Movies that had Great Initial Success and, then, Chirp, Chirp, Chirp

[Stanley Doble]

I thought the Technicolor Vistavision spectaculars were their way of fighting back against the loss of customers to television. They had to give movie fans something sensational to get them out of the house, something you could not get on a 12 inch black and white screen.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's a common belief, but it's an oversimplification. The rise of the super-duper spectacle was Hollywood's way of giving *exhibitors* something that would, supposedly, get the public away from their TV sets, because the exhibitors didn't want the same old mass-produced studio product if they weren't forced to buy it. A fine point, but an important one. With the loss of block booking and studio control of theatres, the theatres had to give exhibitors reason to take *their* product over the other product being offered. Flash, spectacle, and gimmickry were seen as the best way to do this.

 

[Fading Fast]

Some of the technicolor-on-steroids movies, when you watch them today, seem almost crazy. Even decent movies like "Singin' in the Rain" or "An American in Paris" come off a bit crazy owing to the insane overuse of colors in clothes and sets - it's so exaggerated that it's distracting.

 

[Zombie_61]

Some of the technicolor-on-steroids movies, when you watch them today, seem almost crazy. Even decent movies like "Singin' in the Rain" or "An American in Paris" come off a bit crazy owing to the insane overuse of colors in clothes and sets - it's so exaggerated that it's distracting.

I agree, and feel the same way about some of the television shows that were produced in the 1960s.

 

[LizzieMaine]

NBC shows like "Bonanza" were especially known for this -- and it was deliberate, because NBC was owned by RCA, and RCA began, in the early sixties, to push color television sets very hard. Garish colors didn't seem quite so garish on the color picture tubes of that era, but they look ridiculous when seen on modern screens. It's especially noticeable in the facial makeup on white actors -- which has a deep, weird ruddiness to it that looks very unnatural. But it looked fine on a CTC-11.

 

[EngProf]

NBC shows like "Bonanza" were especially known for this -- and it was deliberate, because NBC was owned by RCA, and RCA began, in the early sixties, to push color television sets very hard. Garish colors didn't seem quite so garish on the color picture tubes of that era, but they look ridiculous when seen on modern screens. It's especially noticeable in the facial makeup on white actors -- which has a deep, weird ruddiness to it that looks very unnatural. But it looked fine on a CTC-11.

This brings back memories of the first color television I ever saw. My best friend's parents bought one and we tried to watch a football game on Sunday afternoon. It was like watching a lava lamp - just a bunch of colored blobs moving around...
I don't know how they convinced people to buy them.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My uncle "knew a guy" in the mid-sixties and thru some kind of shady deal got three bottom-of-the-line Philco color TV sets -- he kept one, gave one to my grandparents, and gave one to us. We didn't even have a hot water heater, but we were the first family on the block to have a color TV. Go figure.

But I remember that the guy who delivered it spent the better part of the day "setting it up," which, I since learned, involves intricate adjustments of the "convergence" of the three electron beams in the picture tube. If this is done properly the image is clean and clear, with no color fringing. If it's not done at all, or done wrong, you get blurs and blobs. Apparently a lot of installers didn't do it properly.

After he left, we sat down to watch the set for the first time, only to realize that everything on the air at that particular moment was in black and white. Talk about disillusionment.

 

[Worf]

"Reds" is another that comes to mind. Too long, too wordy, to much.

Worf

 

[Stanley Doble]

One of my favorite movies is The Long Long Trailer largely for the breathtaking outdoor shots and mountain scenery. The 'comedy' falls flat most of the time. I blame the writers and director since I am a Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz fan.

This is in reference to the lameness of Techicolor spectaculars. In this instance the flashy photography saves the picture. I suppose it could also go on the list of pictures that did great at the box office when released but are forgotten now. Even though it is a cult classic among trailerites.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

The first season of "Star Trek" (1966) was sponsored by a color tv manufacturer (RCA, I think). Watch a first-season show sometime and notice the bizarre colors, with different-colored light coming out of every doorway on the Enterprise. It was done deliberately, to showcase color tv.

 

[Fading Fast]

NBC shows like "Bonanza" were especially known for this -- and it was deliberate, because NBC was owned by RCA, and RCA began, in the early sixties, to push color television sets very hard. Garish colors didn't seem quite so garish on the color picture tubes of that era, but they look ridiculous when seen on modern screens. It's especially noticeable in the facial makeup on white actors -- which has a deep, weird ruddiness to it that looks very unnatural. But it looked fine on a CTC-11.

Haven't watched it in years, but I remember being distracted by Little Joe's makeup and, overall, too much color (didn't Little Joe wear a green denim jacket - did they even have those back then)? Also, "The Big Valley" wasn't shy in its use of color or '60s hair style. But neither were as bad as those exaggerated technicolor films.

My uncle "knew a guy" in the mid-sixties and thru some kind of shady deal got three bottom-of-the-line Philco color TV sets -- he kept one, gave one to my grandparents, and gave one to us. We didn't even have a hot water heater, but we were the first family on the block to have a color TV. Go figure.

