3D News

More news about Robot Monster and other projects in this interview! We have some big things coming that everyone on the 3D Film Archive team is very excited about! Definitely something you won’t want to miss, so come give it a watch!

Coming Soon on 3-D Blu-ray!
Brand New HD Master – From 4K Scans of the 35mm Camera Original YCM Technicolor Negatives!
3-D Restoration by 3-D Film Archive!
Money from Home (1953) Starring Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Marjie Millar, Pat Crowley & Robert Strauss – Shot by Daniel L. Fapp (The Great Escape) – Directed by George Marshall (The Ghost Breakers, Scared Stiff).

Click each image for your 3D news!

I am delighted to announce that we have finished o

I am delighted to announce that we have finished our restoration work on Jack Arnold's widescreen 3-D classic, THE GLASS WEB. Digital files have been sent to our authoring facility and Kino Lorber is coordinating with the participants on the commentary track. Look for the pre-order announcement from Kino in the very near future!

We've just spent another very successful day worki

We've just spent another very successful day working on MONEY FROM HOME at FilmMedia in New Jersey with 3DFA Associate Producer Jack Theakston and color grading expert Dave Northrop. Here are a few sample frames for your viewing pleasure.

The license by Kino Lorber was secured in April 2023. It took six months for the superb staff at the Paramount Pictures Archive to inspect and scan 72 reels (totaling 54,000 feet) of original 35mm Technicolor left/right camera negative. We received the scans one year ago and have been working on the project ever since.

This is a VERY painstaking frame-by-frame restoration as the three strips of red/green/blue camera negative for each eye have differential shrinkage. That means the images do not accurately line up when recombined and Jack Theakston has been doing an outstanding job of tweaking every frame for optimum alignment and resolution.

While we wish the project could happen much faster, this is the only time this important 3-D title will get this level of attention and TLC. It simply must be done correctly and rest assured, the end results will be an outstanding quality restoration. You will not be disappointed!

For more information on the forthcoming documentary short from Sean Thrunk at Crimson Mountain Productions, please check out this video: https://youtu.be/1XiTAHsXcnY?si=1rsWRMIzT9vjyOjN

Look for the 3-D Blu-ray release next summer from our good friends at Kino Lorber Studio Classics.

Just five days remain to pre-order our brand new r

Thank you to everyone for your wonderful reaction

Thank you to everyone for your wonderful reaction to our 10th anniversary post yesterday. The 3DFA team is gratified and humbled by your enthusiastic response to our preservation work. We cannot be doing this without your interest and support.

We have received many requests for an update on the complex and painstaking restoration of MONEY FROM HOME.

The license by Kino Lorber was secured in April 2023. It took six months for the superb staff at the Paramount Pictures Archive to inspect and scan 72 reels (totaling 54,000 feet) of original 35mm Technicolor left/right camera negative. We received the scans one year ago and have been working on the project ever since.

This is a VERY painstaking frame-by-frame restoration as the three strips of red/green/blue camera negative for each eye have differential shrinkage. That means the images do not accurately line up when recombined and our colleague Jack Theakston has been doing an outstanding job of tweaking every frame for optimum alignment and resolution.

I worked with the great colorist Dave Northrop at FilmMedia yesterday on final adjustments to the color grading. The results are superb and here are a few examples.

While we wish the project could happen much faster, this is the only time this important 3-D title will get this level of attention and TLC. It simply must be done correctly and rest assured, the end results will be an outstanding quality restoration. You will not be disappointed!

Look for the 3-D Blu-ray release next summer from our good friends at Kino Lorber Studio Classics.

October 14, 2014, DRAGONFLY SQUADRON was the inaug

October 14, 2014, DRAGONFLY SQUADRON was the inaugural 3-D Blu-ray release from 3-D Film Archive.

In the decade that followed, we produced one critically acclaimed restoration after another. With a variety of distribution partners including Kino Lorber, Flicker Alley, ClassicFlix, and BayView Entertainment, the 3-D Film Archive brought fans major releases including 3-D RARITIES, GOG, THE MAZE, ROBOT MONSTER, THE ABBOTT AND COSTELLO SHOW, JACK AND THE BEANSTALK, FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN, DYNASTY, BWANA DEVIL and IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE.

In the next twelve months, look for the following six 3DFA restorations on Blu-ray:

From BayView Entertainment:

1. Arch Oboler's DOMO ARIGATO.
2. DRAGONFLY SQUADRON, a new restoration with exciting bonus features including a previously lost and historically significant Golden Age 3-D short!

