From what I've read in old books on SFX, they did, and near-UV as well. My guess though is that using a visible wavelength makes it easier to set up the lighti

From what I've read in old books on SFX, they did, and near-UV as well. My guess though is that using a visible wavelength makes it easier to set up the lighting and ensure it's even and so on (remember, this was before electronic technologies that would make it possible to live-preview the result). Also, sodium lights and sodium band filters had other uses in industry so they might have been more available than NIR/NUV equivalents.