Pola-Lite(c.1953–1954)

The Pola-Lite single-strip system began in the early 1950s as two separate but related concerns: a 35mm, 3-D printing and exhibition process developed by All Dimensions, Inc. under the name Moropticon; and a range of polarized 3-D spectacles, manufactured and distributed by the Pola-Lite Company. Compared with dual-strip stereoscopic processes, Pola-Lite allowed exhibitors to project 3-D features without synchronizing two projectors and eliminated challenges that theater operators faced, such as the need for intermissions and reducing the effects of audience eyestrain, resulting from poorly configured 3-D projection. As the first commercially viable, single-strip stereoscopic system, Pola-Lite offered a potential lifeline to 3-D filmmakers and exhibitors, at a moment when audiences, studios and theaters seemed ready to do away with the third dimension entirely. Milton Herman, the general manager of Detroit’s Roxy Theater, which publicly premiered Pola-Lite on March 31, 1954, with a presentation of Universal-International’s mid-century monster show, Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), opined that Pola-Lite offered “the only salvation for the third dimension in motion pictures” (Juntunen, 1954). Yet no matter how the company framed its technology, 3-D filmmaking and exhibition quickly faded from view, and only a handful of features received Pola-Lite releases during the spring and summer of 1954. 

The single-strip process, later known as Pola-Lite, began sometime in 1953 as Moropticon, named after its purported inventor, the Hollywood producer and FBI double-agent Boris Morros. Contemporary sources, such as an item tucked away in the September 12, 1953, issue of Motion Picture Herald, repeated the claim that Morros invented the process, in Vienna. While industry accounts remain light on details, Morros did file a patent on September 3, 1953, with the Austrian Patent Office for a “photographic and cinematographic apparatus for recording or reproducing two adjacent, preferably stereoscopic images, with a single lens”. All Dimensions, Inc., chaired by Morros, held Worldwide patent rights for Moropticon, while former Universal-International executive Matthew Fox acted as president and chief executive officer. 

At the same time, Fox served as chairman for the Pola-Lite Company, which also emerged in early 1953, as a manufacturer of adjustable 3-D glasses (New York Times, 1953). An early advertisement in the trade journal Film Bulletin, urges exhibitors to order the firm’s “expendable 3-D glasses that are adjustable”. This indeed constituted Pola-Lite’s major differentiator in the 3-D spectacles marketplace. Rather than using the flimsier cardboard hawked by its competitors, Pola-Lite produced models made from reinforced plastic, sized for both adults and children, as well as a clip-on model for audience members who wore prescription glasses for vision. 

Together, Moropticon and Pola-Lite offered exhibitors a higher-quality 3-D process and audience experience than dual-strip systems, such as Natural Vision 3-Dimension, or Stereo Techniques 3-D. On November 5, 1953, at the annual convention of the trade organization Theater Owners of America, Pola-Lite officially announced a business agreement with Moropticon to furnish the latter’s system to exhibitors purchasing Pola-Lite glasses (Motion Picture Daily, 1953). Pola-Lite’s initial pricing scheme made the optical apparatus, still called the Moropticon, nominally free for exhibitors after a $500 deposit and an agreement to purchase 30,000 pairs of spectacles over the course of a year. Alternatively, the firm offered two- and five-year leases with, and without, an agreement to purchase their spectacles (Film Bulletin, 1953). As interest in 3-D pictures receded the following year, Pola-Lite attempted to renew exhibitor interest by lowering prices. In June 1954, according to Variety, the company began offering the optical unit and installation for $150, with a reduced agreement to purchase only 6,000 pairs of spectacles per year. The Pola-Lite glasses, according to one ad campaign, cost $0.10 per pair (Motion Picture Herald, 1954a). 

