My Experiences at the 3D Hondo Screening

What a gala! I thought Leonard Maltin did an excellent job introducing Hondo to a SRO crowd last night (November 13, 2007) at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Maltin said that he was rarely nervous before a group, but was really nervous last night because of the huge number of "3-D experts" in the audience. He asked our indulgence if he made any gaffes. The digitally remastered 3-D film from November, 1953, was projected digitally and viewed with active glasses. Gretchen Wayne, Michael Wayne's widow and custodian of the Batjak films still owned by the Wayne family, was interviewed briefly and was very gracious and charming. She commented briefly on stills that were shown of the making of Hondo in northern Mexico and said that she would like Hondo to have a general re-release now that current technology can do it justice. Other members of the Wayne family and Louis L'Amour's daughter, Angelique, were in the audience. The Hondo screenplay was based on a short story by L'Amour. I missed hanging around and kabbitzing after the screening, as I had a ride to catch. I was told that Ray Zone was there--returning from New Mexico where he is working with Thomas Jane on a 3-D project-- but didn't see him. I saw SCSC President, Jeff Amaral--recently returned from a movie shoot on the east coast--and wife Gwen, John Rupkalvis, NSA President, Lawrence Kaufman and wife Cassie, Phil McNally, Lenny Lipton, Kathy Day, David Kuntz, David Starkman, Susan Pinsky and Rich Collado. I missed Eric and Jodie Kurland, Tom Koester, Sean Isroelit, John Christopher and other 3-D Movie Division members I'm sure were in the audience, too.

The missing stereo segments were painfully obvious to me, even though some of them included an offset which put the flat image well behind the window. What a shame that several rather lengthy segments must be shown flat. However, thank God, most of the film is intact. The stereo was quite beautiful at times. The remastered music frequently seemed too loud to me. One aspect of the photography that stood out was how many of the closeups threw the background out of focus. I have read often that this is to be avoided in stereo, since the eyes will want to focus on the various planes of depth. Actually I liked it. It may diminish the realism for some, but it forces you to focus on what the director wants you to look at. Although Maltin pointed out that the hurling objects from the screen early phase of the 1953 3-D heyday was minimized in Hondo, there were still plenty of spears and arrows to satisfy before screen thrill seekers. I was pleased to hear Maltin scotch rumors that classics like Hondo were shown as anaglyphs in 1953 and were not widely released in 3-D.

I was fortunate to meet Gretchen Wayne in the lobby. I told her that I hoped Batjac would consider releasing a field-sequential version of Hondo for those of us who enjoy watching 3-D movies at home and in our club She asked me how I watched 3-D at home and I told her about our projection systems and the Samsung TV. She told me that she liked 3-D, too, and had seen the soon-to-be-released U23D last week.

John Hart, Chairman
3-D Movie/Video Division
Stereo Club of Southern California