But I remember that the guy who delivered it spent the better part of the day "setting it up," which, I since learned, involves intricate adjustments of the "convergence" of the three electron beams in the picture tube. If this is done properly the image is clean and clear, with no color fringing. If it's not done at all, or done wrong, you get blurs and blobs. Apparently a lot of installers didn't do it properly.

After he left, we sat down to watch the set for the first time, only to realize that everything on the air at that particular moment was in black and white. Talk about disillusionment.

My dad did not part with a dollar easily (just that comment would have provoke a long speech about the depression, the value of a dollar, what kids today don't appreciate...), but he was a professional gambler (and, pretty sure, bookie) so he bought a color TV in 1964 - a Motorola. We had a, at best, 900 square foot home that had, had nothing done to it since it was built 15 or so years earlier (it was one ugly early '50s ranch). That TV in our "den" looked like the space ship Enterprise had landed on a planet of rocks.

My dad did not open his wallet up often, but when he did, he did tend to do it right. So I have no idea about its set up, etc. (I was born in '64 - I'm glad he didn't have to choose between the TV or me or I doubt I'd be here), but that TV had incredible color. It was a beautiful set that whenever something went wrong (and it did every few years or so), we had it properly fixed and serviced. My dad passed away in 1990 and that was still the main TV (we inherited a second one - a 1950s black and white set - when my grandmother died in the early '70s). I know from my friends at the time and from this site, that early color TV had all sorts of issues, but that Motorola was outstanding.

 

[Fading Fast]

... We didn't even have a hot water heater, but we were the first family on the block to have a color TV. Go figure....

You lived in Maine without a water heater in the '60s / '70s? That's rough. I had to turn off the water after I got wet when I showered (get wet, turn water off, soap up, turn water on and quickly wash off), but at least it was hot (but you knew better than to steam the room up as it showed you were using too much water that was too hot).

Holy cow though, no hot water in Maine.

 

[Fading Fast]

The first season of "Star Trek" (1966) was sponsored by a color tv manufacturer (RCA, I think). Watch a first-season show sometime and notice the bizarre colors, with different-colored light coming out of every doorway on the Enterprise. It was done deliberately, to showcase color tv.

Good call. That show was as bad in its stupidly exaggerated use of colors as the '50s technicolor movies I referenced.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Reds" is another that comes to mind. Too long, too wordy, to much.

Worf

Hard one to sit through. I read it was "Beatty's passion" and his money that got that one made. Star-ego-driven movies (think "Waterworld" with Costner) rarely turn out good.

Also, come on, whatever one feels about communism, the USSR was an ugly, ugly place - hagiography-ing that murderous dictatorship and selling it to America in a Cold War takes some guts or colossal stupidity.

But you are correct - it got pretty good press when it came out.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You lived in Maine without a water heater in the '60s / '70s? That's rough. I had to turn off the water after I got wet when I showered (get wet, turn water off, soap up, turn water on and quickly wash off), but at least it was hot (but you knew better than to steam the room up as it showed you were using too much water that was too hot).

Holy cow though, no hot water in Maine.

We finally got one in 1967, after moving into the house where my mother still lives. But we were required to keep it turned off except within half an hour before taking a bath and then turned off again afterward -- my mother said it cost too much to keep it running all the time. To this day I feel guilty and profligate over having an electric water heater I don't turn off.

We didn't have a bathtub either, before 1967. Ma would go to her parents' house to take a bath, and we were given baths in the kitchen sink until we were too big to fit into it. Ah, happy days.

But color TV was neat when we finally got some color programs. The first thing I remember seeing in color was the last episode of the CBS run of "Gilligan's Island," and half the block was crowded into the living room to see it.

Star Trek may be the most egregious example of over-saturated color in sixties television. I recently got the full original series on DVD, and watched a few episodes on a late '90s color set I salvaged from the dump -- even on that set the colors looked ridiculous. Shatner's makeup was so dense he looked like he was in brownface in some scenes, especially the ones where they do that bit with shining a light across his face for dramatic effect. But when I watched the episodes in the early '70s on our Philco, he looked normal -- another example of how what it looked like then isn't what it looks like now.

 

[Fading Fast]

We finally got one in 1967, after moving into the house where my mother still lives. But we were required to keep it turned off except within half an hour before taking a bath and then turned off again afterward -- my mother said it cost too much to keep it running all the time. To this day I feel guilty and profligate over having an electric water heater I don't turn off.

We didn't have a bathtub either, before 1967. Ma would go to her parents' house to take a bath, and we were given baths in the kitchen sink until we were too big to fit into it. Ah, happy days.

But color TV was neat when we finally got some color programs. The first thing I remember seeing in color was the last episode of the CBS run of "Gilligan's Island," and half the block was crowded into the living room to see it.

Star Trek may be the most egregious example of over-saturated color in sixties television. I recently got the full original series on DVD, and watched a few episodes on a late '90s color set I salvaged from the dump -- even on that set the colors looked ridiculous. Shatner's makeup was so dense he looked like he was in brownface in some scenes, especially the ones where they do that bit with shining a light across his face for dramatic effect. But when I watched the episodes in the early '70s on our Philco, he looked normal -- another example of how what it looked like then isn't what it looks like now.