From Kino Lorber Studio Classics:

3. THE GLASS WEB
4. MONEY FROM HOME
5. FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR
6. Arch Oboler's THE BUBBLE, restored 1966 theatrical version.

Pre-orders for THE BUBBLE are now available on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/3dfilmarchive/pre-order-arch-obolers-the-bubble-new-3-d-restoration

The very unique and highly specialized expertise of the 3-D Film Archive has cornered the market on vintage stereoscopic film restoration, single-handedly doing more for vintage 3-D preservation than any other organization or archive worldwide.

Thank you VERY much for your interest and ongoing support of our work. The best is yet to come!

Bob Furmanek, Jack Theakston, Greg Kintz

Happy 100th birthday to the great Edward D. Wood J

Happy 100th birthday to the great Edward D. Wood Jr!

CLEOPATRA FOLLIES aka FLAME OF ISLAM was the first of five burlesque shorts presented in “Gorgeous Multi-Color” anaglyphic 3-D by Oakland and San Francisco burlesque theater magnate, Harry A. Farros. CLEOPATRA FOLLIES starred popular dancers Paula French and Shirley Hayes, aka The Pussy Cat Girl.

Newly discovered data has confirmed that while working with George Weiss at Screen Classics, Edward D. Wood Jr wrote the script for this 3-D film under the title FLAME OF ISLAM. There are no production credits listed on-screen, but Wood lists it in a resume that he circulated around that time.

In true Ed Wood fashion, the "writer" credit is somewhat padded as it amounts to three brief voiceover introductions to the dance segments. Nevertheless, it is a credit and that's what matters most on the resume of an aspiring filmmaker.

Photographed in Los Angeles circa May 1953, the title was changed just before release on August 8, 1953. The short was popular and usually played at drive-ins with bookings found as late as September 1955.

I discovered the original left/right 35mm elements for CLEOPATRA FOLLIES at the shuttered Movielab in Hollywood circa 1985. Despite my best efforts, I was not able to acquire the material and it’s likely they were junked with other orphaned film elements.

Fortunately, 3-D Film Archive has recently acquired a faded but pristine 35mm anaglyphic print and we will be restoring this rare Edward D. Wood film. Thanks to advanced digital techniques developed by 3DFA Technical Director Greg Kintz, we can now dig deep into the emulsion and extract the original left/right data on this faded anaglyphic print. In short, thanks to our complex and highly specialized digital arsenal, it will truly look better now than it did in 1953.

Watch for the new restoration of CLEOPATRA FOLLIES on our upcoming 3-D Blu-ray release of DOMO ARIGATO from BayView Entertainment! bayviewentertainment.com

Kickstarter loves our campaign! Don't miss your

Kickstarter loves our campaign!

Don't miss your opportunity to pre-order our new restoration of Arch Oboler's THE BUBBLE (reissued in 1976 as FANTASTIC INVASION OF PLANET EARTH) on 3D Blu-ray. Link in bio.

[url]https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/3dfilmarchive/pre-order-arch-obolers-the-bubble-new-3-d-restoration[/url]

#projectwelove

Our new Kickstarter campaign to pre-order Arch Obo

Our new Kickstarter campaign to pre-order Arch Oboler's original 1966 theatrical version of THE BUBBLE is now live!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/3dfilmarchive/pre-order-arch-obolers-the-bubble-new-3-d-restoration

Seventy-one years ago, on September 22 and 23, 195

Seventy-one years ago, on September 22 and 23, 1953, legendary Oscar-winning cinematographer James Wong Howe photographed three-dimensional test footage for the Moropticon single-strip system.
Moropticon had been developed in Vienna by producer Boris Morros and it was one of two competing systems (the other being the Nord Extended Area 3-D Process) to place both left/right stereo images onto one-strip of 35mm film.

3-D movies were beginning to perform poorly at the box office in September 1953 and this article by Jack Theakston tells the story. https://3dfilmarchive.com/what-killed-3d-films/

Matthew Fox, a former executive vice-president of Universal-International and partner in United Artists, was president of the newly-formed All Dimensions, Inc. which held all patents to the Moropticon system. The unit was lightweight, compact and could fit in a small carrying case. It would be offered free of charge providing the exhibitor agreed to purchase a minimum monthly order of 2,500 Pola-Lite glasses for a period of one year.

