More Lost 3-D Has Surfaced
A Once Burst Bubble Is Happily Restored
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| The Bubble Is Back in the 80's as The Fantastic Invasion Of Planet Earth |
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| Another Reissue Try From the Early 70's |
posted by John McElwee at 9:00 AM
Sunday, November 09, 2014
A Once Burst Bubble Is Happily Restored
6 Comments:
I saw "The Bubble" during it's initial release at the Ivar Theatre on Vine Street in Hollywood which I believe even then was primarily a live theatre venue. It was the first 3-D film I'd seen since "Revenge of the Creature" closed out the brief 1953-1954 era in my hometown of Richmond, California. As I big fan of 3-D I was really excited!
The single strip 3-D was certainly impressive but I found the film dreadfully dull, just as Obler's "Bwana Devil" the film that ushered in that first 3D era was. No way I would ever want to see it again, flat or in 3-D. And yet I'm pleased it's out there in all of it's three dimensional glory for those that are curious or interested in a historical artifact.
Dan Mercer reflects on limitations of the 3-D process:
Does "The Bubble" really float objects into the audience? That has always been the promise of 3D, as in the tag line for "Bwana Devil": "A lion in your lap! A lover in your arms!" It is one the films themselves have rarely delivered on. The only one I've seen that succeeded in piercing the "fourth wall" was Tony Anthony's "Comin' at Ya!," a bad film with decent 3D effects. All the others simply opened up the space behind the screen. Not that they didn't try. In "House of Wax," that barker was supposed to rattle the popcorn boxes of the audience with his paddle balls, but there might as well have been a sheet of plate glass on the screen, so far as those balls actually reaching anyone. It has been the same for all the arrows shot or chairs thrown at the audience. "Jaws 3D," "Metalstorm," even Martin Scorsese's wonderful "Hugo" offered their diversions, but always behind the confines of the proscenium arch. Did the audience cringe when a desperate Grace Kelly reached out for help in "Dial M for Murder"? I've read that they did but never experienced the effect in the film itself, which otherwise made masterful use of perspective. The most pleasing example of 3D that I've seen has been, oddly enough, the re-processed "Wizard of Oz," but as with the legitimate 3D films, its illusion of depth only stretches back from the screen into its settings.
As a film, "The Bubble" is not considered to be very good. As an entertainment, however, it would have been worth my while putting down a few centavos to have an umbrella opened in my face.
I'm no huge fan of 3-D, but I have seen a few examples of items floating out of the screen. It seems to be more readily accomplished with graphics: the opening credits of FRIDAY THE 13TH 3D, the closing credits of CORALINE.
The best and most extreme examples in my experience come from FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN (ANDY WARHOL'S FRANKENSTEIN.) Several times during that film, things (often gross) floated out among the audience.
My favorite: I saw the movie with a packed house on the day it opened. At one point, two young men in the audience were returning to their seats from the concession stand, laden with sodas and popcorn. Just as they strolled down the aisle, only a few feet from me, a flock of bats flew off the screen and into the auditorium. Both of those young men hit the deck as quickly as if machine gun fire had broken out. Refreshments went flying in all directions, though mainly straight up. This was followed by one of the biggest, heartiest laughs I've ever heard -- or taken part in -- in any theater.
That is a GREAT anecdote, Rick. Thanks for sharing it.
With tremendous respect to Dan Mercer, every 3-D film he mentions offers multiple examples of objects transgressing the limitations of the screen and entering theater space. In my experience, unless such narrative events are handled ostentatiously or done as obvious gimmicks (e.g., “Check out this old yo-yo I found! Here, you’ll need this torch! Tell the old man to watch where he spits that chewin’ tobaccky!”), people tend to overlook them as off-the-screen events. I’ve known casual viewers to swear up and down after viewing a given 3-D film that nothing came off the screen, when it is a quantifiable fact that there were numerous examples of negative parallax (the technical name for the condition that gives rise to that effect).
I will single out two of Dan’s examples for special comment. Anyone who has seen the original 3-D trailer for “Metalstorm”--let alone the feature proper--knows that that flick went cheerfully out of its way to project various objects, people, and body parts into the audience. One famous effect brought a claw-like robotic arm off the screen… which arm then promptly sprayed a green venom or acid even further into theater space!
“Jaws 3-D” I saw twice back in 1983, and again in September 2013 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. It was very obvious that, owing to the fixed lens separation on the Arrivision stereo lenses being used, the filmmakers absolutely had to rely on bringing foreground objects off the screen just to have a workable parallax budget. We’re talking ordinary two-shots of guys arguing, to cite an example. The actors’ heads and upper bodies are suspended out in theater space—perhaps a little too far out for comfortable viewing, even—delivering heated and dramatic exposition, with nary a yo-yo or flaming torch in sight.
But all that being said, I myself am concerned that many recent examples of 3-D film have been very reserved, even timid. Many high profile live action 3-D films in recent years have muted their stereoscopic imagery to the point where sometimes it makes no difference whether one bothers to wear the glasses or not. This criticism emphatically cannot be leveled against “The Bubble,” which is a tour-de-force of pleasant and entertaining off-the-screen effects of almost every kind. I hope your readers will consider purchasing “The Bubble,” partly to support the tireless efforts of Bob Furmanek and Greg Kintz, and partly for the pleasure of seeing a full-blooded 3-D film that is not ashamed to be what it is.
Craig Reardon is tempted by "The Bubble":
"The Bubble", by your accounting, sounds worth getting! I'm a 3-D-aholic, so I'm sure I'd find something to like about it, even though I never liked that guy from "The Mod Squad"! (Michael Cole.) As for "Inferno", I HAVE that import, and it is something special. I was lucky to see this, perhaps projected from the very same source prints, in the early '80s during a brief 3-D festival mounted at a theater on Sunset Blvd., no doubt backed by Bob Furmanek himself (the festival, that is!) Like you, I concur that it's a tight and effective little thriller, very well-cast and played, that would be and is, actually, just as entertaining even 'flat', though as an avowed 3-D nut, I will take 3-D every single time. I'm thrilled to have learned recently that the much-appreciated MGM musical "Kiss Me, Kate" (even though photographed in the wretched AnscoColor process, I think) will be released on Blu-ray soon by WB, in 3-D.
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