Do color older movies lose some of the magic for you?

[Kimberly]

I am an avid film lover and especially love the ones from the 30's and 40's because of the fashion, home furnishings and just that time era. I also know that unless they are a musical, there is a good chance it will be in black and white.

I don't know what it is about B&W films, but there is something magical and comforting about them and I always find myself getting carried into the film in a way a color film normally doesn't do for me.

I do like some musicals and will watch them (especially those in the 40's), but always feel a little dissapointed when I realize they put them in color.

Are there any others out there who prefer the B&W's over color or is it just me?

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Yeah, black and white is cool. Sort of makes us use our imaginations more I think. I try to imagine what colors the objects in black and white movies really are.

 

[Nts]

It's a tough call I like the look of b/w movies have on a movie,but there is something of that ultra bright glow Technicolor has

 

[HadleyH]

It all depends

For me there is nothing more magical than 1920s musicals with that faded nostalgic color...I simply adore those movies, also early 30s ones.I also like films where they show fashion displays like the movie "The Women"(1939) I think it is, and they show all the dresses in color. I don't have a problem with 'authentic vintage color', on the contrary, I love it!
Gangsters, film noir, war, etc, look fine in B/W.

(I'm talking Golden Age films here )

Edit to say that perhaps the movie was "Roberta"(1935). Anyway, you know what I mean.

 

[Fletch]

WW2 era Technicolor, especially, was a pure product of its times. Everything HAD to be 100% opulent and candy-colored and eye-sizzling in a world where only OD, battleship gray, the black of jackboots and the dark red of spilled blood really mattered. Reinforcing the standard look was the fact that it was a proprietary process, and every Technicolor film until 1948 had to hire the inventor's wife as "color consultant."

I don't find it a perfect see-thru rendition of reality any more than I do B&W, or early two-strip color, or those crummy Eastmancolor prints from the 50s and 60s where everything turned teal and magenta. Each tempts the eye to interpret what it's seeing, and in so doing, carries its own subtlety of atmosphere.

 

[Flivver]

I enjoy black & white movies and even black & white TV shows. They mirror the times they were made in.

But it's also fun to watch early attempts at Technicolor. Douglas Fairbanks' "The Black Pirate" (1926) is one that comes to mind, but there were several others in the late 1920s. Our enjoyment of these early attempts today is unfortunately limited by how well the colors survived.

The Kino version of "The Black Pirate" is quite good, but I have a Colleen Moore movie from the same time period (I think it's "Irene") where the color fashion show segment is so badly faded that it looks like an overall tint.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm a big fan of early Technicolor, both the two and three color varieties -- but as a projectionist, I can tell you that even when you see it theatrically nowadays, it's not quite the way it was meant to be seen. Most theatres today project with xenon lamps, which have a much cooler, flatter light than the warm light of the carbon-arc lamps used in the Era, and even when new prints are made to compensate for the difference it doesn't quite give the right effect because the color design in the original film was based on looking good in carbon-arc projection and some of that is, inevitably, lost. The 1997 "restored" reissue of "Wizard of Oz" made an awful botch of it -- trying to compensate for xenon, the prints ended up much darker and muddier than they should have looked.

"The Black Pirate" is another good example of this. Fairbanks was going for a storybook quality in the color, and the original prints were deliberately made with a lower saturation than was usual for the Technicolor of the time to give the effect of a watercolor wash. Projected with carbon arc lamps, the images take on a lovely, deliberately unreal quality which really enhances the story. Shown today, with xenon lamps, the images tend to just look washed out and flat.

If you ever have the chance to see an original nitrate Technicolor print, shown with carbon arc projection, you'll find it *breathtaking* -- the images have a glow that's realer-than-reality.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I prefer black and white, but I do love very early colour!

To me, black and white is very comforting (as you said.) NOTHING beats watching a black-and-white, obscure, 1930s "women's" movie in the wee hours of the morning! Something about the B&W gives it a dreamy quality and definitely says to me that it's from another era. Nothing GLOWS like B&W nitrate film.

But I like colour silent movies. Anything in 2-strip Technicolour, really. Maybe because that time period is not supposed to be colour? I don't know -- but there is something eerily endearing about them. I feel the same way about experimental 1920s sound clips and colour photographs from the 1840s. Sometimes I get shivers up my spine from these (not that that is a bad thing!) -- I guess it just brings me that much closer to a time that was so long ago.

I've never been a really big fan of musicals from the 40s and 50s. Now that you mention it, I do think the colour has something to do with it. It's not the main reason by a longshot, but it does contribute to my reasons.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

The Popular Science color shorts were a great time capsule.

http://www.cinemashorts.com/About_Popular_Science.html

http://www.cinemashorts.com/Photos.html

http://www.cinemashorts.com/More_Photos.html

 

[dhermann1]

A Star is Born

One reason I enjoy the original A Star is Born is because of the color. Most early color films are very artificial and "studio-ey", like the early Betty Grable musicals. A Star is Born has a lot of background detail, which somehow makes the general reality more "real".

 

[Fletch]

One reason I enjoy the original A Star is Born is because of the color. Most early color films are very artificial and "studio-ey", like the early Betty Grable musicals. A Star is Born has a lot of background detail, which somehow makes the general reality more "real".

Again I think it's to do with the WW2 vs. pre-WW2 esthetic. The emphasis was probably on finding colors that worked, rather than making color an intensifier or building the look around color.

 

[jake_fink]

I'm a big fan of early Technicolor, both the two and three color varieties -- but as a projectionist, I can tell you that even when you see it theatrically nowadays, it's not quite the way it was meant to be seen. Most theatres today project with xenon lamps, which have a much cooler, flatter light than the warm light of the carbon-arc lamps used in the Era, and even when new prints are made to compensate for the difference it doesn't quite give the right effect because the color design in the original film was based on looking good in carbon-arc projection and some of that is, inevitably, lost. The 1997 "restored" reissue of "Wizard of Oz" made an awful botch of it -- trying to compensate for xenon, the prints ended up much darker and muddier than they should have looked.

"The Black Pirate" is another good example of this. Fairbanks was going for a storybook quality in the color, and the original prints were deliberately made with a lower saturation than was usual for the Technicolor of the time to give the effect of a watercolor wash. Projected with carbon arc lamps, the images take on a lovely, deliberately unreal quality which really enhances the story. Shown today, with xenon lamps, the images tend to just look washed out and flat.

If you ever have the chance to see an original nitrate Technicolor print, shown with carbon arc projection, you'll find it *breathtaking* -- the images have a glow that's realer-than-reality.

That's cool. Thanks.

 

[Rafter]

I equally enjoy the black and white RKO Astaire/Rogers as much as

Grable's 20th Century Fox Technicolor gems...or did I mean "gams"!

 

[Flivver]

If you ever have the chance to see an original nitrate Technicolor print, shown with carbon arc projection, you'll find it *breathtaking* -- the images have a glow that's realer-than-reality.

Thanks Lizzie for your detailed explanation of why these early Technicolor movies don't look right today. I had never considered the impact of the xenon vs.the old carbon-arc light source. Are there any theaters today that have carbon arc projectors in service...perhaps yours?

This thread has re-kindled an old interest in early Technicolor movies for me. A while back I purchased a book entitled "Glorious Technicolor" by Fred E Basten. I never found the time to read it, but now I think I'll have to.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Thanks Lizzie for your detailed explanation of why these early Technicolor movies don't look right today. I had never considered the impact of the xenon vs.the old carbon-arc light source. Are there any theaters today that have carbon arc projectors in service...perhaps yours?

This thread has re-kindled an old interest in early Technicolor movies for me. A while back I purchased a book entitled "Glorious Technicolor" by Fred E Basten. I never found the time to read it, but now I think I'll have to.

Glorious Technicolor is an excellent overview of the company and its films -- note especially the *huge* number of color films made in 1929-30, the biggest single burst of activity for the company until the '50s. That only a handful of these films actually survive in color is a great loss.

Alas, we have xenon lamphouses at the Strand -- they pulled out the carbon arc system when the theatre was renovated, figuring it would be easier to maintain. There's still a few theatres that have carbon arc projection, though -- Loews Jersey in Jersey City, which had a painstaking restoration a few years ago, is one of the best venues for vintage film in the US. Likewise the Capitol Theatre in Rome NY, home of the annual Capitolfest, is another great place to see vintage films on vintage projectors.

 

[Twitch]

I enjoy the old Technicolor movies too for the sake of how the makers perceived the craft of cinema during the particular era in which they were made. As far as true and vivid color modern techniques far surpass the old. It doesn't mean they are better just different.

One local VHF station runs nothing but classic TV stuff and I can watch old Hawaii Five-Os in color and Hogan's Heros in B&W with the same interest.[huh]

 

[Joie DeVive]

Like many of you, I love films from all eras. It doesn't matter if they are B&W or color to me, so much as the quality. Though I do have a patent dislike for the "colorized" B&W movies (done in the 80s/90s).

I'm going to float an opinion here that may be debatable, and that's more than ok. I'm not speaking from a particularly educated place on this topic. (Just be kind )

I think some of my favorite films from a cinematographic standpoint are the fairly early color ones. My reasoning on this starts back in the B&W era. I have spoken to a number of people who are of the opinion that it can be more difficult to work well with B&W than with color. With B&W you have to be much more careful with your lighting and shadow than with color. Color film can hide errors and obsure things in a way that B&W cannot.
So, film-makers working with B&W were forced to develop artistic skills in light and shadow which were required by their medium. Now, take those same film makers who have that strong skill set working with light and shadow and give them color film. They still use those skills of shadow and light in color. I think this made for a short time span which had color films of extraordinary depth and artistry. It's kind of the best of both worlds. Two examples that jump out to me are "The King and I" and "The Quiet Man".

As time went on, many of the skills which were vital for quality black and white weren't needed as much and were forgotten. Many (though not all) film-makers have become a bit lazy about the artistry of shadow and rely heavily on artificially added special effects and CGI to pump up their films.

I'm not bashing B&W, some of my absolute favorite films are. I'm just lauding a certain set of color films. If I don't know what I'm talking about, go ahead and correct me... Just be gentle!!