Better the “Devil” You Know: the Motion Picture Research Council, 3-D, and the Hollywood Studio System

Dawn Fratini Better the “Devil” You Know: The Motion Picture Research Council, 3-D, and the Hollywood Studio System

Abstract The Motion Picture Research Council, which operated as Hollywood’s centralized technological research and development laboratory from 1947 to 1960, represents the apex of the Hollywood studios’ conjoined technological endeavors. Its very existence pleads the case for an expansion of our conception of the classical Hol- lywood studio system to include the activities of technicians both within the studio and within the larger industrial cluster of motion picture technology manufacturers, service providers, and professional organizations. Using the 3-D “boom” of 1952-1954 as a window into the operations of the MPRC, this article complicates and expands upon the conventional narrative of that “boom” which depicts the success of the independent 3-D feature, Bwana Devil, as having threatened Hollywood’s market control. The MPRC’s involvement with the production, and their subsequent work toward standardizing 3-D filming and exhibition practices serves to illustrate the scope of the activities of Hollywood’s technicians in the late classical era and their interdependent position within the larger industry of motion picture technology.

The low-budget, independent feature,Bwana Devil Oboler in association with the Natural Vision (Oboler, 1952) became the stuff of industry legends Corporation, a small company started by a tinkering when it premiered in two Los Angeles theaters, cinematographer, an ambitious screenwriter, and Thanksgiving weekend of 1952, and took Hollywood the writer’s ophthalmologist brother. As lore tells by complete surprise by drawing astonishing crowds. it, having been unable to interest the Hollywood Promising “A lion in your lap! A lover in your arms!” studios in licensing their system, they produced Bwana Devil was the first stereoscopic, color feature Bwana Devil outside the system to demonstrate the release to be filmed and projected using a dual-band potential of Natural Vision to the world.2 (two-camera, two-projector) system.1 The film was Bwana Devil was wildly commercially produced and directed by radio personality Arch successful in an otherwise lackluster season, despite consistently bad reviews – “a tedious, long-winded piece of claptrap,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.3 As Bosley Crowther of The New York Times put it only a few months later, “Customers lined up to see it; Hollywood producers lined up to see the customers. The producers took one look and rushed back to their studios. The 3-D frenzy was on.”4 John Rees of the Wall Street Journal called the subsequent frenzy of 3-D production “a case of geese flapping along behind goslings,” because the camera systems involved had been “developed by little known flicker folk not connected with the major studios.”5

THE SYSTEM BEYOND THE STUDIOS 31 Luci Marzola, editor, Spectator 38:2 (Fall 2018): 31-39. BETTER THE “DEVIL” YOU KNOW

This characterization of the 3-D boom of interest on behalf of the studios. 1950s Hollywood—as a threat or challenge visited Using the 3-D boom of 1952-1954 as a upon an unsuspecting Hollywood from without— window into the operations of the MPRC, has been repeated in many histories of the this article complicates and expands upon the Hollywood studio system. For example, Peter Lev, conventional narrative of that boom and pleads the in The Fifties: Transforming the Screen, describes 3-D case for broadening our conception of the classical and Cinerama as having “rocked” the industry, by Hollywood studio system, to include the activities changing production, distribution, and the viewing of its technical employees (beyond individual experience. As he explains, film productions), and to consider the studios as a node within a much larger, interconnected, Since both inventions were controlled technologically-based industry. The MPRC was (at least at first) by companies outside a hub of technological activities in Hollywood for the studio system, they threatened to fin- the duration of its existence, and its inclusion in our ish the work of the Paramount anti-trust conception of the Hollywood studio system of the consent decrees that went into effect on 1950s strengthens the case made by Luci Marzola, 1 January 1950 by curtailing the market building on the paradigm established by Bordwell, power of the major and minor studios.6 Staiger, and Thompson, for a reconsideration of the studio system in which the control of technological This account is not untrue, but it is mis- innovation and standardization are central.10 leadingly incomplete as it relies upon a limited Marzola argues that Hollywood is more accurately and limiting definition of the Hollywood studio described as an industrial cluster which includes system itself, and