When Worlds Collide (1951)

The winner of the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Special Effects. This sci-fi disaster film was producer George Pal's follow-up film to Destination Moon (1950) - with a mediocre story that had spectacular special effects, including a great fireball - a sun-sized body called Bellus - hurtling toward earth, and a rocket-propelled spaceship built on a ramp.

Bwana Devil (1952)

An exploitative jungle adventure film - noted as the first 3-D feature-length, commercially-released color (and sound) film ever made - from an independent studio. The film featured man-eating Tsavo lions leaping toward the camera and flying spears thrown out of the screen.

The gimmicky 3-D effect required that the viewer wear special polarization glasses, unlike anaglyphic 3-D that required red/blue glasses to be worn. 3-D technology was employed to try to combat the encroaching competition of television on the film industry.

This is Cinerama (1952)

Paramount's wrap-around, big-screen Cinerama debuted in 1952, a break-through technique that required three cameras, three projectors, interlocking, semi-curved (at 146 degrees) screens, and four-track stereo sound.

The first film using the three-strip cinerama process was This is Cinerama (1952), a travelogue of the world's vacation spots, with a thrilling roller-coaster ride. Although there were a few successful box-office Cinerama hits in the 1950s, the process was ultimately abandoned because its novelty wore off and the equipment and construction of special theatres was too cost-prohibitive and cumbersome.

House of Wax (1953)

Andre de Toth's horror film from Warner Bros. had the extra added attraction of being filmed in 3-D - and it was highly successful. It was the first 3-D color feature film released by a major American studio.

It was a more expensive remake of their earlier Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), with Vincent Price establishing himself forever after as the quintessential horror villain.

Although this was a horror film, the most remembered 3-D scene in the film was the paddle-ball sequence in which a huckster (Reggie Rymal) in front of the newly-opened "House of Wax" kept swatting at a ball attached by a string to a paddle. He spoke at the theatre audience and noted:

Come in, come in, come in, ladies and gentlemen. See the House of Wax. See the Chamber of Horrors. Here's three lovely little ladies right over here. Would you like to see Little Egypt? Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, Little Egypt, Queen of the Harem, who danced at the Colombian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. Is she wax, or is she flesh and blood. See the world in wax, the Hall of Fame, the Chamber of Horrors. A cultural exhibition that'll enlighten you, amaze you...

Watch it, young lady. Careful, sir, keep your head down or I'll tap you on the chin. Look out! Duck. (He turned to other customers behind him) Wow, that's a becoming hat you're wearing, madam. I wonder if I can clip the flower off it. Hold steady now, don't move your head, or you'll lose the powder off your nose. Wow, there's someone with a bag of popcorn. Close your mouth. It's the bag I'm aiming at, not your tonsils. Here she comes. Well, look at that, it's in the bag. See the lovely centers of ancient times, ladies and gentlemen. Beauties who died and tortured out on the block. Visit our "Chamber of Horrors" and pass the time of day with notorious murderers who killed with the rope, the knife, and the axe. Thrills, chills, a lot of dirt for a price within the reach of all.

The Robe (1953)

When Cinerama and stereoscopic 3-D died almost as soon as they were initiated, 20th Century Fox's CinemaScope became cheaper and more convenient because it used a simple anamorphic lens to create a widescreen effect. The aspect ratio (width to height) of CinemaScope was 2.35:1. The special lenses for the new process were based on a French system developed by optical designer Henri Chretian. The first film released commercially in CinemaScope was 20th Century Fox's and director Henry Koster's Biblical sword-and-sandal epic The Robe (1953). It debuted in New York at the Roxy Theater in September of 1953.

Other milestones in widescreen formats included: Paramount's VistaVision (used in Hitchcock's well-known thrillers To Catch a Thief (1955), his own re-make The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Vertigo (1958), and North by Northwest (1959), and in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956)); SuperScope (RKO's answer to Fox's CinemaScope), and WarnerScope (Warners' answer to Fox's CinemaScope); MGM's Camera 65 (later called Super Panavision-70 and Ultra Panavision-70); Panavision; TechniScope; and Todd-AO 70 mm (producer Mike Todd's pioneering, independently-owned system); Super Technirama 70 mm. was a Todd-AO-compatible 70mm format.

