Cinema: With & Without Glasses

¶ Faced with a choice of exhibiting MGM’s cinemusical Kiss Me, Kate in either 3-D (with glasses) or the flat version, Manhattan’s gigantic (6,200 seats) Radio City Music Hall this week chose the old-fashioned flattie. “We feel,” said Managing Director Russell V. Downing, “that the picture is just as entertaining in two dimensions. If it had seemed that 3-D would have added any plus value … we would have shown it the other way.” Although the Music Hall cautiously withheld comment on 3-D itself, the decision is a blow to any serious future Hollywood attempts at 3-D with glasses. ¶ Warner Bros., apparently abandoning its own WarnerScope wide-screen process, announced that it would use Fox’s Cinema-Scope. Warner CinemaScopepics now in the works: A Star Is Born (with Judy Garland), Rear Guard (with Guy Madison), Mr. Roberts (with Marlon Brando), Helen of Troy, Scott’s The Talisman.