I'm surprise my dad didn't have the "half hour before use" rule - probably spinning in his grave now just thinking about all that waste. Not every day, but quite often as I'm showering away - water full blast - I think about my crazy upbringing (at least my girlfriend thinks it was, I'm not sure) and how I was always cold in the shower. There are definitely things I spend money on today that I feel guilty about because of my upbringing, but running water in the shower isn't one of them.

I first saw the original "Star Trek" shows on a black and white TV, which I think actually makes them appear more serious, and was stunned when I finally saw them in color.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Good call. That show was as bad in its stupidly exaggerated use of colors as the '50s technicolor movies I referenced.

1966 was the year that nearly everything on TV went to color - shows like Bewitched, Lost In Space, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that had been in b/w in their initial seasons in 1965 switched over. And yeah, many shows of the period tended towards garish, too-bright colors to showcase the era's still-evolving color sets. It never really bothered me with Star Trek, since it was all supposed to look futuristic and alien. (Actually, we didn't get a color set until 1970, so I didn't see it in color during the original run.)

It's worth noting that the version of Trek now out on Blu-Ray and playing on cable is much, much, MUCH brighter than the show appeared on old color sets via antenna reception. So some of the "garish, overdone" stuff is the legacy of the way it's being shown/watched today.

(And this is akin to folks watching Trek now who complain about stuff like, "It's obvious that it's not William Shatner in the long shots in the fight scenes - it's a stuntman!" You literally could not tell back then when watching on a 19" b/w TV with antenna reception... The folks who made Trek never expected it to be watched on 42" monitors with 1080 resolution where you could freeze-frame! They made the show in the days of 525-line TVs - most of them b/w and with snowy broadcast reception. Compared to today, it was, to quote Mr. Spock in The City on the Edge of Forever, pretty much stone knives and bearskins!)

 

[Fading Fast]

(And this is akin to folks watching Trek now who complain about stuff like, "It's obvious that it's not William Shatner in the long shots in the fight scenes - it's a stuntman!" You literally could not tell back then when watching on a 19" b/w TV with antenna reception... The folks who made Trek never expected it to be watched on 42" monitors with 1080 resolution where you could freeze-frame! They made the show in the days of 525-line TVs - most of them b/w and with snowy broadcast reception. Compared to today, it was, to quote Mr. Spock in The City on the Edge of Forever, pretty much stone knives and bearskins!)

I've recently watched a few of those original episodes off of Netflix streaming on a modern TV and - and I know I've mentioned the before - what amazes me is how good Shatner's rug looks then versus the ones he wore and wears in later life. How could the toupee or whatever it is - weave, I don't know - be better in the late '60s than today?

I assume they've been restored because the quality of the Netflix streaming picture for those, now, almost 50 year old shows is incredible.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Another show that looks bizarre when seen on a modern TV is the 1960s "Dragnet." Nothing could separate Jack Webb from his cheap grey suit, but they used that same dense, oversaturated makeup on his face and the results on a modern TV are disturbing.

The makeup issue had largely to do with the excessive lighting required to shoot in color -- it was much brighter and harsher than black and white, and was even more intense in the days of genuine 1920s and 30s Technicolor. The actors in many early Technicolor films were made up so harshly that their faces came across as death masks when seen in the finished prints, and the lights for early Technicolor were so intense that male actors were warned not to use a lot of pomade in their hair because the heat would cause it to smoke. The temperature on a fully-lit Technicolor stage was once measured at 140 degrees fahrenheit.

A lot of the earliest Technicolor films survive today only in 16mm black and white prints made for television in the 1950s, and between the garish makeup and the harsh lighting they look hideous when seen today. One of the worst examples of what the lights could do is the unspeakably bad 1930 Warner Bros operetta film "Golden Dawn," in which the white actor Noah Beery plays a sinister Emperor Jones-like would-be ruler of an African tribe, a role played in full-body blackface. This is disturbing enough to look at, but the Technicolor lights were so blistering hot that in every scene, Beery is literally sweating the makeup off his body, in great greasy black drops that run down the sides of his bald head and drip onto his clothes. The armpits of the white T-shirt he wears thruout the film are stained a deep, dark, oily black, and the shirt is flecked with additional stains where the makeup has sweated off his arms and hands. How anyone could have looked at this and approved it for release is incomprehensible, even by the desperate standards of 1930.

 

[Fading Fast]

...and the lights for early Technicolor were so intense that male actors were warned not to use a lot of pomade in their hair because the heat would cause it to smoke. The temperature on a fully-lit Technicolor stage was once measured at 140 degrees fahrenheit.....

Beyond passing out, how wasn't everyone - not just Beery - sweating up a storm every second? You'd think it wouldn't be possible to film in those conditions as everyone would be literally dripping with sweat?

It's around 100 degrees where my body basically just says I'm going to sweat until you do something about his bub. Hence, I can't image actors in costumes and makeup actually filming in 140 or 130, 120 or 110.