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A Runaway Taxi, the 1925 Frederick Eugene Ives & Jacob Leventhal silent 3-D (3D; 3-Dimension) taxi driving comedy short ("An Ives-Leventhal Stereoscopik"). We found an exhibitor magazine ad for this movie, and it describes "the wild ride the spectator takes in the taxi which would be thrilling in an ordinary film but when shown in this picture gives depth and perspective and the effect is startling", which sounds remarkably similar to the best 3-D movies of today (and the "simulator" rides in theme parks, which use the same technology, over 90 years later!). Most people surely think of 3-D movies as beginning in the 1950s, but actually, they had been around since 1915, although in a much more primitive form. There were several made in 1922 (by Frederick Eugene Ives & Jacob Leventhal), and those were called "Stereoscopiks", and there were five of them made between 1922 and 1925 (Plastigrams, Zowie, Luna-cy!, The Runaway Taxi, and Ouch). There was not that much interest in the process until 1936, when MGM made the first of what was intended to be a series of "Audioscopiks", which used Technicolor, and the audience wore the now famous red and green glasses! This process was created by John Norling and Jacob Leventhal (the same man who had co-created the 1920s "Stereoscopiks"). The first one was called "Audioscopiks" and came out in early 1936, but the second, called "The New Audioscopiks", did not come out until two years later (both were narrated by Pete Smith, and the first one was nominated for the Best Short Subject Oscar in 1936). In 1941, MGM made one more short, this time a Pete Smith Specialty called "Three Dimensional Murder", and this included an appearance by Frankenstein with Jack Pierce makeup, but it was not a Universal movie, but an MGM one! We have never auctioned any movie item from any of the five Stereoscopik shorts (except for a single glass slide for "A Runaway Taxi") and from the three "Audioscopiks" shorts, we have only had three German stills from "The New Audioscopiks" and an Australian herald which had an ad on the back for "Audioscopiks", and it had a great illustration showing the audience having soda squirted on them from the screen!
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Important Added Info: Note that this is the ONLY movie item we have ever auctioned from any of these five 1920s 3-D movies called "Stereoscopiks" (see above). Also note that glass slides were designed to be put in a special projector that would project the image onto a movie screen (they use exactly the same concept as 35mm slides). We have taken a digital photo of each that shows the general condition of the overall slide and holder, and we have also made a digital scan that shows the glass image well, but does not show the holder (except as a dark outline).

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