According to a Friday piece in the New York Times, those gee-whiz 3-D movies are sweeping the nation. Wotta scoop!

The New York Times, Feb. 1, 1953, “Hollywood’s ‘3-D’s’; Producers List at Least a Dozen Three-Dimensional Features for This Year”:

The big story of the moment in Hollywood is three-dimensional movies.
…
The question to which Hollywood now is seeking an answer is this: How long can the novelty of such pictures be expected to hold public interest?

June 14, 1953, “On a Fruitful 3-D Field; Expert Sees Fine Future for Such Films When Technical Aspects Are Mastered”:

Why all this 3-D activity? My opinion is that the obvious answer is the applicable one. People would rather look at 3-D subjects than at “flat” pictures, even if glasses are required for the 3-D view.

Oct. 20, 1960, “A Cloudy View; ‘September Storm’ Has 3-D Failings”:

Some people never get the message. As long as seven years ago, it was pretty convincingly demonstrated that this business of having to wear special eyeglasses in order to get the effect of so-called three-dimensional films not only was an annoying inconvenience but also was full of technical flaws.

Jan. 2, 2000, “The Next Wave? 3-D Could Bring On a Sea Change”:

As we reset the Great Clock, new technologies are appearing by the minute. Some filmmakers who have worked in the medium believe that large-format 3-D is the wave of the cinematic future—“the next click,” in the words of Brett Leonard, director of “T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous.”

July 20, 2003, “3-D Rides Back to Save the Day”:

“One reason 3-D burned out in the 50’s is that those movies felt so forced, with everyone aiming things at the camera,” [director Robert Rodriguez said. “To make this work, filmmakers will have to do better at the storytelling part.”

May 27, 2007, “Why Hollywood is Getting Serious About 3-D”:

But 3-D is clearly coming into its own, and its cinematic aspect is just one element of technology’s broader march toward a new era of make-believe super-realism.¹

March 13, 2008, “With Theaters Barely Digital, Studios Push 3-D”:

Coming soon, and coming straight at you: houseflies in astronaut suits, Brendan Fraser boldly exploring the earth’s core and an animated, nearly 50-foot-tall she-monster with Reese Witherspoon’s voice.

Sifting through the Times archives, I was surprised that the reports and essays became more credulous about this bit of tech gimmickry as time went on, when you’d expect (hope) the opposite. But hey, who am I to argue? People in the 1950s must have been completely stupid. Now that we have giant Reese Witherspoon she-monsters on our side, it’s not even possible to fail.

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1. You’re telling me the phrase “make-believe super-realism” was used without irony less than a year ago? Seriously? ↑