplification and the wire spools became twisted
and were unreliable. The wax cylinder phonographs of the rival Ediphone
and Dictaphone companies were cheaper and more reliable. By 1918, the company
went into receivership and stopped manufacturing after 1924. [photo of an
original Telegraphone courtesy of John Parncutt, from EMTEC, Ludwigshaven,
Germany]
When Poulsen's patent expired in 1918, Germany led efforts to improved
magnetic recording. Curt Stille developed in 1925 the Dailygraph magnetic
wire recorder as a dictating machine. Semi Joseph Begun at the C. Lorenz
Co. developed a steel tape recorder called the Stahtonbandmaschine. However,
wire and steel tape would be replaced in the 1930s by thin plastic tape.
Dr. Fritz Pfleumer was granted in 1928 a patent in Germany for the application
of magnetic powders to strip of paper or film. [photo of an original Magnetophon
below courtesy of John Parncutt, from EMTEC, Ludwigshaven, Germany]
"In 1930 the Allgemeine Elektrizitatsgesellschaft [AEG] in Berlin decided
to start the development of a magnetophone machine, based on the Pfleumer
principle. 2 years later there was an agreement of collaboration with BASF,
Ludwigshafen: AEG developed the system, BASF an appropriate sound carrier.
This collaboration did not come by accident. On the contrary, BASF had the
knowledge necessary for the development of magnetic tape. Here since 1925,
carbonyl iron powder in the finest particles had been produced for induction
coils in telephone cables and for mass cores in the high frequency technique.
In addition, experience had been gathered in the manufacture of enamel paint
by milling and dispersing of dyestuffs with cellulose acetate and solvents.
At the same time the development of plastics had started for the production
of foils and fibres. Thanks to this rich experience in 1934 BASF was able
to ship the first 50,000 meters of magnetic tape. The tape consisted of
a foil of cellulose acetate as carrier material, coated with a 
lacquer
of iron oxide as magnetic pigment and cellulose acetate as binder. During
the 1935 Radio Fair in Berlin the Magnetophone and the Magnetic Tape were
presented to the public." [quotation and diagrams from Ritter, 1988,
pp. 10-12 ]
The first public recording using the AEG Magnetophon was Nov. 19, 1936, with the London Philharmonic orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham at BASF's own concert hall in Ludwigshaven. Listen to sound excerpt. The tape used for this recording was an improved formulation based on (Fe3O4) Ferric Oxide rather than the original Carbonal Iron which was chemically less stable and had a poor dynamic range of under 30db. The Ferric Oxide had a dynamic range of 37db. Note in the center of the photo a single Neumann bottle microphone that demonstrates the importance of condenser microphones in the electrical era of sound recording. BASF recreated the concert in the rebuilt Feierabendhaus to make a complete digital recording. [photo courtesy of John Parncutt, from EMTEC, Ludwigshaven, Germany]
The
Magic Lantern is the earliest form of slide projector. The first published
image of the device appeared in Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae, by Athanasius
Kircher in the late 1600's. Images were painted on glass and projected on
walls, cloth drapes, and, sometimes, on a wet cloth from behind the "screen".
Naturally, to see images appear, either from a lantern, that heretofore was a light source only, or onto a screen, was "magical" in those early days.
With the advent of photography in the mid-1800's, it became possible to
produce 
black-and-white
images on glass in greater numbers. Still, they had, for the most part,
to be hand-tinted or painted until reliable color photographic processes
became available much later. Some slides were made by applying decals or
transfers to the glass.
Until movies came along, in the mid-to-late 1890's, the magic lantern was the sole projection device available.
Though glass slides would indicate a still image, many innovations in magic lantern design and construction, as well as slide design (moving layers of glass images), allowed dissolving images, movement, and special effects.
Thus, the magic lantern became "the Father of motion pictures, and
the Grandfather of television."
The optical system in Magic lanterns was, in the early years, very crude
consisting of a light source and a single lens to focus the picture onto
a distant screen. Later as an understanding of optics in other fields was
developed it was applied to the art of projection resulting in ever sharper
pictures on the screen.
