Source: Michael Davie (ed.), The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976), p. 168.
Text: Wednesday, 9 July 1924
I made a pilgrimage to the Coliseum to see a new sort of film called ‘Plastigram’. They claim for it that by means of stereoscopic photography they can obtain an impression of a third dimension. There was an elaborate apparatus of coloured celluloid to fit over one’s nose and so far as we were concerned a most ineffective impression of depth. There were gasps of amazement and admiration behind us, however, so perhaps it seemed better in the more distant seats. The rest of the show was pretty good.
Comment: The novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) was a frequent cinema-goer in the 1920s, though this particular show was held at the Coliseum theatre in London. Plastigram was a steroscopic process devised by Frederic E. Ives and Jacob Leventhal for which the audience saw the 3D effect by donning spectacles with coloured cellophane (not celluloid).
