By Alonso Duralde, Hollywood.com Staff
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Yes, House of Wax, Kiss Me Kate and Bwana Devil were the 3-D hits of the '50s, but in the last 50 years, most attempts at the gimmick have laid big, three-dimensional eggs — like these 10 flops
1. Robot Monster (1953)
Granted, this legendary 3-D turkey — about gorilla-suited moon men who wipe almost everyone off the face of the planet — was made so cheaply that it probably couldn’t have avoided turning a profit. But the sheer awfulness of this movie certainly didn’t help the nascent format’s reputation among audiences.
2. Man in the Dark (1953)
After Bwana Devil became a hit, Columbia Pictures stopped shooting on this routine action flick (starring Edmond O’Brien and Audrey Totter) and rewrote the script to accommodate 3-D effects. The movie was rushed onto screens — production lasted 11 days — so that it could open before House of Wax, and the slapdash nature of its creation showed. Thanks to its terrible script and clumsy cinematography, many experts call it one of the worst 3-D movies ever.
3. Arena (1953)
When the fad of 3-D was new, audiences would sit through almost anything to see it in action — even sudsy duds like 1953's Sangaree, starring Arlene Dahl and Fernando Lamas, drew in crowds despite unenthusiastic reviews. One of the first studio 3-D movies to fail was Arena, a Richard Fleischer–directed rodeo drama with Gig Young, Jean Hagen and Lee Van Cleef. It probably didn’t help that MGM refused to shell out for the Natural Vision process (the industry standard at the time) and, instead, tried to invent its own (crappy) in-house 3-D instead.
4. The Nebraskan (1953)
Legend has it that this movie was so terrible, a San Francisco filmgoer actually punched a theater manager in the face for screening it.
5. Taza, Son of Cochise (1954)
Audiences weren’t wild about this Western, but its lack of success can’t be pinned entirely on 3-D; after all, would you buy Rock Hudson (in tan makeup) as an Apache?
6. The Bubble (1966)
Writer-director Arch Oboler (The Twonky) flopped with this tedious science-fiction movie that resembles an overlong Twilight Zone episode. Although it boasted a new and improved version of 3-D, audiences stayed away — but never underestimate the power of a good title, since The Bubble did much better in a 1976 reissue, under the name Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth.
7. Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror (1968)
This Mexican werewolf movie, hustled into American theaters in 1972 in an attempt to cash in on the popularity of The Stewardesses, didn’t click with moviegoers. One critic memorably called it “Frankenstein’s bloody bore.” Not to be confused with 1973's Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, which was a huge hit.
8. Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)
Several major studios embraced 3-D in the early ’80s after the surprise success of Comin’ at Ya! Universal’s sci-fi-action flick died a quick death, taking in only about a third as much as the same year’s moderately successful Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. (1983 was a big year for colons, apparently.)
9. The Man Who Wasn’t There (1983)
The biggest flop of the Reagan-era 3-D flicks was this supremely unfunny invisible man comedy starring Steve Guttenberg. Roger Ebert noted, “Not in recent memory has a movie, even a bad movie, offered less for your money.” The title, at least, was put to better use by the Coen brothers in 2001.
10. Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006)
You’d think people would learn to leave George Romero’s seminal horror classic alone; every time there’s a remake, or a colorized version, or an anniversary edition that mucks about with the original, the fans get pissed, and rightly so. So it’s not surprising that zombiephiles stayed away from this 3-D remake in droves; the opening weekend of its one-week release drew a paltry $1,484 per-screen average.