52 Years Ago In TIME

Filmmakers are beginning to experiment once again with 3-D MOVIES. Back in 1953, when the new technology first took Hollywood by storm, it was seen as the savior of a slumping business.

One day the movies had been just a mental transom the public was half-tired of peeking through. The next day the movies were a gap in the mind’s defenses through which a roaring lion leaped and landed in the delighted moviegoer’s lap. Spears and guns threatened his head, spiders walked on his face, beautiful girls reached alluringly from the screen. Then, just when a man’s guard was up, came a roar of sound from the balcony, and, caught from behind and before, he was yanked into the screen and taken for a thrilling ride on a roller coaster. Had Hollywood really done any more than recapture the public’s attention by slapping it in the face? Had a real technical and artistic revolution been started in the movie world? Said one moviemaker confidently: “Hollywood is at the beginning of a new age of prosperity.”

–TIME, June 8, 1953

Read the entire article at time.com/years