The diagram illustrated below shows a later lens/light/picture configuration
Animated drawings were introduced to film a full decade after George Méliès
had demonstrated in 1896 that objects could be set in motion through single-frame
exposures. J. Stuart Blackton’s 1906 animated chalk experiment Humorous
Phases of Funny Faces was followed by the imaginative works of Winsor McCay,
who made between four thousand and ten thousand separate line drawings for
each of his
three one-reel films released between 1911 and 1914. Only in the half-dozen
years after 1914, with the technical simplifications (and patent wars) involving
tracing, printing, and celluloid sheets, did animated cartoons become a
thriving commercial enterprise. This period--upon which this collection
concentrates--brought assembly-line standardization but also some surprisingly
surreal wit to American animation. The twenty-one films (and two Winsor
McCay fragments) in this collection, all from the Library of Congress holdings,
include clay, puppet, and cut-out animation as well as pen drawings. Beyond
their artistic interest, these tiny, often satiric, films tell much about
the social fabric of World War I-era America.
The Enchanted Drawing (1900, Edison). Animator/actor: J. Stuart Blackton.
Although this is not an animated film, the origins of animated film can
be glimpsed here. J. Stuart Blackton, then a cartoonist for the New York
Evening World, is photographed in Thomas Edison’s New Jersey "Black
Maria" studio performing a vaudeville routine known as the "lightning
sketch," supplemented by stop-camera tricks that bring the drawn objects
to life. Copyrighted in 1900, it was probably filmed three or four years
earlier.
Fun in a Bakery Shop (1902, Edison). Director/cameraman: Edwin S. Porter.
Another proto-animation film, incorporating what might be called a "lightning
sketch" version of claymation. Presented as a one-shot film, it too
uses a stop-camera trick.
Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906, Vitagraph). Director/animator:
J. Stuart Blackton.
This earliest surviving American animated film--in the strict sense of single
exposures of drawings simulating movement--uses chalkboard sketches and
then cut-outs to simplify the process. The opening title, animated with
bits of paper, repeats a trick seen the previous year in Edison films. J.
Stuart Blackton had in 1897 co-founded the Vitagraph Company, producer of
the film. The flickering seen here was common to the earliest animation
and resulted from the camera operator’s failure to achieve consistent
exposure in manual one-frame cranking.
[Women’s Styles] from Keeping Up with the Joneses (1915,
Gaumont). Animator: Harry S. Palmer.
[Men’s Styles] from Keeping Up with the Joneses (1915, Gaumont). Animator:
Harry S. Palmer.
These two samples are from a series begun in September 1915 based on the
Keeping Up with the Joneses newspaper comic by "Pop" Momand. The
films begin with "out of the inkwell" drawings of the sort seen
in Winsor McCay films and later elaborated by Max Fleischer. Like other
comic strips and animated films of the era, notably Bringing Up Father (published
from 1912; filmed 1916-18), Keeping Up with the Joneses features a husband
oppressed by a wife’s obsession with high society and consumer fashion.
The series ended abruptly in February 1916 after its animator, Harry S.
Palmer, lost a patent infringement suit brought by John Randolph Bray over
the use of transparent celluloid sheets.
He Resolves Not to Smoke from Dreamy Dud Series (1915,
Essanay). Animator/writer: Wallace Carlson.
Dud Leaves Home from Us Fellers Series (1919, Bray). Animator/writer: Wallace
Carlson.
These two variants of Wallace Carlson’s "Dreamy Dud," a
boy with an overactive fantasy life and a down-to-earth dog, reveal how
animation history does not always parallel artistic progress. The 1915 film
from the Essanay Studio has a simpler line-drawing method but a sharper
wit, and is indebted in style and content to Winsor McCay’s dreamy
hero, "Little Nemo." The later version, from Carlson’s 1919-20
Us Fellers series, is more complicated but less comic, relying on the elaborate
backgrounds available through the Bray Studios’ patents.
Bobby Bumps Starts a Lodge (1916, Bray). Animator: Earl
Hurd.
Probably the most popular of the several mischievous boy heroes in early
animation was "Bobby Bumps," whose series (1915-23) was inspired
by R. F. Outcault’s comic strip "Buster Brown." Its creator,
Earl Hurd, owned a 1914 patent for the use of celluloid and his employment
by J.R. Bray (at whose studio this film was made) consolidated a near monopoly
on streamlined animation technology. Racial stereotypes, from J. Stuart
Blackton’s "Cohen" and "Coon" caricatures in Lightning
Sketches (1907) onward, are depressingly endemic to early animated films.