does not account for the work of service labs, industrial manufacturers, independent technicians within the studios and within related sales firms, inventors and tinkerers, and trade service bureaus upon which the industry relied.7 organizations such as the AMPP, the American Because it involved harnessing and synchronizing Society of Cinematographers (ASC), the SMPTE, two already-existing cameras, the Natural Vision and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and system, and dual-band stereoscopy in general, was Sciences.11 not a patentable technology.8 Several Hollywood The MPRC, operating as Hollywood’s studio technicians had already experimented with centralized technological research and development dual-band cinematography in the 1930s, and the laboratory from 1947 to 1960, represents the apex techniques involved had been routinely discussed in of the Hollywood studios’ conjoined technological the pages of the Journal of the SMPTE for decades.9 endeavors. Its demise in the spring of 1960 is one Thus neither on the basis of patents nor on that of the clearest demarcations of the end of the of know-how was 3-D a technology beyond the classical Hollywood system. To fully understand the control of the studios. formation and operation of the MPRC requires a Furthermore, Hollywood’s own central research clearer and more detailed history of the operations and development team, the Motion Picture Research of the AMPP than we have at present. Here, Council (MPRC) served as technical consultants though, I focus on the MPRC’s involvement in on Bwana Devil, and thereafter continued to the 3-D Boom of 1952-1954 as a case study in the develop practices and standards for 3-D production, operations of Hollywood as an industrial cluster. The distribution, and exhibition. Incorporated, funded, endeavors of the MPRC toward the standardization and managed by the Association of Motion Picture of stereoscopic motion pictures reveals not only Producers (AMPP), an organization itself funded close cooperation among studios, but also intense and operated by the Hollywood studios, the MPRC communication and exchange with independent was not only part of the Hollywood studio system, it producers, theater owners, inventors, technological was the gatekeeper and arbiter of new technologies societies, and equipment manufacturers. Thus we for all of the major and minor studios. Essentially, can see that the “system” included and depended the MPRC allowed Natural Vision’s production upon these other entities that operated within, to serve as a test case which they monitored with among, and beyond the studios themselves.

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The Motion Picture Research Council securely established and little activity occurred for the next few years. When the Academy underwent The roots of the MPRC stretch back to the Acad- an upheaval, reorganization, and revision of its emy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ first bylaws in 1934, the AMPP assumed financial and industry-wide testing and standardization endeav- managerial responsibility for the Research Council, or, the Mazda Tests of 1928, as detailed by David agreeing “to full financial and moral support Bordwell in The Classical Hollywood Cinema and for carrying on the research and cooperative more recently by Marzola in “Engineering Hol- engineering program.”15 lywood: Technology, Technicians, and the Science The history of the interplay and tensions of Building the Studio System, 1915-1930.”12 As between the Academy and the AMPP is worthy both describe, this pan-studio effort, coordinated of much closer scrutiny; in as far as the Research via the Academy, to test and develop best practices Council was concerned, however, this proved to be for use of the new tungsten lighting, paved the way a step toward a more robust program. It was also for the Academy’s much more elaborate overseeing a step toward formalizing a chain of command by of the industry’s conversion to sound. The Acad- which those performing technological research and emy’s sound programs included testing of equip- development were answerable directly to the upper ment, communicating with manufacturers, service management of all the studios as a single group, bureaus and consultants, standardization of produc- a Board of Governors. The Research Council’s tion, post-production, and exhibition procedures, board was composed of one representative from studio staff training, publication of bulletins and each of the “participating producing companies,” manuals, coordinating a course of study with the i.e. all of the “Big Five” studios, Columbia and University of Southern California, and communi- Universal.16 General membership was comprised cation with and presentations to the larger motion of studio technical personnel who volunteered their picture engineering community via the SMPE and time and expertise with the