Audioscopiks (1935)

I usually enjoy Pete Smith’s irreverent style of observational narration, but this one doesn’t work quite so well because, even with my Cineworld 3D spectacles, this just doesn’t really work. You see, the whole point is to illustrate just how that hitherto elusive extra dimension is going to become the logical successor to the talkie and the colour movie. Using a few examples to explain the principles of how our vision works, we are then to don a set of those cardboard glasses with the red plastic film in them and then enjoy half a dozen examples of just how things can leap, jump, spill or kick off the screen straight as us ticket-buying punters. It does labour the point a bit, but probably quite entertainingly passed ten minutes before the feature at the drive-in, and it is interesting to notice that almost a century later, we still haven’t really embraced this technological advance, and even when we do - we still have to wear the specs!