FXRH bought himself a 3-D TV system, one of those with shutter glasses for viewing field sequential video material.  This called for a visit from Arch Stanton and myself to experience the joy and wonders of perfect 3-D at home.  The chosen film was HOUSE OF WAX, my own personal favorite 3-D film, and one I've seen many times in different venues in the stereoscopic film process.

Everyone is bound to have seen this film or at least be familiar with it.  Just in case you're not, here's a brief recap and overview.  You can read much more about the movie here (and I urge you to do so):  http://miscmayhemprods.com/blog/?cat=7&paged=4  about halfway down.

Vincent Price plays the sensitive artist whose "children" are his wax recreations of historical personages.  But his partner, Roy Roberts, is in it for the money and resorts to arson for the insurance money.  Price is presumably killed in the fire but he resurfaces with another wax museum.  It's then that people start disappearing while wax figures with an uncanny resemblance to the missing turn up in Price's gallery.

The movie was a remake of Warner Brother's earlier classic horror film, THE MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM.  That first film was an experiment of sorts by Warners with the two color Technicolor system.  It could not faithfully reproduce all colors but is still quite effective in this film and another Warner horror, DOCTOR X.  It is fitting then that Warners' first foray into three dimensions would be a remake, this time in full Warnercolor and WarnerPhonic stereo sound.  Featured are Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk, Carloyn Jones, Paul Picerni, Dabbs Greer, Paul Cavanagh, and Charles Bronson (as Charles Buchinsky) in one of his earliest credited roles.  Grace Lee Whitney is supposed to be in there among the high-kicking Can-Can dancers but I couldn't pick her out.  The excellent 3-D, which has great depth, objects emerging from the screen and, in one shot, running into the screen, is all the more remarkable for being the work of one-eyed director Andre de Toth.  The music score, one of my unreleased favorites, is by David Buttolph (THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS).

So how did the 3-D work?  It was great.  No flicker, no eye strain.  Wearing the glasses is a bit like wearing sunglasses while watching a movie -- the specs cut down on the brightness of the picture -- but it works perfectly.  The paddle ball sequence creates the impression that the rubber balls are emerging from the screen to within a few feet of the viewer.  And the big shock shot, when it appears that Charles Bronson runs into the movie, still creates a bit of a thrill.  In several shots, Price's glass-tubed wax coating machine apparatus juts into the living room. 

I noticed this time (if I hadn't before) that care was taken during a shot in which we are to believe we are looking at a wax duplicate of Bronson's head, seen earlier in the movie, set among several other heads.  Since he is actually standing behind the case on which the other heads sit his head is rear-most in the 3-D process, which could possibly clue in the audience and spoil the surprise.  To conceal this fact, the other heads have been arranged at varying depths.

While we were there, FXRH demonstrated the 2-D to 3-D conversion of non-3-D material.  Arch was there before me and saw many more examples.  I only say about 30 seconds and material from three or four films.  The only shot I remember was of Count Floyd on an SCTV appearance.  The converter turned Floyd concave so it looked like I was looking into a cake mold.  I'm told, though, that it looks particularly good with certain films.

At any rate, while I have seen a number of the 1950s 3-D movies, there's an equal number or more that I haven't seen (or only seen in poor presentations).  So, I'm hoping that FXRH will stock up on old favorites or those I haven't seen such as:

DIAL M FOR MURDER
INFERNO
THE CHARGE AT FEATHER RIVER
HONDO
THE MAZE
THE BUBBLE
THE MASK
DEVIL'S CANYON
MONEY FROM HOME
KISS ME KATE
THE MAD MAGICIAN
PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE

And when/if he does I'll be sure and report back.