Fifty years of movie sorcery to keep us gasping

By ANGELA GREGORY

Special cinema screens, sound systems and three-dimensional illusions have lured Aucklanders to the movies since the 1950s.

But the novelty screenings were never much more than passing fads.

In April 1953, equipment was imported from America to show a 70-minute "deepie" called Man in the Dark.

Spectators wore polarised glasses and the theatre used two synchronised projectors with polaroid filters, and a special screen.

Aucklanders flocked to see the film's lurching spiders and a roller coaster ride.

Cinemascope made its Auckland debut in November that year at the Civic Theatre and was considered spectacularly effective for panoramic films.

In November 1959, the first purpose-built Cinerama theatre opened in Auckland, with a 7.3m high wrap-around screen and four projectors.

The effect on the viewer was an illusion of 3D vision and of taking part in the action.

The technique was especially popular for travelogues, and thrilled millions around the world until it was abandoned in 1966.

In later years occasional 3D films, for which special glasses were provided, came to New Zealand, and one "odourama" film provided scratch cards allowing viewers to smell their way through the movie.

In 1988 a Barnardos fundraiser sold 700,000 pairs of 3D specs for a screening of Gorilla at Large on television.