The Longest Day (1962) was the highest budget black-and-white movie until *Schindler’s List * in 1993.
The Last Picture Show (1971) was shot in black and white. As I understand it, that was for a mix of budgetary and artistic reasons.
It was Peter Bogdanovich’s first studio movie, so I am sure he was on a tight budget. But he has also said the black-and-white decision gave the film a more nostalgic feel. (He also used black-and-white for his subsequent nostalgia movie Paper Moon (1973).)
I’m surprised by Clerks, for two reasons. First, I saw it, and don’t remember it being in black and white (and that seems like something I’d notice, for a current movie). Second, I’m surprised that as late as 1994, B&W film was still available, outside of specialty purposes (which would probably cost more). For something like Schindler’s List, I expect Spielberg would have been willing to pay more for B&W, if that’s what it took, but it’s surprising to me that even at that late date it would still have cost less.
The original Clerks was most definitely B&W. You may be thinking of Clerks 2, the sequel set in the fast food restaurant (not the convenience store).
Spielberg is one of the few directors (along with the likes of George Lucas, James Cameron etc.) who will literally get whatever they want. And not just because they can pay for it themselves if they need to, but because the studios will never say no to them.
I remember reading how when Tim Burton (a director that does still get told ‘No’) was getting ready to make* Ed Wood *and wanted to shoot in B&W the studio tried to schmooze him into using color and just printing it in B&W, to “Keep our options open…” As others have mentioned Burton knows that shooting ‘color for B&W’ comes out much shittier looking than using real B&W film stock. And he knew that he didn’t have ‘final cut’ so the studio could have released it in color against his wishes unless he shot in real B&W to begin with…
AFAIK, nearly all movies released in B&W in the last 20 years or more were shot in color and processed to monochrome, sometimes after editing. I am not sure of all the reasons, but I’m pretty sure cost control isn’t one of them.
So if you’re talking about anything much after 1990, you might want to avoid saying “shot in black and white” unless you have a reference to B&W film actually being used…
***Clerks ***wasn’t a “studio” film though. It was an indie flick that Smith made and then sold to a studio after the fact. It should be DQ’d from this list.
Were either of those for budgetary reasons? I’d suspect style.
A studio might have picked it up later, but it was made independently and I think Black and White was to save money.
So was this the first time a studio argued for color? If so, then the answer to the OP would have to have been before that.
Oh, I’m not disputing that Clerks was B&W-- You guys know better than I. I’m just saying that I’m surprised. And I’m definitely thinking of the one in the convenience store (for example, there was a clear scene where one of them sold cigarettes to a minor).
Yep, that’s the first one. Black and white all the way through.
The color one was at a fast food place. Underrated sequel.
This brings up an important point, which is that studio heads are mainly concerned with projected profits more than budget per se. And there came a point in the '60s when a black & white film was seen as a liability on the back end. Jack Warner thought a color Virginia Woolf would bring in more audience, thus offsetting the cost difference.
With American network TV going all-color in 1966, making a black & white movie may have seemed even less commercially viable.
I don’t have a cite, but a film professor of mine once claimed that color is cheaper than B&W and has been so since about 1970. The studio head with the tightest fists was probably Disney; what’s the last Disney feature shot in B&W? His was the first studio to make a LOT of color live action films, resulting in garish nightmares like Treasure Island and Swiss Family Robinson, and cartoons were his bread and butter until around 1950. Did he ever release a B&W live-action feature?
Pay attention to the stuff upthread. Disney released The Shaggy Dog, The Absent-Minded Professor, and Son of Flubber in Black and White. I’;m sure there were others.
As for Disney being tight, he was also far-sighted., Even though virtually all TV broadcasting in the 1950s was in black and white, he made a lot of his TV shows in color. Thus, the Davy Crockett shows were broadcast in black and white, but were later re-packaged as a color movie for the theaters. I’ll bet a lot of people went to see them just so they could see them in color. The opening to the Mickey Mouse Club was animated in color, too, although never broadcast that way (You can see it on the Mickey Mouse Club DVD set). Many other shows broadcast on ABC’s Disneyland in the 1950s (before the show switched to NBC and color broadcasting) were filmed in color and either theatrically released or later released to video.
And a lot of things that were made in black and white – the aforementioned b & w movies, the Zorro TV show – were later colorized.
I wonder how movies shot in color were reduced to black & white in the days before digital editing and color correction?
Probably the same way black and white TV cameras reduced reality to black and white.
Yeah, but if it was going to be released in a theater, you wouldn’t want to go through a video dub and reduce the resolution as well.
They didn’t release the films in black and white in the theater, so it wasn’t an issue. They only showed them in black and white on TV.
OK, got it. :smack:
For television, via a telecine adapter and filters that sharpened color contrast in monochrome.
From color negatives/masters to B&W projection prints, printing to B&W positive stock (often, again, using filters to enhance color to luminance contrast).
Modern digital image manipulation is largely replication of what used to be optical processes. Certainly, digital filters and techniques have added things that were difficult or impossible in the optical days, but steps this basically simple didn’t have to wait for the Mac. 
The Train (with Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield and Jeanne Moreau) also came out in 1964 in B&W. The N.Y. Times review suggests it was more effective for being shot that way (likely true), though I don’t see any specific reference to it being done for artistic reasons.