The Robe in 3D

[P3D Michael Kaplan <mkaplan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I checked my 3D filmography (James Limbacher) against John Waldsmith's
list of V-M movie preview reels, and found that only 3 films (out of 31)
were *not* released in 3D: Lost Treasures of the Amazon, Beneath the
12-mile Reef, and The Robe. IMO the fact that The Robe is on this list is
the best evidence that parts of it, at least, may have been shot in 3D. 

I also found that 20th Century Fox only released *two* films in 3D: 
Inferno (1953) and Gorilla at Large (1954).  Can you imagine Zanuck's
letter reading "flat rushes of Niagara, 3-D polaroid rushes of Inferno,
and CinemaScope rushes of The Robe"? I think the letter (and I'd love to
read it in its entirety) was a statement of the dilemna
facing movie studios at the time: how to choose technology for future
productions. In that regard, this is what Limbacher has to say:

"After the success of Cinerama, all the studios were alerted to the fact
that there might be a future in widescreen films. On December 18, 1952,
after seeing a demonstration of the Chretien (anamorphic) system, Fox took
an option on it and renamed it CinemaScope. The system had already been
dropped by the French film industry.

"Some test footage was shot (this had to be in 1953) and the results were
laudable enough to make Fox president Spyros Skouras announce that from
then on all 20th Century Fox films would be made in CinemaScope, beginning
with The Robe.

"On September 16, 1953, The Robe opened at the Roxy Theatre in NY to
enthusiastic acclaim by the public, if not the critics."

>From this chronology, it does seem possible that The Robe might have begun
as Fox's first serious 3D picture, but the CinemaScope "test footage" -
referred to in Zanuck's comment about the rushes - was so "laudable" as to
prompt scrapping the 3D. After, of course, View-Master had shot its
promotional reels.



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Michael Kaplan
Professor of Architecture
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
mkaplan@xxxxxxx


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