# What's with the overwhelming "brown-ness" of early 1970s films? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 10, 2015, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186 "2015-10-10T18:41:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186/41 "2015-10-12T11:21:32Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Brown, beige and orange were fashionable colours in the 1970s. Basically, the entire decade was an “Autumn”. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186/42 "2015-10-12T12:29:36Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > This is not correct wrt _Harold and Maude_. [The three-strip Technicolor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor#Three-strip_Technicolor) process you refer to was only used until 1955. Once the single-strip Eastmancolor film and process were developed for 35mm in 1950, the three-strip system was way too expensive and cumbersome to survive. Films branded as Technicolor after that point were shot with single-strip color film (although I’m not clear whether it was Kodak film or some proprietary system Technicolor developed itself.) I was going to mention this. The original ‘Technicolor’ system [used cameras that were huge, complicated, and expensive.](http://www.digital-intermediate.co.uk/examples/3strip/technicolor.htm) They literally needed three packs of B&W film going thru filters to capture all the color levels, then a very complicated (and again expensive) developing process. Registration, keeping all the different layers aligned throughout the process, was both technically difficult and absolutely crucial to maintaining a quality picture. By the late 60s/early 70s (up to and including today) the term ‘Technicolor’ seen in movie credits simply refers to the photographic film manufacturing and processing company’s name (which is still around), but not their original, three-strip process itself. ---
**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:** [October 12, 2015, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186/43 "2015-10-12T12:44:54Z")
I think part of the problem is that making color film had become so easy by then (see our earlier threads about how late black and white films were being made for “non artistic reasons” – b&w was still a standard choice into the mid-1960s. But color had become just as standard by the early 1960s) that people made films then in color as a matter of course. And weren’t paying special attention to its use or, later to its preservation. Look at those Technicolor films made through 1960 – there’s usually a Color Consultant listed in the credits (and the credits were much more sparse back then – the Color Consultant was an important job). Thy wanted to be sure the color came out right. By the 1960s, films were being made with sloppy and muddy colors. Directors, too, filmed with an eye to having good color contrast. That first scene in Oz in _The Wizard of Oz_, released into a world of mostly black and white, was meant to bowel you over with its bright and contrasting colors. The same with George Pal’s Puppetoons, or Disney’s color cartoons. Lucille Ball, with her green eyes and red hair, was reported called “:Technicolor Tessie” for her color contrast. Color was important in The Ten Commandments and other epics. A director or scenarist spent as much time making sure there were excuses for vibrant color as a director of 3D set up as many parallax and perspective shots as they could. When people stop paying attention, the effect vanishes. A lot of 3D movies didn’t try to use the effect well, and they failed. When color film became too easy and too common, the colors were taken for granted, and the contrast wasn’t there. Also, as mentioned above, a lot of filmmakers saw bright colors as too cheap and childlike and un-real, and wanted to get bacvk to a browner palette as “:more realistic”. That pretty much set later direc tors up for a backlash, like when the impressionists revolted against the over-use of brown in the Ol;d Masters, like REmbrandt, by using bright and garish colors. Science Fiction and Fantasy try to shoot for something beyond everyday, and you can see how bright colors were almost always in such films, at an age (Unless it was simply a black and white film). Look at \*Forbidden Planet, This Island Earth, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Fantastic Voyage, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Logan’s Run, \* and, of course, _Star Wars_ – bright colors, all. ---
**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:** [October 12, 2015, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186/44 "2015-10-12T13:40:54Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > I have sort of a skewed image of the 70s because I wasn’t really old enough to remember it directly, but I cannot forget a photograph of my grandparents from the 70s. They both had brown hair. He wore a medium-brown leather jacket with a tan shirt and dark brown slacks. She wore a dress patterned in orange, tan and dark brown. They were standing on a dark brown shag carpet, next to a brown leather couch. He even had a pair of sunglasses with brown frames and brown-tinted lenses. At least the walls were white. > > Even though it wasn’t in the picture, my brain always throws their Cadillac into the equation, which was brown paint, brown leather, brown carpet. [My image of the 70s](http://www.juliecarter.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/scan-me-002-230x300.jpg). (My first husband as a kid.) ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186/45 "2015-10-12T15:18:59Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Yeah, teal and orange has been driving me crazy for almost a decade now. I understand why to use those colors and the first few films I saw with that color grading, it looked kind of cool, but it seemed that for awhile every other film was using it and once you notice it, it’s hard not to be distracted by it. Surely there’s a statute of limitations…I did a bit of psilocybin in the 1970’s. Rather gentle as that sort of thing went. But it left me with a color “hangover” of orange & teal. Everywhere I looked, that combination recurred. It wasn’t upsetting, just odd. I remember diners with orange naugahyde & teal formica. Or perhaps it was the other way around. In these color schemes, the dark shades were brown & the highlights cream. This combination returned in accessories a few years ago; I thought “there it is again” & passed on by. (Yes, those movie palettes gave me a flashback.) Here’s are [Pantome colors from the 1970’s](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e1/c1/d2/e1c1d23a14c393b81cc15b3b271e1f80.jpg). Are they adjusted a bit for modern tastes? I mostly noted the orange & teal in “public” decoration & advertising. In home decoration, the overwhelming brownness of “Earth Tones” ruled; the palette includes something close to Harvest Gold & Avocado Green. But I was not furnishing a suburban home in those years. I remember painting a bedroom a rather lugubrious Victorian Mauve, in rebellion. Nowadays, when it comes to neutrals, I prefer gray to anything “earthy.” ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186/46 "2015-10-12T16:27:12Z")
> [@Nema98](#): > > I always tough brown, beige and orange were the go to colors of the seventies. In everything. Seriously. Go look up _Puff the Magic Dragon_ on Youtube. The color pallet definitely centers around brown. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186/47 "2015-10-12T16:52:46Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > That first scene in Oz in _The Wizard of Oz_, released into a world of mostly black and white, was meant to **bowel** you over with its bright and contrasting colors. Interesting typo, in a thread about excessive browns. :eek: The other thing about the 70s was flannel. And corduroy. Everywhere. And beards. The comments are right about all the brown cars. But look at what we have now. Check car while you drive. They’re all shades of grey - black, white, grey, silver, dark grey. Seeing a car with any color is so rare these days. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186/48 "2015-10-12T17:07:09Z")
I remember the Seventies well. There was a lot of brown, plus harvest gold and avocado in my parents’ house. And some it…is still there! (Cue menacing violins!) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186/49 "2015-10-12T17:16:52Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > I remember the Seventies well. There was a lot of brown, plus harvest gold and avocado in my parents’ house. And some it…is still there! (Cue menacing violins!) I grew up in the 80s, but I remember avocado tile and housewares. :shudder: ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186/50 "2015-10-16T14:57:51Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Look at those Technicolor films made through 1960 – there’s usually a Color Consultant listed in the credits (and the credits were much more sparse back then – the Color Consultant was an important job). Thy wanted to be sure the color came out right. … Again, “color consultant” not something the producer or the director _wanted_; it was something they had to accept as part of the Technicolor package. I am bit curious how the different color consultants’ aesthetic senses impacted the film color palette. Can’t find too much on it but the impact of Natalie Kalmus as director of the department on the use of color in movies, the conflicts between her and many directors, including Hitchcock and Minnelli, and impact of not just changing technology but changing market forces had on color use in movies, is very interesting. I started [here](https://books.google.com/books?id=DFXhGtNKh0wC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=styles+of+different+technicolor+color+consultants&source=bl&ots=Ff6P4TPBZy&sig=mb_4UEF-Kj0v5NSA5vbWAh2i1ls&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMI2Ie2vJbHyAIVxmw-Ch3etgcA#v=onepage&q=styles%20of%20different%20technicolor%20color%20consultants&f=false) and [here](http://www.ryerson.ca/mgroup/hwood/1d_bordav353.html), which reinforced that color consultant was an unavoidable part of the package and that Natalie Kalmus, Technicolor’s president’s ex-wife, was the director of that department with a very particular aesthetic vision. And [this bit](https://books.google.com/books?id=p_8GIy8jy4AC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=sirk+technicolor+color+consultant&source=bl&ots=lr3kTKLemO&sig=VDw3S-q5sPmWr7GYkdmMXzMzUM0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAWoVChMI4tLCqpnHyAIVBD0-Ch2JlAkc#v=onepage&q=sirk%20technicolor%20color%20consultant&f=false) that discusses how the loss of Technicolor’s monopoly as Kodak’s Eastmancolor came onto the scene made that package obsolete. Hence by the late 1950 director’s were free to apply their own visions more (albeit the aesthetic rules that Kalmus had created were still followed by many). Notably breaking out of the Kalmus rulebook was [Douglas Sirk](http://filmcolors.org/2014/04/28/technicolor-and-the-sirkian-style/). That page is worth clicking just to see the difference between how a Sirk film appeared at the time and how it appears if you see it by way of a DVD today. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-overwhelming-brown-ness-of-early-1970s-films/734186.md?page=2)