permission of their other technical organizations.13 The reach of these employers.17 These were divided into committees activities, across and beyond the individual studios, to handle projects such as the “Screen Illumination demonstrates the usefulness of conceptualizing Committee,” and the “Committee on Industrial Hollywood as an industrial cluster. Education.”18 The Research Council continued In the wake of this frenzy of activity in its in this basic structure through WWII, taking on early years, the scope of the Academy’s Producers- special war-related projects such as recommending Technicians Committee (PTC) was contracted personnel for the Signal Corps and Marine and more clearly defined under chairman Irving Photographic units, and designing portable, light- Thalberg and secretary Lester Cowan. As Marzola weight sound recording equipment.19 details, Thalberg and Cowan were eager to Immediately after the war, the Motion Picture establish a modest and non-threatening program Association of America (MPAA, formerly the which did not extend to officially establishing MPPDA) and the AMPP restructured their standards or even procedures, but rather limited relationship, ultimately leading to the latter taking itself to testing and disseminating information, over the Research Council. Eric Johnston appointed and this dissemination was emphatically limited Byron Price, Vice President of the MPAA, to to seventeen studios and a handful of local service Chairman of the Board of the AMPP, in a move bureaus. Thus, under the Academy, the Hollywood to consolidate authority.20 In the fall of 1946, Price oligopoly exerted control via access to this technical announced before the Society of Motion Picture research and information. In 1932, the PTC was Engineers Convention that preparations for “a expanded so that it could “consider problems of a vastly more comprehensive research program” were, technical nature which concern the actor, director thanks to Johnston, underway.21 This program and writer as well.” 14 At that time it was renamed entailed the AMPP assuming full authority over the Research Council of the Academy and Darryl F. the Research Council, cutting its association with Zanuck was named chairman. However, financing the Academy, and relaunching it as a non-profit for the Research Council’s activities had not been organization, the Motion Picture Research Council,

THE SYSTEM BEYOND THE STUDIOS 33 BETTER THE “DEVIL” YOU KNOW in September of 1947. Corporation were allowed “participant” status. The new MPRC maintained the Research Membership was not free, and the membership dues Council’s reliance on subcommittees comprised of were used to fund the MPRC’s operations. Their studio technical personnel, but it differed from the initial annual operating budget was $150,000.24 Academy’s Research Council in two very significant The scope of activities of the MPRC was, ways. Firstly, it had a full-time, paid staff of en- understandably, much broader than that of the gineers, chemists, technicians and secretaries most of Academy’s Research Council, given their full-time whom had come from outside the studios, from the staff. Their daily activities fell under five categories: laboratories of manufacturers and service providers. 1) Service, which entailed telephone and in-person The initial staff of ten consisted of Lighting, technical support. For the fiscal year 1951-1952, Mechanical Standards, Construction, Design, the MPRC recorded 2,542 telephone contacts Electrical, and Chemical Engineers; a Physicist; with studio personnel, and an astonishing 2,320 a Secretary-Treasurer; and an Administrator. with non-studio organizations. 2) Special Projects, Secondly, the MPRC had its own laboratory which were specific investigations or developments. facilities, finally bringing to fruition many vague On occasion, the MPRC designed, patented, and promises that had been circulating since the 1920s. licensed equipment, though in later years they The Board of Directors was comprised of the top were discouraged from this. 3) Outside Contracts. technical men from each of the Member Studios, The MPRC represented the studios to outside which in its first year consisted of: Columbia, organizations and suppliers and conducted product Loew’s (MGM), Paramount, RKO, Republic, analysis and inventor interviews. 