I’ve been watching WW2 in Color on The History Channel the past few weeks and have a couple of questions. Is there more color footage in archives somewhere? Was color film very expensive in the 40’s and therefore there is only a couple of reels of it?
If there is more color film, why is it just now being shown? Was it just found stored in some dusty government file room recently?
Finally, does anyone know if the footage being shown is actually from the battle described? For example they’ll show a shot of some marines fighting in the pacific while discussing Iwo Jima, but there is no way to tell if maybe it was shot at Okinawa or Guadalcanal or something.
I remember reading about this years ago - I think it was in one of the Time/Life World War II books.
Color film was considered by many of the photographers of the day as ‘experimental’ and/or not as ‘quality’ as black and white. Most of the ‘better’ (in other words - more popular, older or respected) photographers were sent to Europe, and they wanted black and white. The younger, less experienced photogs ended up in the Pacific Theatre, with the ‘crappy color’ film. Chances are good that the film IS of the actual battle.
“Couple of reels”? There are at least 700 hours (that’s 29 days) of color film footage from World War II. Yes, it was more expensive, about twice the cost to purchase and process, than black and white film.
Also, there’s the possibility that much battle film originally shot in color was later on reproduced in B/W for mass distribution as newsreels, and survives in the latter form.
IIRC, the US Navy shot almost all of their film in colour (or, I guess color :)). It was one of the reasons that the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! had a lot of WWII stock footage.
Hey, you just answered a question I was thinking about asking when I first saw the thread – "Why is there so much more color footage of the Pacific Theatre than the European Theatre? "
So Gone With the Wind, filmed in Technicolor in 1939, several years prior to WWII, was made on ‘experimental’ film?
More than likely less color film was shot simply because less color film could be processed on site, whereas B/W film was easier to process on location, ergo more footage was shot in B/W.
World War II began in the Pacific in July 1937. World War II began in Europe in September 1939 GWTW was released in December 1939.
No matter, the first Technicolor feature was released in 1917; the first three-color Technicolor feature was released in 1935.
But the Technicolor method of color photography had nothing in common with the method used in documentary photoraphy in World War II. Technicolor employed large cameras that ran three strips of black and white 35mm negative, one for each primary color of light. For an illustration from 1939, see:
Due to the size and cost, Technicolor was unworkable outside professional studio use.
The color film used by U.S. photographers in World War II was 16mm Kodachrome, introduced in 1937. It was a color reversal film, meaning that the same film used in the camera, when processed, yielded a color positive.
Color documentary features were released during World War II, including the Oscar winner The Fighting Lady (1944) and nominee Report from the Aleutians (1943), but they were first photographed on Kodachrome, and then blown-up for printing on 35mm Technicolor.
To sort of answer your question:
On Australian TV like three years ago, a programme was shown called The Colour of War; which was basically an hour of stock footage from WWII in colour. It was mostly shot from planes, or on the ground near actual battles. It was indeed at the time “newly discovered”, having been returned to wherever it is they keep this footage from private hands (presumably returned soldiers). It was very much genuine battles, there was a BIG censorship message placed on it because it featured actual deaths.
I believe that the documentaries on the History Channel use footage from whatever battle seems to fit the narrative and not necessarily from the actual battle being documented.
I know for an absolute fact that stock footage that was not taken on D-Day is used in some aerial scenes in D-Day documentaries. The last such documentary I saw on History showed B-25 medium bombers supposedly on D-Day missions. Once and for all, ladies and gentlemen, there were no operational B-25 medium bomb groups in the ETO on 6 June 1944. All ETO medium bombers at that time were 9th Air Force Martin B-26’s.
In addition, you will occasionally see Normandy landing movies showing a shot from a distance of the frontal view of landing craft discharging troops onto a beach. There were no combat cameramen on any Normandy beach in a position to take such a shot of the landing of the first assault units. In fact, most of the film of the Omaha Beach landing, as I understand it, was ruined in processing in England, alas. Some of the scenes taken from on board landing craft of the British and Canadian landings look like they might be real.
Just the other day there was a color History documentary on a 9th AF P-47 Thunderbolt fighter group. The piece was interesting and well worth watching for several reasons. One of those reasons is that it disproves the idea that we were were careful in our aerial attacks to safeguard civilians. Anyway, in an effort, I guess, to build up the importance of the work of the P-47’s in supporting Patton’s crossing of the Rhine River, the statement is made that this was the crucial river crossing; that there had been another crossing earlier but we hadn’t been able to exploit it and Patton’s was the one that opened up Germany to our armies.
This is simply not true. The Remagen Bridge was taken on 7 March 1945 and a bridgehead was rapidly established and expanded and armored units in force were across and operating on the east side of the Rhine, followed by infantry and artillery in short order. Patton’s crossing took place 16 days later and was important but not the crucial one that the History documentary makes it out to be.
One needs to take many of the things on History with a little salt. I watch it often but it pays to cross check them if you are serious about your history.
Walloon Can much of the fading footage be transferred to digital? (and then presumably to DVD)
Kodachrome was of course a USA product, yet an expensive one. I believe the Germans had a colour technology as well (a friend of mine has some circa 1930 cameras (35mm still, 8 and 16 mm moving) in mint condition.
Technicolor was a bad example for me to use. Kodachrome, on the other hand, was and still is a highly specialized type of film, not the kind that could be easily developed in the field, whereas B/W is a simpler process, and can be developed under less than optimum conditions. So it’s understandable that there’s lees footage in color than B/W.
As for German color film, I beleive that Agfachrome was probably around during the second world war.
DVD is a compression medium, which records only a fraction of the original information. It is not considered an archival medium by film restorationists. If necessary, an analog transfer (film to film) would be done.
Postcards is right, Germany had Agfachrome years before the U.S. had Kodachrome. Most of the German footage you see in the recent documentaries of color war footage, including Hitler at his mountain retreat, was shot on Agfachrome.
How long was 1 reel of kodachrome? Usually they will show a few seconds of footage, but if a cameraman was following soldiers in battle, I assume he would have kept shooting until he ran out of film. Where would one go to see uncut battle footage? Is the reason they use such short clips in documentaries to avoid showing deaths?
The reason they use short clips in television documentaries has nothing to do with avoiding showing deaths, but has a lot to do with the attention spans of modern viewers.
The reason they use short clips in television documentaries has nothing to do with avoiding showing deaths, but has a lot to do with the attention spans of modern viewers. It pumps up the excitement of the battle scenes to use quick shots, as well as dubbed-in sound effects.