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The very first publicly shown short 3D-Movie (lasting only about a minute) was made by the Lumière brothers in 1903 ("L'Arrivée du Train"), showing the arrival of a train in a railway station. It was presented at the World Fair of 1903 in Paris. It could only be viewed by one person at a time on a modified stereoscope, as a proper screening-process to divide the left and right pictures for viewing had not been invented. To watch this 3D-Movie (playing in the window to the right, if you have Windows Media Player installed on your computer), you will need anaglyph glasses!
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The first screening of 3D short motion pictures, for a paying audience, dates back to June 10, 1915, when the short Jim, the Penman was shown at the Astor Theatre New York, starring John Mason and Marie Doro along with some scenes from rural America and the Niagara Falls. They were also the very first 3-D movies in which the audience had to wear red/green anaglyph spectacles.
In September of 1922, the movie "Power of Love" was released. This film featured the "anaglyph process" which involved simultaneously shooting two view of a scene and then printing the film in two different colors and combining them with layered film on one reel. The moviegoer then viewed the film wearing a special pair of glasses with one red lens and one green lens. The red lens would draw the viewers attention to the green view of the scene and the green lens would draw the other eye towards the red view of the scene. This would cause an "overlap" which made certain objects appear closer than they were and others seem to move out of the screen towards the viewer.
Experimental or novelty 3D-Films continued to be produced sporadically through the early days of cinema.
The early 1950's saw Hollywood in a lot of trouble. In addition to the repercussions from Joe McCarthy's communist witchhunt amongst actors, writers and directors, the movie industry had to contend with the growing success of television. As a result, ticket sales were miserable and studio executives eagerly searched for a gimmick to get patrons to return to the theaters. The gimmick that emerged was the three-dimensional movie.
Unfortunately, the anaglyphic process could not accomodate full color movies and often caused viewers to suffer from headaches. This led to the development of the Polaroid 3D system which used two lenses filming, involved lightwaves passing in perpendicular planes to the other lens. It was this process that was used in "Bwana Devil".
On November 26, 1952, the low budget independent feature film called "Bwana Devil", produced by Sidney W. Pink, opened to sold out crowds with the line of people waiting to get in spanning several blocks. The film, centered on an attack on railroad crews by man-eating lions proved so successful that United Artists purchased the rights for the film and released it nationally.
A year later, the movie "House of Wax" was released starring Vincent Price and Charles Bronson. Considered the finest 3D movie ever made, House of Wax caused a "3D" craze throughout Hollywood, with most major studios rushing to show their attempt at the novelty including "Creature from the Black Lagoon", "The Nebraskan" and "Kiss Me Kate". Unfortunately, even the prospect of Jane Mansfield's ample bosom being thrust out towards the audience was not enough to continue the craze. Still mired by a propensity to cause headaches, 3D movies fell out of favor so much that two-dimensional versions often significantly outearned the 3D version. The public rebuke was such that Alfred Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder", originally filmed in 3D, was released only in 2D. The money quickly and eagerly thrown at participating in the just as quickly went down the drain.
Since its initial craze in the 1950's, 3D movies have been produced very sporadically with moderate levels of success. The most successful of these was "The Stewardesses", a soft-core porn movie released in 1969. "The Stewardesses" became the highest earning 3D film ever, perhaps because members of the audience were curious to see what would be thrust at them in 3D.
Today, many IMAX films are made in 3D.
For more information about specific 3D-Movies, please refer to the Stereoscopy.com 3D-Movie Database.
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