The War of the Worlds (1953)

This film was the winner of the Best Achievement in Special Effects Academy Award, by producer George Pal, for its vivid depiction of the invasion of the Earth by Martians. This was the first visual effects-laden "popcorn" film, featuring vibrant color special effects, and the destruction of various cities and landmarks, including the famous Los Angeles Courthouse Building.

[This film would inspire such films as Independence Day (1996) and Steven Spielberg's remake War of the Worlds (2005).]

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

This classic Universal horror film effectively used a foam-latex costume suit to represent the amphibious creature called the Gill-Man - one of the most famous movie monsters ever created.

Dial M for Murder (1954)

In Hitchcock's classic thriller, Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) blackmailed Captain Swann/Lesgate (Anthony Dawson), a former classmate with a criminal record, to commit the "perfect murder" - the killing of his wealthy wife Margot Wendice (Grace Kelly) in order to inherit her fortune. She was engaged in an affair with mystery writer Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings).

During the attempted strangulation scene, the tension was ratcheted up. Tony's plan was to have his wife leave her bedroom to answer the living room phone, to enable Lesgate to strangle her from behind the window curtains where he was hiding. Tony dialed the number, but because his watch had unexpectedly stopped, he was about eight minutes too late. The assassin was frazzled and about to leave because of the delay.

When the phone finally rang, the camera panned around Margot as she answered. The camera moved to view Lesgate's position behind the curtains. Reflections from the fireplace played upon the walls in the darkened room. Lesgate approached with a twisted stocking and wrapped it around her neck. But she foiled his strong attack.

There was the tremendous 3-D effect of Margot reaching back behind her - into the audience from the screen - searching for a weapon (a pair of scissors) to defend herself and kill the assassin by stabbing him in the back. When he fell to the floor onto his back, the blades of the scissors were pushed more deeply into his body.

Gojira (1954, Jp.) (aka Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956))

Although the special effects weren't exactly revolutionary, they were influential, nonetheless, in this story about a giant monster awakened, irradiated and mutated by atomic H-Bomb tests in the ocean; the effects were created by animatronic models, miniatures of the city of Tokyo, and by a man in a 6 and 1/2 foot lizard suit (framed with wires and bamboo sticks covered in latex).

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

The fanciful Richard Fleischer-directed Disney film based upon the Jules Verne book of the same name, with James Mason as Captain Nemo, won the Academy Award for Special Effects; it was notable for its depiction of the Nautilus and the giant squid fight. One of the other nominated films in the category was Them! (1954), a typical mid-50s B-monster film with giant ants invading Los Angeles.

Conquest of Space (1955)

This was FX artist George Pal's and director Byron Haskin's semi-documentary, visionary sci-fi story about a dangerous spaceship journey to the planet of Mars, following Pal's success with Destination Moon (1950), When Worlds Collide (1951), and The War of the Worlds (1953). The opening voice-over narration of this Paramount Technicolored film proclaimed: "This is a story of tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow...', and the film's tagline stated: "See How It Will Happen...In Your Lifetime". The film's science was based directly on rocket scientist Wernher von Braun's writings and designs in Collier's Magazine. Although a box-office flop with some hokey special effects, some of the more impressive ones including a modified V-2 rocket transporting astronauts into space, a circular spinning space station ("The Wheel"), interstellar vehicles, astronauts with full-pressured suits doing space walks, and the Martian landscape.

[Stanley Kubrick was strongly influenced by this film, and based much of the design and plot elements of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on this film. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) used props from this film as well.]

This Island Earth (1955)

This cerebral 1950's science-fiction film by director Joseph M. Newman required various special effects, including a flying saucer and its landing on the doomed planet Metaluna - both created with models and special camera techniques; it also necessitated alien makeup for the big-headed Metalunans, and futuristic set designs.