# Whatever happened to glorious Technicolor? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 30, 2008, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783 "2008-09-30T00:53:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/1 "2008-09-30T00:53:40Z")
A lot of my fave movies are sword and sandal movies from the 50s and 60s, which were often filmed in glorious technicolor to emphasize their superiority over dull old black and white television of the time. To my naive eyes, these movies look GREAT. I love the eye popping, rich, intense color. I wonder why the fashion moved to duller, drabber colors. Am I the only one that still likes that stuff? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/2 "2008-09-30T01:03:19Z")
From [wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor): > [@](#): > > One major drawback of Technicolor’s 3-strip process was that it required a special, bulky, and very heavy Technicolor camera. Film studios could not purchase Technicolor cameras, only rent them for their productions, complete with camera technicians and a “color supervisor” to ensure sets, costumes and makeup circumvented limitations of the system. Often on many early productions, the supervisor was Natalie Kalmus, ex-wife of Herbert Kalmus and part owner of the company. > > The process of splitting the image reduced the amount of light reaching the film stock. Since the film speed of the stocks used were fairly slow, early Technicolor productions required a greater amount of lighting than a black and white production. It is reported that temperatures on the film set of The Wizard of Oz frequently exceeded 100 °F (38 °C), and some of the more heavily costumed characters required a large water intake. Some actors and actresses claimed to have suffered permanent eye damage from the high levels of illumination. > > Because of the added lighting and triple amount of film necessary, Technicolor’s productions demanded a high budget film for its usage. > [edit] The introduction of Eastman color and decline > > Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, an example of Technicolor filming in 1950s Hollywood.Color film processes that recorded all three primary colors on one strip of film had been developed for 16mm and 8mm amateur film in the 1930s by Agfa in Germany and Eastman Kodak in the United States. Technicolor introduced Monopack, a single-strip color reversal film (a 35 mm version of Kodachrome) in 1941 for use on location where the bulky three-strip camera was impractical, but the higher grain of the image made it unsuitable for studio work. > > Eastman Kodak introduced its first 35 mm color negative film in 1950, and then in 1952 an improved version suitable for Hollywood production.[9] This allowed Technicolor prints to be struck from a single camera negative exposed in a standard camera. Foxfire (1955), filmed in 1954 by Universal, starring Jane Russell and Jeff Chandler, was the last American-made feature photographed with a Technicolor three-strip camera. > > In 1953, Eastman Kodak introduced a high-quality color print film, allowing studios to produce prints through standard photographic processes as opposed to having to send them to Technicolor for the expensive dye imbibition process. That same year, the Technicolor lab adapted its dye transfer process to derive matrices and imbibition prints directly from Eastmancolor negatives. In the case of post-1953 Technicolor movies, the dye transfer release prints never faded, whereas the color negatives from which they were derived, the cyan record faded in as little as five years. > > The same year, Technicolor unveiled their stereoscopic camera for 3-D films. The rig utilized two three-strip cameras, running a total of six strips of film at once (three for the left eye and three for the right). Only two films were shot with this camera set-up: the Nat Holt production of Flight to Tangier with Jack Palance, Joan Fontaine, and Corinne Calvet, and the Hal Wallis production of Money From Home, starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Previously a similar, but different system had been used by a different company, utilizing two three-strip cameras side-by-side for a short called Royal River. > > In 1954, Technicolor made reduction dye transfer prints of the large format VistaVision negative. Their process was also adapted for use with Todd-AO, Ultra Panavision 70 and Technirama formats. All of them were an improvement over the three-strip negatives since the negative print-downs generated sharper and finer grain dye transfer copies. > > Technicolor eventually fell out of favor in the United States as being too expensive and too slow in turning out prints. While audience numbers were decreasing, the number of movie screens in the US was increasing. And while dye-transfer printing yielded superior color printing, the number of high speed prints that could be struck in labs all over the country outweighed the fewer, slower number of prints that could only be had in Technicolor’s labs. The last new American film released before Technicolor closed their dye plant was The Godfather, Part II (1974). ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/3 "2008-09-30T01:04:52Z")
You’d be surprised; a lot of people consider that a flaw. It makes movies look “fake,” as if everything about movies isn’t fake. I try to judge each movie on what it is, rather than what it isn’t, and there are some real masterpieces of Technicolor. Check out _[Black Narcissus](http://flickr.com/photos/20connectedbreaths/407346644/in/set-72157594564766402/)._ Also, the recent Thai movie _[Tears of the Black Tiger](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0269217/)_ is kind of an homage to that style. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/4 "2008-09-30T01:17:58Z")
I’ve noticed that, with the advent of [digital intermediates](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_intermediate), and of digital HD cameras, some films are being over-saturated or using another unusual chromatic process, giving it a creamy and warm look. Overexposed pools of sunlight on faces, and unusually vivid (almost HDR-like) skies, that kind of thing. It’s semi-distracting sometimes, when I notice it, but I must say I like it most of the time. There’s a new found freedom to experiment with visual appearances without needing an expensive complicated method to achieve it. I am sure the Technicolor look is easily replicable, if they wanted to try it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/5 "2008-09-30T01:23:57Z")
Technicolor’s still around and being used, but it has beenb succeeded in most films by newer technologies: > **[Technicolor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor)** > > Technicolor is a series of color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. > Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films running through a special camera (3-strip Technicolor or Process 4) started in the early 1930s and continued through to the mid-1950s when the 3-strip camera was replaced by a standard camera loaded with single strip 'monopack' color negative film. Technicolor Laboratories were s... . What you may be noticing is that people don’t work so hard to show off the colors available, When color was difficult to achieve well, filmmmakers went to extra effort to choose situations and subjects that heightened the color differences and contrasts and ashowed off the capability of the medium, hiring “color consultants” to make sure everything was properly rendered. Look at the scene in Muchkinland right after Dorothy lands in Oz, and you’ll have an idea of what this means – look at al the bright yellows and reds and blues and greens, right next to each other. especially after the sepia-toned opening, this looked REALLY impressive. Especially when most pictures were black and white. The _Bal Masque_ sequence in the 1925 **Phantom of the Opera** is another example – the picture really comes to life during those colorful scenes (even though it’s not full modern Technicolor that doesn’t do blues and yellows well). They followed it with a scene using a different procews in which only the Phantom’s wind-blown cape was rendered in startling red (something I didn’t realize until I got a restored version of the film). Cartoons, from Disney’s Flowers and Trees (and Fleischer’s use of technicolor, once Disney lost its monopoly on t and they could give up the two-color Cinecolor process) looked really good in a world of black and white subjects. Lucille Ball, I understand, owed some of her success to the way she looked good in Technicolor – with her red hair and green eyes, they called her “Technicolor Tessie”. Disney went on to the same sort of thing with color TV, renaming its show “Disney’s Wonderful World of Color”, and opening it with scenes filmed in bright colors, and making new colorful cartoons explicitly for TV (Like Ludwig von Drake’s intro to color, with his Spectrum Song). But, of course, people didn’t keep it up. When color became inexpensive enough to finally become the default medium for movies, around the early 1960s, not everyone paid attention to the medium, and you started getting washed out colors and muddy hues. Scenes weren’t properly lit, and people stopped paying attention to contrasts. Some movies essentially always did keep an eye on this – animation, for instance, and children’s movies stayed brightly lit. In animation, be it Disney or some other company or Ray Harryhausen or Will Vinton’s Claymation, colors are deliberately chosen. Pixar’s features, until recently, seemed specifically chosen to show off the bright and textured look of its characters – Toys and Bugs and Superheros and Cars and Fish – it’s only recetly that they ventured out into a cooking rat and a dull-colored robot (although the opthers are still bright). But, as I say, not everyone keeps attention, and sometimes even filmmakers who did pay attention moved to muddy colors for “artistic” reasons (Spielberg’s Close Encounters and Indiana Jones pictures are brightly colored. **Munich** isn’t.) It’s much the same as with 3D, an effect I think has been underused and too much maligned. Some early flicks were gorgeously set up to exploit the capabilities of the medium – **Creature from the Black Lagioon** and **House of Wax** and **Dial M for Murder** 9which Hitchock didn’t want to do in 3D, but which made arguably the most effective use of the medium). Too many 3D movies were made without keeping the needs of the medium constantly in mind, and so the effect wasn’t used well. But the features filmed for Disney and Universal theme pasrks DID maintain this focus. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/6 "2008-09-30T01:42:35Z")
