The Robe in 3D

[P3D Marvin Jones <72657.3276@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Does anyone have any info on the movie THE ROBE being shot in 3-D? In the
> book WIDESCREEN CINEMA, there is a quote -
> 
> In a letter to Jack Warner on March 5, 1953, Zanuck acknowledged that "I
am
> looking each night at flat rushes, 3-D polaroid rushes and finally
> CinemaScope rushes on "The Robe"; Twentieth Century-Fox folder, Warner
Bros.
> Archive.
> 
> Does anyone have more info on this? Thanks.
> 
If you read the quote closely, you'll see it is really rather ambiguous. It
merely says that Zanuck was watching "flat rushes, 3-D polaroid rushes and
finally CinemaScope rushes on The Robe". This does not necessarily mean
that the "flat rushes [and] 3-D polaroid rushes" were ALSO of The Robe.
Zanuck oversaw many productions simultaneously at 20th, and could well have
meant he was watching flat rushes of one or more films, 3-D rushes of
something entirely different, and then Cinemascope rushes of The Robe to
top it off.

I have never heard anything about The Robe being planned in 3D, and I
seriously doubt it on several grounds, among them:

1. The whole point of 20th dredging up the old anamorphic process,
re-dubbed Cinemascope, was to tout it as "3D without the glasses". It would
seem a little hypocritical to also be shooting it in 3D WITH the glasses
(although of course hypocrisy is in no short supply in Hollywood).

2. They were already shooting two separate versions of the film --
Cinemascope, and a 1:33 "flat" backup for theaters not equipped for
widescreen. A third system, particularly one as cumbersome as 3D, would
probably not be considered because of its strain on resources.


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