3D posters: A two-dimensional retrospective

The 1950s 3D boom kicked off with Bwana Devil, purportedly based on the true-life tales of the Tsavo maneaters, which promised "a lion in your lap! A lover in your arms! And vomit on your shirt!" (though we may have made that last one up). British East Africa never looked this real - not even to the British East Africans Photograph: The Kobal Collection/Kobal

Snapping at the heels of Bwana Devil came Man in the Dark, which pushed the 3D envelope so far into your face it could give you a paper cut. Shot and edited just 11-days of white-hot creativity, this crime melodrama provided a blonde bombshell, an amnesiac hoodlum and all manner of three-dimensional blackness Photograph: The Kobal Collection/Kobal

There was just one place to go from here, and that place was outer space. It Came From Outer Space set a new benchmark in trashy 1950s sci-fi and concerns a crash-landing meteorite that is really - get this - an alien spaceship in disguise. Feel the terror! Admire the depth! Photograph: The Kobal Collection/Kobal

Perhaps no 3D spectacular trails as long a shadow as Robot Monster, that jaw-dropping cult classic from B-movie director Phil Tucker. Shot in just four days, Robot Monster shoehorned the director's buddy, George Barrows, into a monkey suit and a diver's helmet to play the eponymous villain from a galaxy far, far away Photograph: The Kobal Collection/Kobal

After all this, who could resist the lure of this enticing new medium? Certainly not Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. The Double Indemnity duo promptly found themselves reunited to dubious effect on The Moonlighter, "a savage story of love turned hate and frenzy turned loose" Photograph: The Kobal Collection/Kobal

No cinematic craze was complete without the contribution of the Three Stooges. In Pardon My Backfire the pratfalling trio played a band of bumbling auto mechanics who foil some crooks. These days it's hard to even read that bald plot synopsis without chuckling Photograph: The Kobal Collection/Kobal

Even a screen monster of days gone by was prepared to join the party, cajoled out of retirement to make Frankenstein's Bloody Terror. Viewers duly found themselves treated to oodles of "lusting, slashing, ripping" - and all in glorious 3D Photograph: The Kobal Collection/Kobal

Stereoscopic cinema hit its creative and commercial peak with House of Wax. It starred Vincent Price as a demented wax sculptor, and Charles Bronson as his devoted Egor. It gave us 3D fires, 3D dancing girls and something called a 3D "paddleman ball". After that, surely, the only way was down Photograph: The Kobal Collection/Kobal

Fast forward to the here and now, and what treasures can we expect from this brave new world of 3D motion pictures? Well, there is Avatar of course. And the 3D A Christmas Carol. But that is not all. There is also Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. It goes on general release from September 18 Photograph: The Kobal Collection/Kobal

And God forbid that we should forget all those 3D concert spectaculars. Here,. for instance, is Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, all but wriggling onto your lap and gyrating you to the stars and back. Any resemblance to the Three Stooges is purely coincidental Photograph: The Kobal Collection/Kobal