| Third Dimensional Murder | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | George Sidney |
| Produced by | Pete Smith |
| Written by | Jerry Hoffman |
| Narrated by | Pete Smith |
| Starring | Pete Smith, Ed Payson |
| Music by | David Snell (uncredited) |
| Cinematography | Walter Lundin (Director of Photography) B.C. Parker (camera operator) |
| Editing by | Phillip W. Anderson |
| Studio | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | March 1, 1941 |
| Running time | 8 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Third Dimensional Murder is a 1941 3D comedy short produced and narrated by Pete Smith. It is the last of the Audioscopiks 3D short series.
Contents |
Our narrator, Pete Smith, gets a phone call asking for help at an old castle. Smith arrives and is attacked by a witch, a skeleton, an Indian warrior, an archer and Frankenstein (specifically modeled after Boris Karloff in Son of Frankenstein).
The third and last in the Pete Smith Audioscopiks 3D series of shorts, Third Dimensional Murder the footage in the short was shot specifically for it, unlike the previous two shorts which utilized test footage shot by Jacob Leventhal and Jack Norling.[1]
With he success of the first two shorts, Smith consulted J.M. Nikolaus in the camera department at MGM. Nikolaus went to studio manager E. J. Mannix who gave Nikolaus a budget of "about $3,000" to create a stereoscopic camera rig. After some trial and error, Nickolaus created a camera using two Bell & Howell 35mm cameras with specially matched lenses made by Bauch and Lomb. The lenses were 2¾ inches apart and were shot into prisms. George Sidney directed the short.[1] Sidney later directed the 3-D feature for MGM, Kiss Me Kate. Prints were in anaglyph by Technicolor.