Fox was able to use his influence with Universal-International to shoot two days of Moropticon tests beginning September 22. Howe photographed Christiane Martel, Ingrid Mills, Mara Corday, and Lance Fuller in twenty-two setups on the California Street and Shelby home on the studio's backlot. Sadly, this footage is not known to survive.

You’ll learn all about these single-strip systems in Mike Ballew's forthcoming book, “Close Enough to Touch: 3-D Comes to Hollywood.” Watch this page on our website for additional information on this upcoming definitive tome! https://3dfilmarchive.com/close-enough-to-touch-3-d.../

Coming Soon on 3-D Blu-ray from @kinolorber ! Ster

Coming Soon on 3-D Blu-ray from @kinolorber !
Stereoscopic alignment by 3-D Film Archive – From a 4K Scan of the Sam Sherman/Independent International 35mm composite internegative

Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror (1968) Starring Paul Naschy, Dyanik Zurakowska & Rosanna Yanni – Shot by Emilio Foriscot (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh) – Music by Ángel Arteaga (The Last Kamikaze) – Written by Paul Naschy (Fury of the Wolfman) – Directed by Enrique López Eguiluz (Santo Faces Death).

Stay tuned for an exciting announcement on Sunday

Stay tuned for an exciting announcement on Sunday morning from our good friends at Kino Lorber Studio Classics!

3-D Film Archive currently has nine vintage 3-D re

3-D Film Archive currently has nine vintage 3-D restoration projects in the pipeline and our plate is VERY full. With this intense workload, I missed these 70th anniversary posts.

On July 10, 1954, BOWERY SCANDALS, the fifth anaglyphic 3-D short from Broadway Roadshow Productions had its first known playdate at the Harrisburg Drive-In Theatre in Harrisburg, IL. This short contained leftover footage shot in May 1953 for FLAME OF ISLAM aka CLEOPATRA FOLLIES. Ed Wood wrote the scripts for these shorts, please see our August 8, 1953, post for more information.

On July 16, 1954, THE DIAMOND WIZARD opened with eight acts of vaudeville at the legendary Palace Theatre in New York City. Released in two-dimensions only, this stereoscopic gem from the UK had its first official 3-D release by Kino Lorber Studio Classics in November 2022. https://3dfilmarchive.com/available-film-restorations/

Warner Bros’ eighth 3-D feature THE BOUNTY HUNTER had its first known playdates on August 26, 1954, at the Metropolitan and Ambassador Theatres in Washington, DC.

Directed by Andre de Toth (HOUSE OF WAX, THE STRANGER WORE A GUN) this excellent 3-D feature was photographed in widescreen 3-D with the complex Warner Bros. All-Media camera. Due to lack of interest from exhibitors and moviegoers, it was released flat only.

Warner Bros has done archival preservation from the original 35mm left/right elements. Unfortunately, they have not yet created a restored digital 3-D master which would allow both 3-D Blu-ray release and DCP availability for theatrical bookings.

Let's hope that changes very soon so that we can finally experience this classic 3-D western as it was meant to be seen!

We are in the home stretch on finishing our restor

We are in the home stretch on finishing our restoration of Jack Arnold's THE GLASS WEB. The widescreen stereoscopic cinematography by Maury Gertsman is superb.

Stay tuned for updates on this exciting 3-D Blu-ray release that is coming soon from @kinolorber

We are currently restoring Arch Oboler's second 3-

We have received many requests for these MIA 3-D t

We have received many requests for these MIA 3-D titles over the past decade. They all survive and are part of the Warner Bros library. In a September 2013 interview, Ned Price, Warner Bros Vice President of Mastering (now retired) told us the following:

3DFA: "Warner Bros. owns more vintage 3-D films than any other studio, including the MGM and RKO libraries. Are there plans to restore any other 3-D titles in the near future?"

NP: "We completed preservation on all the 3D features, shorts and animated titles. Elements are all prepped for restoration, but there is nothing in the queue at the moment."

That statement was made eleven years ago. Unfortunately, they have still not made digital 3-D masters which would allow both 3-D Blu-ray release and DCP availability for theatrical bookings.

Let's hope that situation changes very soon so that we can experience these highly requested 3-D features as they were meant to be seen!

We have received many requests for these six title

We have received many requests for these six titles over the past decade.

FORT TI, DRUMS OF TAHITI and JESSE JAMES VS. THE DALTONS were directed by legendary cult filmmaker, William Castle.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has done archival preservation from the original left/right 35mm camera negatives of these six MIA vintage stereoscopic features. Unfortunately, they have yet made restored digital 3-D masters which would allow both 3-D Blu-ray release and DCP availability for theatrical bookings.