In Bobby Bumps Starts a Lodge, there is, at least, a certain equality in
the resolution.
Krazy Kat Goes A-Wooing (1916, International Film Service).
Animator: Leon Searl.
Krazy Kat--Bugologist (1916, I.F.S.). Animator: Frank Moser.
Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse at the Circus (1916, I.F.S.). Animator: Leon
Searl.
Surprisingly, the animal hero became widely popular in American animation
only in the 1920s, especially with "Felix the Cat." The earlier
Krazy Kat series (1916-29), based loosely on the comic strip by George Herriman,
features lovelorn Krazy and the brick-tossing object of his strange obsession,
Ignatz Mouse. As with the next four films, these brief films were initially
part of William Randolph Hearst’s International Film Service newsreels.
The first presentation of 3D films before a paying audience took place at the Astor Theater, New York, on June 10, 1915. The program consisted of three one-reelers, the first of rural scenes in the USA, the second a selection of scenes from Famous Players' Jim, the Penman (US '15), with John Mason and Marie Doro, and the third a travelog of Niagara Falls. The anaglyphic process used, developed by Edwin S. Porter and W.E. Waddell, involved the use of red and green spectacles to create a single image from twin motion picture images photographed 2½ inches apart. The experiment was not a success. Lynde Denig wrote in Moving Picture World: "Images shimmered like reflections on a lake and in its present form the method couldn't be commercial because it detracts from the plot."
The first 3D feature film was Nat Deverich's 5-reel melodrama Power of Love (US '22), starring Terry O'Neil and Barbara Bedford. It premiered at the Ambassador Hotel Theater, Los Angeles, on September 27, 1922. Produced by Perfect Pictures in an anaglyphic process developed by Harry K. Fairall, it related the adventures of a young sea captain in California in the 1840s. The only other American feature in 3D prior to Bwana Devil (US '52) was R. William Neill's Mars, aka Radio Mania (US '22), with Grant Mitchell as an inventor who succeeds in making contact with Mars via television. It was produced in Laurens Hammond's Teleview process.
The first feature-length talkie in 3D was Sante Bonaldo's Nozze vagabonde (It '36), starring Leda Gloria and Ermes Zacconi, which was produced by the Società Italiana Stereocinematografica at the Cinee-Caesar Studios. The 3D cameraman was Anchise Brizzi.
The first feature-length talkie in color and 3D was Alexander Andreyevsky's
Soyuzdetfilm
production Robinson Crusoe (USSR '47), starring Pavel Kadochnikov as Crusoe
and Y. Lyubimov as Friday. The process used, Stereokino, was the first to
successfully dispense with anaglyphic spectacles. Developed by S.P. Ivanov,
it employed what were known as "radial raster stereoscreens"—a
corrugated metal screen with "raster" grooves designed to reflect
the twin images separately to the left and right eye. The most difficult
technical problem encountered during the production of Robinson Crusoe was
persuading a wild cat to walk along a thin branch towards the camera. After
five nights occupied with this one scene, the cameraman succeeded in getting
a satisfactory shot. The effect, according to accounts, was riveting, the
animal seeming to walk over the heads of the audience and disappear at the
far end of the cinema.
The first 3D feature with stereophonic sound was Warner Brothers' House of Wax (US '53). When it was premiered at the Paramount Theater, New York, with 25 speakers, the Christian Science Monitor was moved to deplore the "cacophony of sound hurtling relentlessly at one from all directions". André de Toth, director of the movie, may have been able to hear the cacophony, but was unable to see the 3D effect, as he only had one eye.
During the 3D boom that began with the low-budget Bwana Devil (US '52), over 5,000 theaters in the US were equipped to show 3D movies, but the fad was shortlived. 3D production figures were: 1952—1; 1953—27; 1954—16; 1955—1. In addition there were 3D movies produced in Japan, Britain, Mexico, Germany and Hong Kong, but many of these (as well as some of the US productions) were released flat.
