THEM! 3D camera tests

If you read the trivia section on this site, it states that the film was dropped from colour filming due to budget fears, and I am guessing that 3D was costly to implement (making thousands of 3D glasses isn't cheap, especially if the film flops, and it limits the distribution).

I guess the film was not 3D because it would have been to much of a financial gamble.

R-T-C

This city is under martial law until we annihilate THEM!

The original early 50s 35mm theatrical prints of "THEM" had the main title and credits printed in full Warner color. I believe this was done so the main title THEM could be shown in blood red. Unfortunatly, Warner color was not designed to survive the years and now the very few surviving early 50s 35mm prints have titles and credits that have faded to varying degrees of red.
I collect 35mm feature films and my 35mm "THEM' has the faded color titles and credits- but it still looks great when THEM appears on the big theater screen- in blood red.

Man, I HATE 3-D, even as a novelty. Ok, so things look like the are coming out of the screen at you. That doesn't make up for the poor quality, wearing those glasses and getting a headache after the first few minutes.

For years, my 60+ year old former boss swore he saw THEM! in color and in 3-D as a kid. I suspect he remembered the opening titles in color (the red must have made an impression), but I have long wondered if what he really saw was a 3-D preview shown during another 3-D feature.

Adding my two cents to the mix, I draw your attention to the highly unusual makeup on the lead characters during the sandstorm sequence in the desert (where they're wearing the goggles).

Had this been a very old film from the early 1930's I would have said that they were compensating for the varience in skin tones on orthochromatic B&W film; but by the 1950's, panchromatic B&W film stock had been perfected and was long in use.

This leaves me with two possibilities.

The odd makeup may have been some sort of artifact left over from when the film was slated for color photography (again perhaps as a means of balancing skin tones in color). This raises the possibility that at least some scenes actually made it as far as being shot in color.

The other possibily is that it might have tied in somehow with the 3-D filming, though I have yet to see anything about special makeup needed for 3-D.

"If you don't know the answer -change the question."

It always struck me as odd that the THEM! title at the beginning was in standard B&W Anaglyph 3-D colors, and in proper relationship (the red is the leading part of the word, while the blue is the shadow and trailing part). Why not simply print the 1st reel of the film on monochrome stock since no 3-D was being utilized after all?

Perhaps the effect was striking enough to warrant just leaving it in color, the way some films utilized color segments?