A Lion In My Lap... A Lover in My Arms...

Back in 2003, when the first World 3-D Film Expo was announced, promising to screen over 30 classic 3-D films in their original dual projection format, I was chomping at the bit to go. But I was in the middle of production on a television series, low on funds and the trek from Toronto to L.A. was just more than I could take on. It happened again in 2006, and again I found myself in similar circumstances. The event was referred to as “a Woodstock for movie geeks” by Leonard Maltin and although I’ve missed the initial offerings, World 3-D Film Expo III, is set to begin September 6^th in Hollywood at the Grauman’s Egyptian Theater. I’ve booked my flight so I guess I’ll have to settle for the “Lollapalooza for movie geeks”.

While the offerings seem scaled down from previous years and I’ve had the opportunity to screen a number of the films in the last ten years, this year’s World 3-D Film Expo promises to be very exciting for film buffs and 3-D fanatics alike. They have a few firsts. The John Wayne classic, Hondo opens the festival, making its first 3-D presentation since an anaglyph television in the early eighties. And an early Russian 3-D film from the forties, Robinzon Kruzo (Robinson Crusoe) will play in America for the first time.

I’m extremely excited to see the Richard Carlson vehicle The Maze in 3-D, a film I’ve come to think of as a thematically connecting bridge between the science and the horror to his other 3-D films, It Came From Outer Space and The Creature From The Black Lagoon. Carlson also teamed up with Ivan Tors to produce another sci-fi 3-D rarity, GOG.
It's not playing this years festival.

Other personal highlights promised by the festival is a chance to seen the film that kicked off the 3-D revolution of the 50’s, Arch Obler’s Bwana Devil, the first adaptation of a Mickey Spillane novel, I, the Jury and a theatrical screening of the 70’s soft-core film The Stewardesses. That film is closely tied to the depthsploitation asthetic here on this blog and also featured the work of Chris Condon and Dan Symmes, two 3-D pioneers that were my window into the stereoscopic world and have both sadly passed on.

More information of the 3-D World Film Expo III can be had at their website, 3-dfilmexpo.com, and would it hurt to like them on facebook.

I’ll be in L.A. for most of the Expo and posting highlights all week. If you’re in L.A. you owe it to yourself to get down to this even, and if you’re an nut for 3-D you might consider getting yourself down there for this event, lest you spend the next ten years, like I have, with a little regret.