Maybe its just the older non-C41 Seattle film negatives that had some trouble printing, but the ones we would get in printed fine at the Wal-Mart mini lab I worked at up to 2 years ago. And it looked okay when accidently developed C41, but it did dirty up the tanks.
We also had someone run a roll of slide film through the developer to produce the bizarre colors - I though it was actually pretty cool looking.
Color negative movie film was meant to printed to another color negative film, thus making a film positive, not on photo printing paper. That’s why the color balance was such a problem.
Just buy regular film and get it developed locally, it’s a lot simpler and not that much diff in cost. IMHO, of course
Seattle Filmworks original “good deal” film was discard ends of movie film, which meant that it was transparency film (not E-6 or Kodachrome, but another Kodak designation). SFW’s big selling point was that you could get prints and slides from the same roll of film. The transparencies (slides) are the original roll of film that went through your camera, with the masking removed during processing. The negatives returned are copy negs from the transparencies, and el cheapo ones at that, without the extra layers of emulsion that make for vivid colors.
I tried SFW film long long ago, and found the transparencies OK, kind of muted colors, but they did have an “old movie” effect that was kind of interesting. The prints, being second generation, were pretty crappy. I’ve tried to print some of the negs myself, both on Fuji minilab printers and darkroom enlargers, and they were a pain to color balance. Again, I think it was just the poor-quality interneg. That’s my experience.
Hi Cartooniverse! Good to see ya enjoying the camera thing. 
Close enough. Seattle Filmworks, like Mystic Color Labs and other places, started by purchasing so-called " re-cans". Film magazines that were either 400 foot loads, or 1,000 foot loads that were loaded into a movie camera magazine, NEVER SHOT, and “re-canned” back into the film cans. They were sold off.
You’re wrong about something. When you shoot a movie negative, it’s not really printed onto another negative to create a positive work print. It’s printed onto fairly hardy work print stock. This film is typically Estar-based film ( very sturdy ), and is made to be handled, cut and recut and glued, etc. Negative film is more delicate, and MUCH softer.
The grain structure of motion picture film is different, and the lab developing is different than C-41. That’s why people have such heartache.
There ARE labs that will specifically develop motion picture film that was shot one frame at a time, and print out paper or slides so that a Cameraman or D.P. can shoot location stills during a scout, using the actual film stock they would use to shoot their movie with, when doing their prep stills work. It’s enormously helpful, and not at all meant for consumer use.
Cartooniverse
WooHoo! I was partly right!
[do’n a little dance, now]
Just so no one’s needlessly frightened away from any of these processors, I think it’s worth pointing out, again, that AFAIK, no mail-in photo place is still using this weirdo movie film. Seattle Filmworks (Photoworks), Mystic, and all the others provide regular, non-strange, C-41 process color print film. All of the foregoing posts fall into the “interesting history” category.