The Birth of Television

[Magda Hassan]

More suppressed technology is rediscovered.

Decades before Hollywood shlockmeisters rolled out their gimmicky spectacles in the mid-'50s, Nazi filmmakers made 3Dpropaganda films using their own versions of the format.Stored in an obscure corner of Berlin's Federal Archives, two black-and-white shorts shot in 1936 were discovered by Australian director Philippe Mora as he researched a project on Third Reich cinema.Mora told Variety the 3D Nazi movies, evidently filmed with a prism in front of two lenses, "were made … for Goebbels' propaganda ministry and referred to as raum film -- or space film -- which may be why no one ever realised since that they were 3D."The half-hour films include a musical, So Real You Can Touch It, featuring close-ups of sizzling bratwurst. Six Girls Roll Into Weekend follows a group of Nazi starlets."The quality of the films is fantastic," Mora said. "The Nazis were obsessed with recording everything and every single image was controlled -- it was all part of how they gained control of the country and its people."Mora, who believes there are more Nazi 3D films waiting to be unearthed, is already digging into his next project: a 3D biopic about Salvador Dali.Source: Wired.com