I love Technicolor. It makes my eyeballs happy. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/7 "2008-09-30T02:03:54Z")
actually, what got me thinking about was a B pirate movie called “Morgan the Pirate” or something to that effect that I taped today. It was just a crappy-ass pirate movie, but man, it looked good in Technicolor. Everything was a lot more powerful visually than in modern films, which was good because otherwise it would have been just a mediocre pirate movie. Made me wonder why such a useful tool was abandoned. The technical difficulties issue makes a lot of sense. I wonder if digital enhancement by modern CGI techniques could do replicate Technicolor’s glory at less expense. In Photoshop they have a control called “Saturation” that has a really Technicolor feel to it, wonder why they couldn’t come up with something similar for film. I see your point about people not keeping track of color nowadays. I watched Cave Dwellers (the MST3K version, naturally) yesterday and it was damn near a black and white film with a sepia tone. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/8 "2008-09-30T03:16:00Z")
The funny thing is that a lot of that equipment ended up in China, where they turned out some amazing films with it. ---
**Author:** ![Auntbeast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/9 "2008-09-30T05:42:53Z")
May all your dreams be in Technicolor. I adore it. Could there have been a play “Joseph and the Photoshopped Dreamcoat”? Happy Eyeballs indeed. To think we gave that up for a flock of white CGI birds. Bleh. Back in the good old days that when the camera panned, everything could stay in focus! Now I have to find out what “Escape To Witch Mountain” was filmed in… ETA: TECHNICOLOR! Bayyybee! ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/10 "2008-09-30T10:42:59Z")
I’d recommend renting the two disc DVD of **The Adventures Of Robin Hood** {the cool Errol Flynn one}: on the second disc there’s an absolutely splendid documentary on the invention, use and then decline of Tecchicolour, complete with clips from all these wonderful looking old movies that were basically filmed to showcase it. Fascinating stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/11 "2008-09-30T15:22:18Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#): > > I’d recommend renting the two disc DVD of **The Adventures Of Robin Hood** {the cool Errol Flynn one}: on the second disc there’s an absolutely splendid documentary on the invention, use and then decline of Tecchicolour, complete with clips from all these wonderful looking old movies that were basically filmed to showcase it. Fascinating stuff. Seconded. I saw this just last weekend. And besides, if you’ve never seen the Errol Flynn version of _Robin Hood_, you’ve missed out. It’s got to be the best one ever made. Not to mention the fact that you won’t get half of the jokes in _Men In Tights_. ---
**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/12 "2008-09-30T16:15:47Z")
Natalie Kalmus died. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/13 "2008-09-30T16:25:22Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#): > > I’d recommend renting the two disc DVD of **The Adventures Of Robin Hood** {the cool Errol Flynn one}: on the second disc there’s an absolutely splendid documentary on the invention, use and then decline of Tecchicolour, complete with clips from all these wonderful looking old movies that were basically filmed to showcase it. Fascinating stuff. Thanks! I actually own that, but haven’t watched that feature. Something to do tonight. One of the great visual movies; many scenes are Howard Pyle illustrations come to life; they made some California acreage look like a dream of Sherwood Forest. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Vorlon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@The\_Vorlon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Vorlon)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/14 "2008-09-30T16:41:38Z")
Film stock has come a long way. In 1984 I showed a 70mm print of 2001. No Cyan. Little Yellow. Magenta baby! Yet the IBTech trailers that I fished out of the dumpster of NSS in Boston are still as colorfull as the day they were struck, grey soundtrack and all. Film has gotten faster—first film on ‘high speed’ stock was 48Hrs—and had grain the size of golf balls, now it’s no grain and faster film. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/15 "2008-09-30T17:07:09Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > One of the great visual movies; many scenes are Howard Pyle illustrations come to life; they made some California acreage look like a dream of Sherwood Forest. Errol Flynn’s **The Adventures of Robin Hood** will always be a colorized film to me :). It’s a weird thing, but I am just old enough to not only pre-date TV remotes ( remember that dark time in our history where you actually had to walk over to the TV to change channels? ), but also to have lived in the era when black and white sets were still common. I got my own TV pretty young, as my folks got tired of schlepping our one set out of their bedroom ( we weren’t a family that bonded in front of the tube ) to mine on Saturday mornings so I could watch cartoons. It was a portable, 13 inch, white, B & W set and it was to remain my TV for many years growing up. And one of my favorite films growing up was **The Adventures of Robin Hood** , fairly frequently broadcast on TV in the 1970’s - I saw it several times. Thing is, it was obviously an older film. So I had always assumed it was a black and white movie, just like on my little TV, _well into my thirties_. By the time I was watching color TV it had ceased to make an appearance on the airways. When did I discover otherwise? When the damn DVD was released and I came across it at the store in 2003! I was frankly shocked :D. Whatdayamean color? COLOR??? In 1938?!!!??? It was a classic “doh!” moment. I still love the film and the technicolor is indeed pretty magnificent. But all that color still looks just a little _odd_ to me :p. ---
**Author:** ![UncaStuart](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncastuart/32/404_2.png) [@UncaStuart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncaStuart)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/16 "2008-09-30T17:38:54Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > \ > And one of my favorite films growing up was **The Adventures of Robin Hood** , fairly frequently broadcast on TV in the 1970’s - I saw it several times. > \ I had seen it many times on TV in the 50s and 60s, but in color. Gloriously hard-to-adjust color, though, on a small, small screen. Then, in 1979 a restored print was shown at the local movie theater, introduced by Olivia de Havilland, who had grown up a few blocks away (and had been best buddies with my aunt in high school). I went and was totally floored by the color, which was so different from the washed out mess on TV. I especially was struck by the scene with the horses going down the stream with the light filtering in from the trees. It was a classic d’oh! moment for me as well, not having first-hand big-screen experience with the 30s and 40s color experience (plenty of experience with the 50s Technicolor stuff, though). ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/17 "2008-09-30T18:17:39Z")
Seeing Technicolor on the big screen is, indeed, a mind-blowing experience – one of the top ten moviegoing experiences of my life was seeing _The Wizard of Oz_ on the big screen when I was in HS (early '70s at a revival house) ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/18 "2008-09-30T18:31:59Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Seeing Technicolor on the big screen is, indeed, a mind-blowing experience – one of the top ten moviegoing experiences of my life was seeing _The Wizard of Oz_ on the big screen when I was in HS (early '70s at a revival house) If you saw that M-G-M Children’s Matinee release of _Wizard of Oz_ in the '70s, you saw a Metrocolor print, which was not Technicolor and was not a dye transfer process. Remember, three-strip Technicolor was shot on black and white negative stock; the color doesn’t come until the print is made. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/19 "2008-09-30T18:35:39Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > If you saw that M-G-M Children’s Matinee release of _Wizard of Oz_ in the '70s, you saw a Metrocolor print, which was not Technicolor and was not a dye transfer process. Thank your for the correction. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783/20 "2008-09-30T19:29:53Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > I was frankly shocked :D. Whatdayamean color? COLOR??? In 1938?!!!??? It was a classic “doh!” moment. > > I still love the film and the technicolor is indeed pretty magnificent. But all that color still looks just a little _odd_ to me :p. • Color in 1906: [_Tartans of the Scottish Clans_](http://www.autochrome.com/Autochrome-centennial/Greeting.html). • Color in 1907: [Lumière Autochromes](http://www.autochrome.com/Autochrome-centennial/Greeting.html). • Color in 1907-1915: [The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated](http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/). • Color in 1914-1918: [World War I Color Photos](http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/). • Color in 1929: [_Glorifying the American Girl_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R7gEgDVm50). • Color in 1930: Eddie Cantor in [_Whoopee!_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANRPmTZRqkg) • Color in 1932: Disney’s [_Flowers and Trees_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOadTflvdBg). • Color in 1933: [_Mystery of the Wax Museum_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FioVG6OdO_8). • Color in 1934: Eddie Cantor and Ethel Merman in [Kid Millions](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN7gxGJwZ1A). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-glorious-technicolor/465783.md?page=2)