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Something extra for film fans Bob Pennell photo Mike Royer's vintage movie collection includes a dozen 3-D glasses used for viewing movies and comics. The former Disney illustrator is lending a pioneering 3-D short, "The Third Dimensional Murder," to the city's parks department as a preview for the next film in its summer series, "It Came From Outer Space." By BILL VARBLE Mike Royer was sketching characters from "Winnie the Pooh" on a pad one night as he waited for the movie to start at Medford's Bear Creek Park. Newly arrived here from the Simi Valley near Los Angeles, he thought he'd take in one of the free movies shown Saturday nights in a continuing film festival sponsored by the city's parks department. A Disney illustrator for many years, Royer drew some onlookers with his sketches. That got the attention of Bob Campbell, who is the film series' volunteer producer ("a hobby run amok," Campbell calls his love for vintage films). Campbell and Royer talked. When Campbell said he planned to show the 1953 3-D movie "It Came From Outer Space" in the park on Aug. 11, Royer, a longtime movie collector himself, said he had an unusual 3-D short he'd loan the festival that would fit right in. And that is why, come nightfall Saturday, 2,000 people or more will be watching "The Third Dimensional Murder" in the park. (It also shows at dusk tonight at Cantrall-Buckley Park in Ruch.) In the pioneering short film, a skeleton, an arrow and boiling oil sloshed by Frankenstein's monster appear to jump out of the screen at viewers. "They're throwing everything at you," Campbell says. "The effects are not subtle. For those interested in 3-D, it's wonderful." Royer, 60, grew up in the Willamette Valley and moved to Southern California in 1965 to work in films. He admits to being fanatical about old movies. "I wanted to check it out and see if there were any other collectors around," he says. He began collecting years ago with a print of "The Sea Hawk," the 1940 Warner Brothers Errol Flynn swashbuckler, trading some of his artwork for it. He's down to maybe 250 rare pictures now, specializing in vintage westerns. Surrounded by movie and comics paraphernalia in his home office, where he works as a free-lance artist inking comics such as "The Mighty Thor" and "The Avengers," Royer shows off 3-D glasses designed for movies and comics, some going back to the 1950s. Think 3-D and you think of the '50s, but the 3-D movies of that era were actually a renaissance. Charles Wheatstone invented the mirror stereoscope, which produced a three-dimensional effect, in 1838, and stereoscopic photos were a rage in the 19th century. Kodak introduced stereo cameras in 1901. The first 3-D movie, "The Power of Love," was shown in Los Angeles in 1922. A 3-D film made by Polaroid for Chrysler was a hit at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. The 3-D effect stems from binocular vision, in which the left and right eye see a slightly different image, and it's the merging of images that creates visual depth. Why do thousands of people turn out to see 50-year-old films as VCRs and DVDs sit in their homes? Count Royer among those who say there's something about film you can't get in video. "Video can be solitary, but film is communal," he says. "There's something about it, you can't say what it is, but you know it when you see it. "It's what made Walt Disney successful. And then he died and was replaced by guys with clipboards." "The Third Dimensional Murder" was made in 1940 by MGM. A photo in the book "Amazing 3-D" (Little, Brown) shows Pete Smith, who packaged a couple of 3-D shorts for studios in the late 1930s, with an actor made up as Frankenstein's monster on the set of "The Third Dimensional Murder." Royer says he's seen two other copies in the collectors' market in the last 25 years. Unlike the relatively restrained "It Came From Outer Space," the short was made to show off as many sensational effects as it could in as short a time as possible, hence the rapid-fire scary stuff. Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.