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Criterion Theatre 1514 Broadway, New York, NY

William Castle’s 1953 Western film “Fort Ti” stars George Montgomery and Joan Vohs. It is the first Western released in 3D and the first 3D feature released in Technicolor by a major studio (Columbia Pictures).

It is set in 1759 at Fort Ticonderoga during the French and Indian War. Montgomery plays scout Captain Jed Horn, who joins an Indian-fighting band called Rogers’s Rangers to attack Fort Ticonderoga, after the wicked French seize his sister and some children.

Fort Ti is a rather drab, undistinguished junior-league B-movie Western, written by Robert E Kent without any new ideas, though it is directed with some relish by Castle.

It was originally enlivened by being made in Natural Vision 3D, so everything gets chucked at you, which is just annoying seen flat. Castle said he ‘decided to throw every goddamn thing I could think of at the camera’. There is nice Technicolor cinematography, though, by Lester H White and Lothrop B Worth.

It is produced by Sam Katzman for Columbia Pictures, and shot at Columbia Studios and on location in Utah and Southern California. It was released on 29 May 1953 & runs 73 minutes.

The 3D is supervised by M L Gunzburg, creator of the Natural Vision 3D system, previously used on Bwana Devil (the first 3D sound feature movie in English and the first 3D film in colour) and House of Wax. - © Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review

Contributed by Greg Lynch -