Understanding the relationship between Hitchcock and 3D from Hitchcock's only 3D film, ``Turn Dial M!''

The Beginning of the First 3D Movie Boom (5)

One answer was 3D movies. The person who started it was cameraman Friend Baker. The Gunsberg brothers, Milton and Julian, noticed the 3D filming system he had created using a 16mm camera and together they founded The Natural Vision. They came up with a rig in which two Mitchell NC 35mm cameras faced each other, with the optical axis directed forward by a surface reflector arranged in a V-shape. Thus, in 1951, they completed the "The Natural Vision Camera System" and marketed it to the US Air Force for use in topographical surveys and soldier training.

This caught the attention of Polaroid, which had developed mass production technology for polarizing filters. The company was serious about popularizing polarized 3D movies and had produced short films for international exhibitions, but had struggled to make them a huge hit. So Polaroid signed a contract with The Natural Vision to exclusively supply polarized glasses for a limited period of one year. The Natural Vision planned to purchase 100 million pairs at 6.7 cents each and sell them to movie theaters for 10 cents each.

The first feature film shot with The Natural Vision Camera System was The Devils of Bwana (52), produced, written and directed by radio producer Archie Oboler. The film was amateurish, but when it was released and distributed by United Artists it became an immediate hit. When the results were announced, Hollywood studios were in an uproar, and everyone from the big names like Paramount, Universal, 20th Century Fox, MGM and Columbia to smaller studios like Allied Artists Pictures, Parklane Pictures and Realart Pictures rushed to build their own 3D cameras, thus beginning the first(*7) 3D film boom.

*7 The second 3D movie boom occurred in the 1980s. The third 3D movie boom began after a symposium at ShoWest 2005 (now CinemaCon), a convention for movie industry professionals held in Las Vegas in 2005, and continues to this day, mainly in the United States and China.

Warner Bros. bet its fortune on 3D