A memorial rite for Chris Condon will be recited at 9:45 a.m. this Sunday (January 30) at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox church.
There will be a 40-day memorial service for Chris Condon and a traditional ‘Kolava’ memorial will be served with coffee in the community center complex.
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox church 9501 Balboa Blvd. (corner of Plummer St.)
(Chris Condon passed away Monday, December 20th, 2010 at the age of 87. He received the very first Lifetime Achievement Lumiere Award from the International 3D Society. Stereo Cinema Historian Ray Zone recaps Condon’s career below).
Chris Condon and StereoVision
by Ray Zone
After Flesh for Frankenstein, AKA Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein had been photographed with Robert Bernier’s SpaceVision, the decision was made in 1974 to distribute the film in 3-D using Chris Condon’s StereoVision projection optics in the theaters. The contract kept the StereoVision company alive in the wake of its staggering success with The Stewardesses (1969) and the ill-advised decision by Condon and his partner Allan Silliphant to invest their windfall by starting a commuter airline as a subdivision of the StereoVision company.
Like Bernier, Condon had invented and patented a complete system for single-strip 3-D film which included both a stereo attachment for cameras and projection optics for the cinema. As much as Bernier, Condon was a champion of single-strip 3-D. His work was highly influential in driving the 1980s boom of single-strip 3-D films. Condon had developed two separate single-strip 3-D formats for StereoVision with both an over-under widescreen configuration and a side-by-side anamorphically squeezed format. It was the side-by-side configuration that Condon had used to photograph and project The Stewardesses in 1969. When The Stewardesses opened in two of investor/distributor Lou Sher’s Art Circuit theaters in 1969, one in Hollywood and one in San Francisco, the box office results surprised everybody.
“When we showed The Stewardesses,” recalled Condon, “we had some control over the projection. Most people think that when you make a good film in 3-D, you’re going to make a lot of money. But it has to be a film with stereoscopic elements that are used as part of the entertainment.” From 1969 to 1982, The Stewardesses had over 400 playdates in North America. “We went to every single theater that played it in the United States and Canada,” said Condon. “I went personally and set it up.”
As a designer of optics, Condon’s patented “Film Projection Lens System for 3-D Movies,” proved highly pragmatic and found great use in theatrical exhibition. In a special licensing arrangement with Warner Bros., StereoVision optically printed House of Wax in a side-by-side single strip 3-D format and gave it a 3-D re-release in both 35mm and 70mm in 1970. In 1975 Condon again provided stereo projection lenses and consultation for a SpaceVision 3-D film with a limited re-release of Oboler’s The Bubble, retitled Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth.
The StereoVision single-strip 35mm 3-D lens attachment was granted a U.S. patent in 1984 but prior to that it had been used on numerous feature length 3-D movies including Charles Band’s Parasite (1982) and Metalstorm (1983), Jaws 3-D (1983) from Universal Pictures as well as several of independent producer Earl Owensby’s features including Rottweiler (1981), Chain Gang (1984), Hot Heir (1984) and Hyperspace (1984). In 1984, StereoVision single-strip 3-D was also used to photograph the first stereoscopic film in India with My Dear Kuttichaten.
Chris Condon served as a life-long champion of stereoscopic cinema in continually stressing the importance of quality in 3-D production and exhibition. A 1982 StereoVision manual written for clients by Condon, with the assistance of Robert Caspari, Paul Kenworthy and John Rupkalvis, was titled Principles of Quality 3D Motion Picture Projection. In this manual Condon wrote:
“Three dimensional motion pictures have the potential of being the most fascinating, the most realistic and the most entertaining of all the visual media. These marvelous films stimulate total visual perception. However, any errors in the highly specialized art of 3-D cinematography and any deviation from the well-known requirements of good 3-D projection can result in a visually mediocre show. Instead of being a wonderful entertainment experience, inexpert 3-D projection can cause viewing to be annoying and visually uncomfortable.”
To assist stereoscopic cinematographers in the use of the StereoVision 3-D lens for photography, Condon, with the assistance of John Rupkalvis, in 1985 also wrote a Manual of Stereoscopic Cinematography. Illustrated with line drawings by Tony Alderson, this manual was created to be a useful field handbook for 3-D cinematographers. All of the technical specifications for installation and use of StereoVision single-strip 3-D lenses, as well as basic fundamentals of stereoscopic cinematography, were discussed with great clarity.
John Rupkalvis is a 30-year veteran of stereoscopic cinematography who often worked as a consultant with Chris Condon on numerous single-strip 3-D motion pictures including Metalstorm. Rupkalvis designed the StereoScope single-strip 3-D lens for photography of miniatures which was very useful during the photography of Metalstorm and was offered as a component of the StereoVision production package. As a part of his 1980s promotional literature Rupkalvis prepared a useful comparison chart that identified technical specifications of the many single-strip 3-D camera systems available at the time.
