The History of Technicolor

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Ann Harding
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The History of Technicolor

Post by Ann Harding »

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I attended yesterday a great conference about the history of Technicolor given by Jean-Pierre Verscheure (who teaches cinema in Brussels University). He is one of the world specialist on the subject and showed some spectacular excerpts of films, always from original prints made the old fashion way (dye transfer). He has a huge collection of prints of classic films. The conference lasted about 4 h!!! I know it sounds like a long time, but, he showed some pretty meaty excerpts from a wide range of films from 1932 to 2002 and time went by very quickly!

Among all the facts discussed, I have learned quite a bit about the company Technicolor itself.
From 1915 until 1932, Technicolor started experimenting with two-strips Technicolor. They produced numerous shorts to try to get the studios interested by their process. At first, they were really struggling. It's not until 1928 that Color suddenly became an issue with the advent of sound. They could promote their films as all-talking, all-dancing and in 'natural color'. But alas, this two-strips system failed to catch on the public as it wasn't that natural after all!!!
Still, in The Black Pirate (1926) by Albert Parker with Douglas Fairbanks Sr, there is a marvellous use of this two-strips process. The Kino edition of the film is really nice.
In 1932 until 1953, Technicolor developed his three-strips process (incorporating Cyan, Magenta and Yellow). They managed to convinced Disney to produces some cartoons with this process. I saw two early examples: Flowers and Trees (1932) and Country Cousin (1935). These two Disney showed the wonderful quality of the process with a myriad of shades. These two original prints were still of stunning quality. The first feature film made in Technicolor was Becky Sharp (1935) by Rouben Mamoulian. From that date, films in color slowly took off. The film taht really launched Technicolor was Disney's Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (1937). from that date, the number of Technicolor films took off until the arrival of a new technical modification that suddenly put a stop to the expansion: CinemaScope.
In 1953, XXth century Fox produced the first ever CinemaScope film, The Robe by Henry Koster with Richard Burton. the complex three-strips camera proved impossible to use with the new anamorphic lens. And Fox turned to a new monopack system: Kodak's Eastmancolor. I saw an excerpt of an original print of The Robe, alas -as with most Eastmancolor films- it had turned pinkish. But the level of sharpness was immensely better than the Technicolor one. Technicolor had to work harder to overcome the problem with the CinemaScope lens. They finally overcame it by 1957. The sharness was now equivalent to that of the Eastmancolor. I saw a wonderful excerpt of Funny Face (1957) by Stanley Donen (so often only available as a ghastly PD print!) which showed the extreme quality of the process.
Technicolor abandoned completely the three-packs process in 1974 and joined forces with Eastman to create a mono-pack. They never stopped experimenting even with film format: Techniscope, VistaVision and so on...
I saw also some incredible 70 mm excerpts from Spartacus (1960) and from A Star is Born (1954) in its original 1:2.55 format! Believe me it's HUGE! And Cukor made the best use of it placing actors at the extreme of the screens. No way you can appreciate that on a TV....

Overall, I felt that the dye transfer system used by technicolor in its golden years (1935-53) was incredibly rich and offered some very stable prints which have kept their pristine colors. On the down side, as it's a dye transfer, you get a bit of diffusion and less sharpness. But this was used by cinematographers to get some wonderful 'portrait' effects of the stars. Particularly red-heads: Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth and Maureen O'Hara just to mention a few.

What is your own experience with Technicolor?
Metry_Road
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Post by Metry_Road »

Thanks for the article Ann Harding. Two of my favorite Technicolor movies are ‘Black Narcissus’ with Deborah Kerr and ‘The Red Shoes’ with Moira Shearer, both redheads and both in glorious Technicolor.

One of the most interesting and curious people in ‘The History Of Technicolor’ is Natalie Kalmus, who was ’Color Consultant’ for the company that owned the Technicolor process. It was stipulated contractually by Technicolor inc. that she be present on the set of any Technicolor production as a ‘Technical Consultant’. She was ‘Consultant’ on virtually every Technicolor movie made during the 1930’s and 40’s. She was generally hated throughout the industry, one director even calling her a 'b****’. As her unwanted opinions and interference in production went way beyond mere ‘Technical advice’.

She sounds like an interesting person.

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Hollis
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A question?

Post by Hollis »

Bon apres-midi, Mademoiselle Ann (Madame?)

I'm still a relative newcomer to classic film, and your posting brought a question to mind. How many different types of color filming are there? I never gave any thought to the notion that there would be a difference between Technicolor and other color techniques. To be truthful, I always accepted the term "Technicolor" as generic and the process used in any film that wasn't B&W. If you could, perhaps you could provide a brief listing of the dominant color film making processes and what the major differences are between them. Further, if you know the answer, what determines which of them a film maker would employ in a given film? I know that a lot of years separate them, but there is a striking difference between "The Wizard of Oz" let's say, and "The Matrix." Does the use of computer generated imagery versus live action play a part in the decision? "The Wizard of Oz" appears to me to be very authentic color and what the naked eye would perceive, while "The Matrix" (and others, like "The Lord of the Rings") seem to be almost monochromatic in their presentation. I'm curious to know the answer.

Comme toujors et bonsoir,

Hollis
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Bogie
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Post by Bogie »

There was a guy who seemed to be the technicolor supervisor etc etc for seemingly every technicolor movie ever made unfortunately I can't remember his name. I think it was a French sounding name. I've always wondered about him.

As for technicolor itself I've always wondered if it's possible to make a technicolor film these days. I'd love to see a current film maker really utilize the bright colors into a film the way it's done in such classics as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind.
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Ann Harding
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Post by Ann Harding »

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Hi Metry! You're right about Natalie Kalmus (above). She was the widow of the late H.T. Kalmus who patented the process and managed to get her name on virtually every Technicolor feature for years. I also read that she was a notorious meddler. If I remember correctly some directors got fed up and didn't follow her advice....

Hi Hollis! There are a HUGE number of different color processes worlwide: Agfacolor (developed by the Germans during the war), Rouxcolor (a strange French system), Trucolor (a system developed by Republic Pictures), Metrocolor (by MGM) etc... I also remember the Anscocolor process which was used extremely successfully by Vincente Minnelli in Brigadoon (1954).
But obviously Technicolor stands apart because of its achievements. And Metry is right, there are some incredible masterpieces made in Technicolor: Visconti's Senso (1954), Powell's The Red Shoes with the great cinematographer Jack Cardiff, just to mention two of them.
Technicolor is still in existence and works closely with film makers and cinematographers to determine the kind of shades and colors they want in their films. I saw during the conference a few excerpts of Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Bouddah (1993) which used a special process from Technicolor where the silver salts are preserved, some kind of 'four-colour process' where black becomes a color by itself. The blacks are incredibly rich. The cinematographer Giuseppe Storaro asked for some very dark and cold colors for the scenes taking place in the present while all the sequences taking place in 'the mind' were richly colored.
Most great film makers have got already a color scheme in their mind when they prepare a film. Jean-Pierre Melville did just that as well with L'Armée des Ombres (Army of Shadows, 1969) where again all the colors are muted and cold.

Hi Bogie! Actually, if somebody wanted to make a brightly colored film like The Wizard of Oz, they could do it. The Technicolor process is no longer a dye transfer system, but with modern emulsion, it's doable. It's just probably that our taste has also changed... That said, I am a great lover of Russell Metty's fabulous work with Douglas Sirk in All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind. Well, Todd Haynes managed to recapture the style of Metty in Far From Heaven (2002) extremely successfully. :)
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Ann Harding
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Post by Ann Harding »

I thought you might be interested to see a few screen caps from 2-Strips Technicolor films. Bear in mind that all these films are restored and not original prints.

The Toll of The Sea (1922) with Anna May Wong (from Treasures from American Film Archives DVDs)
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The Black Pirate (1926) with Douglas Fairbanks Sr (From Kino DVD)
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Redskin (1929) with Richard Dix (from Treasures from American Film Archives III DVDs)
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