Complicating a straightforward story of corporate synergy, contemporary reporting from early 1954 onwards suggests that Dr. Leon Wells, a Polish-born physicist and Holocaust survivor, and not Morros, invented the Pola-Lite system “in about eight months” (Juntunen, 1954; Motion Picture Herald, 1954b). But aside from these public claims, archival evidence remains sparse. Bob Furmanek of the 3-D Film Archive suggests that Wells “refined” the existing Moropticon system (Furmanek, n.d.), while the historian Ray Zone credits only Morros (Zone, 2012). Morros’ Austrian patent clearly predates any US patent filed by Wells. Only in 1961 did the United States Patent Office grant Wells a patent for a “motion picture projection system utilizing beam splitting means”. But that patent applies abandoned applications to Wells’ Cinerama-style widescreen Wonderama (ARC 120) images, rather than stereoscopic ones. Most likely, Wells gave up pursuing any specific ideas that he brought to Morros’ system as interest in 3-D technology faded from the public view.

At any rate, Wells maintained an active role in further developing and marketing of the Moropticon system throughout the fall and winter of 1953. During its debut at New York City’s RKO 86th Street Theatre on September 9, The Hollywood Reporter noted that industry insiders found the process, however “impressive,” lacking “in way of screen light” (1953). But by November, The Independent Film Journal reported “vast progress” after viewing sequences in the format from the forthcoming Douglas Sirk-directed western Taza, Son of Cochise. Archival images also attest to physical changes in the optical attachment. In 1953, the Moropticon attached to a theater’s projector by brackets (Boxoffice, 1953), while by 1954 the device, now called Pola-Lite and attributed solely to Wells, affixed directly to the lens barrel (Motion Picture Herald, 1954c). Throughout that spring, Wells traveled across North America to support exhibitors installing the system and to further drum up industry and popular support for the Pola-Lite brand (Juntunen, 1954; Boxoffice, 1954).

Principal competition in single-strip 3-D came from the Nord Corporation, which developed a printing and exhibition process similar to Pola-Lite’s. George Schutz outlined the differences between the Nord and Pola-Lite systems in a 1954 article for Motion Picture Herald, namely, the arrangement of perpendicular left–right images within a traditional 35mm film frame and the placement of an optic apparatus outside the projection booth for Nord, as opposed to Pola-Lite’s more streamlined projector attachment.

Pola-Lite named Taza as its first release, scheduled for mid-February 1954 (International Projectionist, 1953), but public concerns about illumination levels and image quality continued through the winter. So, while Taza featured prominently in a series of industry demonstrations in late 1953 and early 1954, most first-run filmgoers saw Taza in flat, or dual-strip 3-D presentations. According to research conducted by 3-D historian Mike Ballew, Taza’s Pola-Lite release only occurred later in the year in second-run theaters (Ballew, n.d.). 

Instead, Pola-Lite publicly debuted on March 31, 1954, at the Detroit premiere of Creature from the Black Lagoon. Although Creature proved so successful in the format that Universal doubled their initial print order of the film from ten to twenty (Motion Picture Daily, 1954), and while the firm contracted with dozens of independent exhibitors and regional chains across North America to play Pola-Lite product throughout the year, the format never reached widespread use. In April, Pola-Lite vice president for distribution Al O’Keefe announced forthcoming releases in the process: Gog (1954) and Southwest Passage (1954), both from United Artists, and Gorilla at Large (1954), from Fox. But evidence for these releases remains sparse. An item in the June 30, 1954, edition of Canadian Film Weekly, following Pola-Lite’s first demonstration in that country, suggests that Pola-Lite did in fact print these films using the process. Likewise, a 3-D filmography compiled by Gary Palmer in 2004 records Pola-Lite prints for these features, as well as Jack Arnold’s 1955 Creature follow-up, Revenge of the Creature (Palmer, 2004). Research by Furmanek, and others, have yet to turn up playdates for these films in the format, or to uncover extant prints. If, indeed, prints for any of these features were made in Pola-Lite, waning public exuberance for so-called “deepies” no doubt diminished their runs – by April 1954, the industry press was readily declaring 3-D “dead” in America cinemas (Variety, 1954a).