StereoVision frequently prepared 3-D Questionnaires and polled patrons exiting theaters about 3-D movies. House of Wax director Andre de Toth, with whom Condon became a good friend, reported that on September 6, 1980 StereoVision conducted a survey of 200 patrons at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. At the theater, 186 moviegoers (93% of those polled) said they wanted to see a “good” 3-D picture. 143 (72%) said they had never seen a 3-D movie and 116 (58%) said they would be greatly influenced to see a good film if was also in 3-D.
For de Toth, as well as Condon, quality of 3-D presentation was paramount. “Projectionists have to realize that their carelessness or negligence can turn entertainment into torture,” wrote de Toth. “Their contribution to the success of a 3-D movie is as important as that of those who shot it.”
There were two fundamental limitations of the single strip 35mm 3-D film format. The first was uneven illumination of the two frame pairs in projection. The second was equally problematic with differences in center spacings of the two frame pairs that were assymetrical. In designing his Stereoflex 3-D projection lens, Condon took this deficiency into account so that his projection lens could be compatible with single strip 3-D films photographed with technology other than that of StereoVision.
The Stewardesses Takes Flight
“Huge Success Scored with New 3-D Process” read a headline in a January 1970 issue of Boxoffice magazine. The article by Syd Cassyd discussed a 3-D film that had just opened in only two theaters and was bringing in substantial boxoffice dollars. “An old cliché about beating a path to the door when a better mousetrap comes along has been dragged out of the closet, shined up and hung in a prominent spot on the wall of Sherpix and Magnavision, joint owners of their first theatrical output of a modernized 3-D process which has already grossed $350,000 in two small theaters,” wrote Cassyd.
The film was The Stewardesses and it was directed by Allan Silliphant and shot by Chris Condon, using the nom de camera Christopher Bell, in his side-by-side single-strip 35mm 3-D process which was named “Magnavision” at the time. Condon’s side-by-side Magnavision 3-D format optically “squeezed” the two left and right frames, usually 2:1, so that they could be placed together in a single 4-perf 35mm frame producing an “Academy” aspect ratio of 1.33 to 1. Playing initially in two of Lou Sher’s Fine Art circuit houses in San Francisco and Hollywood, The Stewardesses originally cost $14,000 to produce. More money was spent by Lou Sher incrementally to shoot additional, increasingly explicit, segments for The Stewardesses. With a $5 ticket price, The Stewardesses then played as a “multiple” in theaters in various roadshow versions with different degrees of sexual explicitness. By the fall of 1971, The Stewardesses had grossed over $11 million.
The side-by-side 3D lens had been production-tested in 1968 when Condon led an experimental production entity known as Magnavision3D. The Magnavision3D crew was comprised of Condon as stereo cinematographer, assisted by Dan Symmes and Allan Silliphant as director/screenwriter. After a few weeks of satisfactory results, the group was in contact with Louis K. Sher, president of the 40-theatre Art Theatre Guild (ATG) circuit. Sher enlisted the Magnavision3D group to make a 3D movie to complement the Art Theatre Guild repertoire, which at that time included Andy Warhol’s Factory output from New York, and various ‘soft-core’ adult titles. The Stewardesses would be produced by Sherpix Inc., and its theme would reflect a lifelong fascination with aviation on the part of Condon.
StereoVision publicity materials relate the following story:
“While still in production, public interest in the new 3-D ‘skin flick’ was generated when a San Francisco vice squad detective caught an eye-popping glimpse [of The Stewardesses] and temporarily shut down the theater. Anxious to exploit their investment, the Centre Theatre management immediately wrote a newspaper ad in protest, stating ‘We reserve your right to see this film’ exploiting the war between ‘activist’ and ‘establishment’ factions in S.F. during the late 1960′s.
Within a few weeks, the film’s loosely-related story segments were made into a feature movie and released throughout the 40-screen ATG circuit.”
The storyline of The Stewardesses is thin enough. A group of young “flight attendants” are shown at work and play during the swinging sixties. The following short plot description from the 2009 DVD release pretty much says it all. “It’s 1969, and the skies are really friendly. Experience a day in the life of a group of swinging stewardesses where anything goes – sex, psychedelics…and more sex.” Another familiar line also graces the front of the DVD clamshell box: “See the lusty stewardesses leap from the screen onto your lap.”
In 1971, Magnavision had been re-incorporated as StereoVision International. Building upon the success of The Stewardesses, Lou Sher ordered a sequel, International Stewardesses, sometimes known as Supersonic Supergirls, which was released in 1974. The surprising financial success of The Stewardesses represents a triumph of cultural timing. Facilitated by single-strip 3-D projection using only one projector, driven by the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960s, the novelty of increasingly adult subject matter and the long absence from theater screens of 3-D movies, The Stewardesses capitalized on a unique historical moment.
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