4) Subcommittee 20th Century-Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. meetings, which usually ran monthly, in addition Paramount Pictures Vice President and AMPP to special project committee meetings, tests, and Chairman Y. Frank Freeman was also named demonstrations. These averaged between 60-75 Chairman of the Board of the MPRC. In another per year. 5) Establishment of standards. MPRC staff bold move signaling the expansive ambitions of members served on ASA and ISO committees in the new MPRC, Wallace V. Wolfe, Chairman of establishing national and international standards. the SMPE’s Pacific Coast Section, was hired to Closer to home they developed, documented and preside as President.22 The very make-up of the communicated best practices for all manner of MPRC reflects an understanding of the studio activities. These were published as Research Council system’s reliance upon and interchange with motion Industry Practice bulletins or RCIPs. picture technology manufacturers, service bureaus, Additionally, the MPRC staff regularly and professional organizations. With a full-time wrote and published articles in technical journals, staff of technicians whose expertise went beyond occasionally participated in committees of other the specialized, day-to-day experience of studio technical associations, and maintained an extensive technicians and a board of directors comprised of technical library that was open to virtually anyone. top studio managers, many of whom were also on Whereas the Academy Research Council had the board of the AMPP, the MPRC acted within jealously guarded and controlled the circulation of the larger sphere of motion picture technology, but technical information, the MPRC’s information was very much in the service of and checked by the was widely circulated with reports, RCIPs, and Hollywood studios. bulletins often shared freely with exhibitors, In stark contrast to the Academy Research distributors, independents, and the press.25 The Council’s elitism, MPRC membership was further MPRC continued in this spirit of open-exchange extended to independent producers and technology and at a remarkable level of productivity, as detailed firms who were not members of the AMPP.23 At in their annual reports. different points in time Allied Artists, Hal Roach, Their report of October 1952 proclaimed the Samuel Goldwyn Pictures, and Walt Disney preceding year their “most productive” year to date, Pictures were “associate” members of the MPRC, and highlighted some of their most important while Consolidated Film Industries, General Film projects including the development of shadow- Laboratory, Pathé Laboratories, and the Technicolor less fill-light units, the creation of a chemical

34 FALL 2018 FRATINI fog and foam snow, work with Eastman Kodak stereoscopic systems had been presented to SMPE on a new series of 35mm lenses, and work with with accompanying papers published in their Mitchell Camera on faster and quieter cameras, journal by the late 1930s.29 Hollywood technicians to name only a few of the dozens of projects who were SMPE members would have thereby reported. Their on-going activities including been familiar with the techniques and problems working with the American Standards Association, involved with the technology. manufacturing and selling test film to exhibitors, In the 1920s and 30s, a handful of commercial, and the publication of reports and industry practice stereoscopic shorts were produced outside the recommendations. They logged 2,542 telephone support calls with studio personnel and 2,320 calls Hollywood studios and were well received as with non-studio personnel, conducted 108 tests novelties. One such collection of shorts by and demonstrations, and held 52 meetings. One of stereoscopic pioneers Jacob Leventhal and John the more detailed entries in their list of “Current Norling was purchased by MGM and released Projects,” for 1952 is devoted to “Stereoscopic in January of 1936 as “Audioscopiks,” with a (Three-Dimensional) Pictures.” Here they recount comic voice over by Pete Smith. “Audioscopiks” having served as technical consultants to Natural proved so popular that MGM purchased more Vision’s stereoscopic feature production (Bwana Leventhal-Norling footage and released “The Devil), and having conducted a thorough study of New Audioscopiks” in January of 1938, once stereoscopy, resulting in a set of filming guidelines again to positive response. MGM then decided which they included with the report. 26 to develop its own stereoscopic camera rig. John 3-D and the Hollywood Studios before the MPRC Nickolaus, head of their camera department, had little difficulty putting one together quite probably because all the necessary information had been It’s worth noting that stereoscopic motion picture published by Norling and others in the Journal of experimentation in Hollywood dates back at least 30 the SMPE. Calling their system “Metroscopiks,” to the 1930s and was not completely unfamiliar to Nickolaus, Smith, and director George Sidney studio technicians. If we conceive of the Hollywood filmed MGM’s third stereoscopic short, “Third studio system as merely a production center 31 comprised of a handful of “Big” and “Little” studios, Dimension Murder,” released in early 1941. certainly stereoscopic motion picture technology — Thus we can see that even before the formation or “3-D” as it was dubbed in 1952 — was developed of the MPRC, Hollywood studio technicians were outside of that system. However, if we instead