Let's hope that situation changes very soon so that we can once again enjoy these highly requested 3-D features as they were meant to be seen!

I am thrilled to announce that the 3-D Film Archiv

I am thrilled to announce that the 3-D Film Archive team (Greg Kintz, Jack Theakston, Mike Ballew, Sean Thrunk and Bob Furmanek) will be presenting twice this year at 3D-Con 2024 in Wichita, KS! https://www.3d-con.com/

On July 26 at 9:30, the team will announce an exciting discovery of great historic significance in the world of stereoscopic cinematography. Brought to our attention in February 2022, this is incredibly unique and never-before-seen archival footage and we are thrilled to share the news of this amazing material at 3D-Con.

On July 27 at 9:00, Mike Ballew is the Keynote Speaker and will discuss his upcoming book “Close Enough to Touch: 3-D Comes to Hollywood.” His presentation will be followed with a screening of our latest restoration, BWANA DEVIL.

Just one week to go and we hope that you will consider joining us for this VERY special weekend!

Seventy years ago on June 28, 1954, EL JINETE (THE

Seventy years ago on June 28, 1954, EL JINETE (THE HORSEMAN aka THE RIDER) opened in single-strip red/blue anaglyphic 3-D at the Million Dollar and Mayan Theatres in Los Angeles.

Photographed in dual-35mm, we are told the original left/right elements exist with a distributor in Mexico but have not been preserved or restored. Apparently one side was scanned for a flat master.

Seventy years ago on June 5, 1954, GOG had its wor

Seventy years ago on June 5, 1954, GOG had its world premiere at the Paramount Theatres in Los Angeles and Hollywood.

GOG was photographed by Lothrop B. Worth in Natural Vision 3-D, using the same cameras that were previously used on BWANA DEVIL, HOUSE OF WAX, THE CHARGE AT FEATHER RIVER, TOP BANANA and several others. In later interviews, Lothrop considered GOG to be his best work.

GOG was the third science-fiction movie composed for widescreen. (The first two were RIDERS TO THE STARS and KILLERS FROM SPACE.) It was filmed on Eastmancolor negative 5248 (25 ASA tungsten) and processed by the Color Corporation of America laboratory - formerly SuperCinecolor/Cinecolor - in Burbank. By the time it was edited and ready for theatrical release in May 1954, the lab was in financial trouble and had been sold to Benjamin Smith and Associates, owners of the Houston Fearless Corp. 35mm release prints were made by Pathe Laboratories in Hollywood.

GOG remained in theatrical release for the next several years and was sold to television in black and white as part of a 39 feature United Artists package in September 1956. At some point, the 35mm left camera negatives were discarded.

For nearly five decades, GOG was lost in 3-D. I wrote the following in 2016:

"Of all our restoration projects, GOG is the most rewarding for me personally. When I began my search for lost 3-D elements in the early 1980's, GOG was at the top of my want list. Through my archival work with Jerry Lewis, I got to know director Herbert L. Strock quite well. He was immensely proud of his work on this film and lamented the fact that it was lost in 3-D. After extensive research, I found the lost left side faded Pathe color 35mm release print in 2001. I tell the full story of this exciting discovery in the commentary track on the Blu-ray.

After suffering through flat, black and white, full-frame 16mm prints for decades, it's a real thrill to finally see GOG restored as the filmmakers intended - in vibrant color, widescreen and 3-D!"

I am thrilled to announce that the 3-D Film Archiv

I am thrilled to announce that the 3-D Film Archive team (Greg Kintz, Jack Theakston, Mike Ballew, Sean Thrunk and Bob Furmanek) will be presenting twice this year at 3D-Con 2024 in Wichita, KS!

https://www.3d-con.com/

On July 26 at 9:30, the team will announce an exciting discovery of great historic significance in the world of stereoscopic cinematography. Brought to our attention in February 2022, this is incredibly unique and never-before-seen archival footage and we are thrilled to share the news of this amazing material at 3D-Con.

On July 27 at 9:00, Mike Ballew is the Keynote Speaker and will discuss his upcoming book “Close Enough to Touch: 3-D Comes to Hollywood.” His presentation will be followed with a screening of our latest restoration, BWANA DEVIL.

We hope that you will consider joining us for this VERY special weekend!

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