At MoMA, a Weeklong Tribute to Early 3-D

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The Museum of Modern Art embarks on a kitschy, back-to-the-future sort of journey Friday, Sept. 1, when it begins a weeklong festival called “3-D Funhouse” that revisits an earlier generation’s efforts to make three-dimensional movies.

Though the MoMA program includes an example from 1922, the 3-D fad was concentrated in the middle of the last century. The program includes four features from the 3-D Film Archive, which is dedicated to preserving these eclectic works that didn’t have the benefit of digital technology and were often dismissed by critics. The Saturday feature, the 1953 musical “Those Redheads From Seattle,” was certainly treated harshly by Bosley Crowther, the film critic for The New York Times.

The movie was “an unspeakable strain on the eyes,” he wrote, adding: “This viewer finally settled on looking through the glasses with one eye at a time. A better way might possibly be to look at it with both eyes closed.”

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