not so far removed from independent inventors view Hollywood as a nexus within an industrial such as Leventhal and Norling whose work was cluster of manufacturers, servicers, and professional circulated, via SMPE (soon updated to SMPTE), organizations, we see that many different within the industrial cluster surrounding motion stereoscopic motion picture systems became part picture technology. However, MGM’s stereoscopic of the discourse which circulated within this cluster work was very limited at that point. It is possible via the Society of Motion Picture Engineers. that they may have continued if not for the impact From its creation in 1916, stereoscopic of World War II. After the war, the formation of technology was a familiar topic in SMPE’s meetings the MPRC was very soon under way and would and publications. Founder Charles Francis Jenkins furnish all of the studios with the means to share himself had patented a “Device for Obtaining 27 and broaden this sort of technological innovation. Stereoscopic Effects” in 1898. In its first decades, SMPE grew from a society of independent inventors The MPRC and the 3D Boom to include technicians from major manufacturers such as Kodak, Bell & Howell, and Polaroid, as well The earliest years of the MPRC were devoted as military and industrial filmmakers, and finally to improving and standardizing equipment and Hollywood studio technicians.28 Roughly a dozen practices among the member studios with an

THE SYSTEM BEYOND THE STUDIOS 35 BETTER THE “DEVIL” YOU KNOW emphasis on efficiency and economy.32 In October As an independent production company, 1950, when MPRC President Wallace Wolfe and Natural Vision would not, according to the Secretary William Kelley addressed SMPTE at MPRCs operational guidelines, have been entitled their convention in Lake Placid to report on the to technical support from the Research Council. MPRC’s activities, the two talked about their new However, if they considered Baker and Natural wind machine, camera crane, and “peel paste.”33 Vision to be potential equipment providers to the However, they also mentioned that the MPRC studios, it was within their operational guidelines to was “constantly receiving proposals from inventors investigate and test that equipment.37 Hill used the all over the world for systems to permit three- interaction as an opportunity to conduct a “thorough dimensional motion pictures.” They noted that study… of geometric and psychological factors while none of those seemed practical, the MPRC involved in the taking, projection, and viewing of had purchased a 16mm stereoscopic adaptor for test stereoscopic motion pictures.” As recorded in the purposes. 1952 report, he consulted data from the Dartmouth It is likely that this 16mm system was purchased Eye Institute pertaining to binocular vision and from longtime Hollywood cinematographer, Friend spatial perception. Attached to the report was Baker. Baker had worked as a cinematographer Hill’s synthesis of his study, “A Simple Formula at Fox and Warner Bros. in the silent era and for Taking Stereoscopic Motion Pictures,” which subsequently worked at a series of studio camera was distributed, alongside the report, to all of the departments. Lothrop Worth, ASC, recalled that member studios over a month before the premier they were both out of work when Baker showed of Bwana Devil. him a 16mm stereoscopic system he’d developed.34 The MPRC had never seen stereoscopy as According to Worth, he helped Baker resolve a a threat, as investigating new technologies was flicker problem, and subsequently they showed their a substantial part of their charter. When the test footage to anyone who dropped by their shop, opportunity arose to observe and consult with the “So word got around.” Natural Vision production, they conducted research In May of 1952, the MPRC’s staff physicist, and created thorough guidelines and procedures Dr. Armin J. Hill furnished to Duke Wales of which they published and distributed amongst the AMPP a thoroughly researched report on the studios. This was their raison d’être: to see that the status-to-date of stereoscopic motion picture the studios were never caught unawares by new technology. Hill’s report summarized the various technologies. The financial success ofBwana Devil types of systems in current development, particularly may have been surprising, as the press account mentioning both Baker’s 16mm adaptor and indicates, but from the point-of-view of the the Natural Vision system. Hill notes that while MPRC, 3-D technology was neither surprising nor Natural Vision is “ambitious,” “no new principles are threatening. They had armed the studio technical staffs with knowledge, so it is not surprising the involved, but rather they have designed a convenient 35 studios went into 3-D production nearly overnight. blimp for mounting two standard cameras…” His Despite this, there was considerable dis- report references