film techniques - Would special effects for early movie patrons seem real?

When I watched The Walking Dead on my 1080i
HDTV, the special effects looked seamless. In other words, I knew what I was watching
was fake, but it was hard to tell.

When I upgraded to a
1080p HDTV, the show looked more like a Soap Opera and the Special Effects were not as
impressive; mainly because the scenes containing CGI stood out like a sore
thumb.

Early black and white films with special effects
have always seemed this way to me. However, I've only watched them on
Television.

If I were sitting in a 1950s movie theater,
would my naked eye be able to distinguish real from fake using the technology from that
era?

Answer

The recent film " href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_%28film%29" title="Hugo -
film">Hugo" references the urban legend of contemporary audiences of 1896
watching the title="Lumière Brothers">Lumière Brothers " href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Arriv%C3%A9e_d%27un_Train_en_Gare_de_la_Ciotat#Contemporary_reaction"
title="L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat">L'Arrivée d'un train en care de La
Ciotat" (The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Stations) where the audience
supposedly became overwhelmed at the approach of a train because it was shot in a manner
that made people believe it was headed mostly towards the
audience.

Further, there is the fact that people acclimate
to effects in the films. The 1950s film " href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tingler" title="Tingler">The
Tingler" used mild shocks in the theatre that people weren't accustomed to and
thus heightened the sensory reaction. One can say that effects have to improve because
audiences grow to find the old effects
common-place.

Quoting Arthur C. href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws" title="Arthur C. Clark's Three
Laws">Clarke's third law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic."