# Colorized Casablanca **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 3, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colorized-casablanca/508720 "2009-09-03T03:22:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colorized-casablanca/508720/41 "2009-09-04T02:37:45Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > There’s something you don’t see every day: an intelligent comment on YouTube: > > “Making _Casablanca_ in color is like making _Alice in Wonderland_ in black and white.” I was thinking that exact thing only with \*Wizard of Oz \*just before I scrolled down this far. Look, if you want to do a remake in color fine, if you want to do a scifi version or a Shakespearian one, knock yourself out. But painting over the original is like Micheal Jackson releasing Beatles tunes with Hoo Hoo’s dubbed over them. You _could_ take some Ansel Adams photos into photoshop and colorize them, but that would be lame too, just take a camera up to the mountains and make your own damn art. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colorized-casablanca/508720/42 "2009-09-04T02:44:50Z")
So where can I find the damn thing? ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colorized-casablanca/508720/43 "2009-09-04T03:11:26Z")
Why is it in every colorized movie there is someone wearing a shirt or a coat that is tinted Eyesore Green? An awful, off-color sickly shade that distracts from the whole movie. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colorized-casablanca/508720/44 "2009-09-04T04:58:00Z")
No hater of B&W movies here: I’ve seen well over a thousand of them. I don’t reject colorizing out of hand. _March of the Wooden Soldiers_ (1934), _The Charge of the Light Brigade_ (1935), and several Shirley Temple movies of the 1930s looked better colorized. All used high key lighting for most of the film. But darkness and low key lighting do not work well when colorized, and _The Maltese Falcon_, _The Magnificent Ambersons_, and _Night of the Living Dead_ looked all wrong. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colorized-casablanca/508720/45 "2009-09-04T05:29:25Z")
Color doesn’t add anything to the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colorized-casablanca/508720/46 "2009-09-04T06:56:30Z")
> [@](#): > > On the other count–T_he Scarlet Empress_? _THE SCARLET_ FRIKKING _EMPRESS_? One of the four or five most beautifully lit and beautifully photographed films–one of the greatest examples of chiaroscuro lighting–of all time–ALL TIME–worthy of comparison to the paintings of Caravaggio and El Greco? MUCH BETTER IN COLOR? And how many paintings by Caravaggio and El Greco were in black and white? IMO the costumes and splendid sets lose a lot of their impact because of b&w. The same goes for films like the Private Life of Henry VIII and Rembrandt. Making a film about a painter in b&w for artistic reasons would be pure idiocy. Doesn’t necessarily mean that colorization would work of course but IMO it should judged on its merits and not dismissed out of hand. ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colorized-casablanca/508720/47 "2009-09-04T12:23:35Z")
An example of why colorization sucks can be seen towards the beginning of _Arsenic and Old Lace_, when Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane are in the graveyard chasing each other around a tree. In the B&W version, it looks like a tree. In the colorized version (which I accidentally rented from Movie Gallery, curse them), it’s a tree-shaped lump of paper mache or plaster or something that’s been daubed and splashed with paint and highlighting to give it tree-like shadows and texture - IF PHOTOGRAPHED IN BLACK AND WHITE. Now when I rent classic movies I read the boxes more carefully. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colorized-casablanca/508720.md?page=2)