articles published by the various agreement among 3-D developers as to the best inventor-developers in American Cinematographer, practices for the mounting of the two cameras, the the Journal of the Optical Society of America, and the spacing between the two lenses (inter-ocular), and Journal of the SMPTE, except in the case of Baker’s the range of convergence (the amount the lenses and the Natural Vision system. He instead relied could pivot toward or away from each other). Once on his first-hand experiences of those systems, the “boom” of 3-D production was underway, these as confirmed in the MPRC’s Annual Report of disagreements grew heated in the pages of the October 1952. The report explained that they SMPTE journal and other trade publications.38 had “kept in close touch” with Arch Oboler’s and At the same time, throughout 1953, film critics Natural Vision’s production of a feature-length, like John Rees and Bosley Crowther continued to three-dimensional picture, and had “at times… been express disdain for the gimmick of 3-D. By June, called upon for technical advice.”36 Crowther was proclaiming, “a virulent epidemic of

36 FALL 2018 FRATINI wide screens and 3-D, both of which have resulted By that time, however, the 3-D boom was in discomforts which the public seems reluctant starting to bust. In his August 6th “Tradeviews” to report.”39 W. R. Wilkerson of The Hollywood column, Wilkerson announced: Reporter launched a months-long assault on the technology in his “Tradeviews” column, speaking, as Yes, boys and girls, 3-D has had a short, ever, in the royal we: “We still believe that when the but merry life… [It] gave the industry a novelty is worn off 3-D, it will prove to be a dud. good goose. It got it into creative action. However, that’s our opinion.” 40 It changed a lot of thinking that will now The Theater Owners Association was also present a better picture, a larger picture, growing impatient. The disagreements among better sound and projection — but not in developers as to proper 3-D filming led to an inability 3-D.45 to establish industry-wide standards. The MPRC had the power to standardize studio practices, but Hill’s most thorough and eloquent work on the by 1953 the studios were out of the exhibition field, topic of 3-D, “A Mathematical and Experimental and theater owners were left to try to navigate the Foundation for Stereoscopic Photography,” nuances of the different 3-D projection systems on appeared in the Journal of the SMPTE that October, their own. This was in addition to the plethora of and the MPRC’s Annual Report for 1952-1953 other technologies (CinemaScope, stereophonic claimed a victory for the MPRC’s 3-D “method” sound) in which they were being asked to invest.41 (the calculator, guidelines, etc.). Nonetheless, their In an effort to improve the 3-D situation for all efforts could overcome neither the ill will of the press concerned, Dr. Hill and the MPRC revised, refined, nor the economic uncertainty of the exhibitors. By and expanded their guidelines. They published a early 1954, the boom was winding down. That May, series of industry-wide bulletins recommending Alfred Hitchcock’s 3-D drama, Dial M for Murder best practices for filming, distributing, and was released by Warner Brothers almost exclusively exhibiting 3-D films.42 To aid further, the MPRC in 2-D, and only a few more 3-D features came out also distributed a “3-D Calculator,” a laminated during the remainder of 1954. set of paper dials for managing the complex calculations proper 3-D cinematography required.43 Conclusion The calculators, which Hill detailed in the pages of the August 1953 issue of American Cinematographer, The MPRC’s work with Natural Vision, their were available free to anyone who merely wrote in research into stereoscopic technology, and their requesting one.44 work to simplify, standardize, and communicate practices not only among their member studios, but to exhibitors, manufacturers, and the field of motion picture technicians at large, indicates the complexity of technological endeavors in which the Hollywood studios participated and were, in fact, embedded. The centrality of the MPRC during the 3-D “boom” of 1953, underscores Hollywood’s position as a nexus of activity, while the scope of the MRPC’s research, activities, and publications indicates the breadth of the larger motion picture industrial cluster in which they operated. The loss of the MPRC in the spring of 1960 meant a loss of such a highly focused and efficient technological center, which coincides with the overall diffusion of authority that marks the end of the classical Hollywood studio system. Taking the MPRC and its activities into account, we have a

THE SYSTEM BEYOND THE STUDIOS 37 BETTER THE “DEVIL” YOU KNOW greater understanding of the extent of the classical greater sense of the operational upheavals of the Hollywood studio system, and, by contrast, a subsequent decades.

