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Going to the movies is exciting when there’s an engrossing plot and buttery popcorn, but how about turning the excitement up a notch by sporting a pair of colored paper glasses and watching the film’s images practically jump into your lap?
3-D films — once a short-lived craze in the early 1950s — are making a comeback in Eugene. Bijou Art Cinemas, located on East 13th Avenue, will have its final showing of the 1954 horror flick “Creature From the Black Lagoon,” tonight at 11 p.m. The film hadn’t played in Eugene for 15 years before the Bijou started screening it again, and Bijou manager Louise Thomas said it has been a huge success.
“Our late-night films were on the decline during the summer, but ‘Creature From the Black Lagoon’ has boosted the success of our late-night films,” Thomas said.
3-D films began as an attempt to revive the movie industry when television became its direct competitor in the early 1950s. It can be shown using two processes. The first is the anaglyph process, where the film is printed in two colors and layered into the same projector while viewers watch through two-toned glasses. This allows for each eye to be drawn to a different color of film. The second process is the Polaroid process, which involves light waves passing in perpendicular planes between two projectors.
“It was one of those quirky little moments in film history,” University English Professor Kathleen Karlyn said. “It was created to exploit the spectacular aspects of cinema that television didn’t have.”
The first 3-D film shown using the anaglyph process was 1922’s “Power of Love,” an adventure flick about a sea captain in California.
The first 3-D film projected using the Polaroid process was “Bwana Devil,” which was about lions who preyed on railroad workers. The height of 3-D cinema came in 1953 with the thriller “House of Wax,” which was followed by a fall in 3-D popularity, partly because viewers often would leave the theater with pounding headaches.
But 3-D returned to the mainstream with last July’s film “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.” Now, frequent 3-D screenings are planned for the Bijou Art Cinemas. Bijou projectionist Scott McGahan said he sees 3-D film experiences as journeys back in time.
“I like the novelty of it,” he said. “It feels retro to put on the glasses and imagine what things were like in the ’50s.” However, McGahan said 3-D content is viewed by fans in a lighter perspective now than during its debut.
“I think the scary 3-D films were taken seriously when they first came out, but now people just think they’re funny,” he said.
After the success of “Creature From the Black Lagoon,” the Bijou is planning to show a new 3-D film every month. Among those under consideration are 1954’s “Dial M For Murder,” 1953’s “It Came From Outer Space,” 1983’s “Jaws 3-D,” 1982’s “Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D” and the aforementioned 1953 film “House of Wax.”