Dawn Fratini is a PhD candidate in Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA. She is currently completing her dissertation on the Motion Picture Research Council. She is also an adjunct professor at Chapman University where she teaches courses in film history, the Walt Disney Company, and the horror genre. Notes 1 Bwana Devil movie poster, United Artists, 1953. 2 R.M. Hayes, 3-D Movies: A History and Filmography of Stereoscopic Cinema ( Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1998), 20-21. 3 “Bwana Devil Disappoints: Three-Dimensional Film Strains Eyes,”Hollywood Reporter, November 28, 1952, 3, 15. 4 Bosley Crowther, “The Three-Dimensional Riddle,”New York Times, March 29, 1953, SM14. 5 John David Rees, “3-D Fever,” Wall Street Journal, February 2, 1953, 1. 6 Peter Lev, The Fifties: Transforming the Screen, 1950-1959. History of the American Cinema: Volume 7 (Uni- versity of California Press, 2006), 109. 7 W.B. Cook, “Presidential Address,” Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (hereafter TSMPE) 12, no. 33 (Spring 1928): 13-15. Historically, the SMPTE uses a very broad definition of “engineer” to encompass “any technician” working in the field, including camera men, electricians, laboratory chemists, etc. This allowed them to expand their membership. However, the more generic term, “technician,” was used interchange- ably in their publications. (See: Cook, W.B., “Speeches Presented at the the Banquet Given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,” TSMPE 12, no. 33, (Spring 1928): 16-17. Recent academic writing has preferred the term “technician” to refer to encompass all of the various technical employees. 8 Miketta & Glenny, “3-D Report,” March 5 1953, Box 3, Folder 3, Walter Beyer Papers, University of Califor- nia Los Angeles Young Research Library Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA (Hereafter Beyer Papers). 9 See: Michael D. Smith, Peter Ludé, and Bill Hogan, eds., 3D Cinema and Television Technology: The First 100 Years (White Plains, NY: Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, 2011). 10 Luci Marzola, “Engineering Hollywood: Technology, Technicians, and the Science of Building the Studio System, 1915-1930.” PhD diss., University of Southern California, 2016.; David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, Kristen Thompson,Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style of Mode of Production (NY: Columbia University Press, 1985). 11 Marzola, 3-6. 12 See: David Bordwell, “The Mazda Tests of 1928,” in Bordwell, Staiger, Thompson,Classical Hollywood Cin- ema, 294; Luci Marzola, “Chapter 4: Bridging the Divide: Trade Collaboration and the First Scientific Endeavor in Hollywood,” in “Engineering Hollywood.” 13 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Annual Report 1929, Academy History Archive, Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections (hereafter Herrerck Digital Collections). URL: http://digitalcollections. oscars.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15759coll4/id/1996/rec/1. See also: Marzola, “Engineering Hol- lywood.” 14 “First Meeting of Research Council: Introductory Remarks by Darryl Zanuck, Chairman,” Academy of Mo- tion Picture Arts and Sciences Technical Bulletin, Supplement 12, August 20 1932, Herrick Digital Collections. URL: http://digitalcollections.oscars.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15759coll4/id/267/rec/3 15 “The Technicians Branch,” Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Technical Bulletin, No. 1, January 26 1934, Herrick Digital Collections. URL: http://digitalcollections.oscars.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15759coll4/id/457/rec/3 16 The big five were Paramount, MGM, th20 Century Fox, Warner Bros., and RKO. 17 Samuel J. Briskin, “Academy Cooperative Technical Program Resumed,” Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Technical Bulletin, No. 5, April 10 1934, Herrick Digital Collections. URL: http://digitalcollections. oscars.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15759coll4/id/471/rec/5 18 William Koenig, “The Organization and Activities of the Research Council of the Academy of Motion Pic- ture Arts and Sciences,” Journal of the Socity of Motion Picture Engineers (Hereafter JSMPE) 29, no. 5 (November 1937): 484-88. 19 Walter Wanger, “A Report: The Academy in Wartime,” May 1, 1943, Herrick Digital Collections. URL:

38 FALL 2018 FRATINI http://digitalcollections.oscars.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15759coll4/id/3113 20 “AMPP Joins MPAA but Keeps Its Autonomy,” Variety, January 16, 1946, 10. 21 Byron Price, “Determining the Role of Research in the Future of the Motion Picture,” JSMPE 48, no. 1 ( January 1947): 72. 22 Arch Reeve, Public Information Committee, Motion Picture Industry, For Release Tuesday July 15, 1947, Box 1, Folder 360, Association of Motion Picture Producers Files, Margaret Herrick Library, Beverly Hills, CA (hereafter AMPP Collection). 23 Y. Frank Freeman, “Motion Picture Research Council,” JSMPE 49, no. 4 (October 1947): 389. 24 Annual Report 1949, October 5 1949, Box 01, Folder 361, AMPP Collection. 25 Ibid. 26 Annual Report October 1, 1951– October 1, 1952, October 14 1952, Box 01, Folder 361, AMPP Collection. 27 Charles Francis Jenkins, “Device for Obtaining Stereoscopic Effects in Exhibiting Pictures,” U.S. Patent 606,993, July 5, 1898. URL: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=606993&idkey=NONE&homeurl=http%3A %252F%252Fpatft.uspto.gov%252Fnetahtml%252FPTO%252Fpatimg.htm 28 Luci Marzola, “A Society Apart: The Early Years of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers,”Film History, 28, no. 4 (2016): 1-28. 29 See: Smith, Ludé, and Hogan. 30 See: John A. Norling, “Three-Dimensional Motion Pictures,”JSMPE 33 (December 1939), 612-31. 31 Pete Smith, “Three Dimensionally Speaking,” inNew Screen Techniques, ed. Martin Quigley Jr. (New York: Quigley Publishing Company, 1953), 17-20. 32 See: MPRC Annual Reports of 1948 and 1949, AMPP Collection. 33 William F. Kelley and W. V. Wolfe, “Technical Activities of the Motion Picture Research Council,” Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (hereafter JSMPTE) 56, no. 2 (February 1951): 178-96. 34 Worth is quoted in: Ray Zone, 3-D Revolution: The History of Modern Stereoscopic Cinema (Lexington: Uni- versity Press of Kentucky, 2012), Kindle Edition, Loc: 114. 35 Dr. Armin J. Hill, “Three Dimensional Pictures,” May 21 1952, Box 1, Folder 358, AMPP Collection. 36 “Annual Report October 1, 1951– October 1, 1952.” 37 William F. Kelley, “Motion Picture Research Council,” JSMPTE 51, no. 4 (October 1948): 418-23. 38 The Spottiswoode brothers, the Gunzbergs, John Norling, and John T. Rule were the most prominent developers to publish guidelines for stereoscopy during this period. Their papers contained veiled references to “other systems” whose recommendations differ. Many are collected in: Smith, Ludé, and Hogan. 39 Bosley Crowther, “Summer Fare,” New York Times, June 28, 1953, 1. 40 W. R. Wilkerson, “Tradeviews,” The Hollywood Reporter, August 6, 1953, 1. See also: “Tradeviews,” The Hol- lywood Reporter, July 15, 20, 21, 24 and August 3, 10, 1953. 41 Mitchell Wolfson, “The Motion Picture Industry,”JSMPTE 60, no. 5 (May 1953): 636-39. 42 MPRC Bulletin #218: Photography of 3-D Stereoscopic Motion Pictures, April 17, 1953, Box 3, Folder 3, Beyer Papers. See also: Informational Bulletins #1-4 covering projection, exchange procedures, and interlock procedures, February – April 1953, Box 3, Folder 8, Beyer Papers. 43 MPRC Bulletin #219: Directions for the Use of the Motion Picture Research Council 3-D Calculator, April 21 1953, Box 3, Folder 3, Beyer Papers. 44 Dr. Armin J. Hill, “The Motion Picture Research Council 3-D Calculator,”American Cinematographer, Au- gust 1953, 373. MPRC 3-D Calculator, April 1953, Box 3, Folder 1, Beyer Papers,. 45 Wilkerson.

THE SYSTEM BEYOND THE STUDIOS 39