3-strip Technicolor, year by year (1 Viewer)

[AnthonyClarke]

I'm still eager to get Blu rays of the Disney movies 'The Parent Trap' (first version though the second, with Lindsay Lohan, is good fun too) and of course 'Pollyana'. Were these Technicolor, or were they both later processes?

 

[benbess]

I'm still eager to get Blu rays of the Disney movies 'The Parent Trap' (first version though the second, with Lindsay Lohan, is good fun too) and of course 'Pollyana'. Were these Technicolor, or were they both later processes?

Movies after 1954 might still be processed by Technicolor and have that name, but they are almost certainly not going to be true 3-strip Technicolor films. There are some exceptions after 1954, since there were 3-strip labs operating in other countries for quite a while, I think, but I don't believe the Disney films you're listing from the late 1950s to 1960s would be on that list.

 

[benbess]

A good print of a true 3-strip Technicolor film has a special look that's fairly easy to spot, even if it's seen on an old TV, but somewhat difficult for me to describe right now. I know I've read some good descriptions in film history books, but I guess in simple terms it's an ultra-rich color palette that is somehow more vivid than real life. In the best prints it also has a clarity and depth of field that is very good, giving almost a little bit of a "3D effect without glasses" to my eye.
When I was a kid growing up in the LA area in the 1970s, I watched a show on KTLA introduced by Tom Hattan. I already knew and loved the 3-strip Technicolor look from films like The Wizard of Oz and others, but sometimes Hattan would also wax eloquent on the special look of 3-strip. I remember he did it one day before the Danny Kaye classic The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. And even though it was low rez TV, he and KTLA got good prints, and even the credit sequence of that film was fun to watch because it was so beautifully designed and looked so good in Technicolor.
Can't find a frame from the credit sequence of that film, unfortunately....

 

[Matt Hough]

And Pollyanna has already been announced as coming in early 2013. No word on The Parent Trap or any of Disney's other Hayley Mills films.

 

[benbess]

There were more than 30 Technicolor movies released in 1944, a big increase from the previous year's 20. My guess is that the Technicolor Corporation somehow expanded even with the shortages of World War II, and made more 3-strip cameras and hired more people. We already have an absolutely wonderful blu-ray release of one of the gems of this year, Meet Me in St. Louis. This film stands up wonderfully, imho, and Warner pulled out all the stops to make this an absolutely first class release. Highly recommended if you don't already have it. I've already put up on one of the threads some posters from the Danny Kaye movie Up In Arms, which also would make a good release from WB. That wonderful horse classic National Velvet, starring Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor, would be a must own for many if it ever came out on blu-ray. It was a lavish MGM movie that's now part of the WB library.

 

[Matt Hough]

And Twilight Time issued Cover Girl, another of 1944's Technicolor films.

 

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by benbess /t/325670/3-strip-technicolor-year-by-year/60#post_4011996
Movies after 1954 might still be processed by Technicolor and have that name, but they are almost certainly not going to be true 3-strip Technicolor films. There are some exceptions after 1954, since there were 3-strip labs operating in other countries for quite a while, I think, but I don't believe the Disney films you're listing from the late 1950s to 1960s would be on that list.

I believe the final three-strip production was Universal's Foxfire, released in July of 1955.

RAH

 

[benbess]

I believe the final three-strip production was Universal's Foxfire, released in July of 1955.
RAH

Thanks.
It's amazing how quickly things went from boom to bust with 3-strip Technicolor. But the cameras were so cumbersome, the lighting requirements so extreme and uncomfortable to explose the three strips of film, and the whole process was in general so expensive and difficult that it's quite understandable that as soon as studios had other options they dropped it like a hot potato.
Forgot about Cover Girl, although that one had poor PQ iirc, bc the negative was lost or damaged beyond use.
Here are a few more from 1944. Fox's costly epic Wilson, which is a good movie imho, ended up in the trash along with all of their other 3-strips....

 

[Jack Theakston]

I believe the final three-strip production was Universal's Foxfire, released in July of 1955.
RAH

In the US. In the UK, I'm fairly certain the last three-strip film ever was THE LADYKILLERS, shot in the late summer of '55.

 

[Matt Hough]

I'd love to see Lady in the Dark at some point. I taped it off TV decades ago, and that's the only version I have of it currently. Not a great version of the Broadway musical, but it should be available.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

I was confused by Pollyanna .. I assumed it was Technicolor because of reports from Disney that the yellow strip had deteriorated really badly compared to the other two strips and needed very special restoration work .. that led to my Technicolor assumption.
Anyway, I still want it .. and want my three adult children to get busy producing grandchildren to watch it with me!
Cheers

 

[Mark Oates]

I was confused by Pollyanna .. I assumed it was Technicolor because of reports from Disney that the yellow strip had deteriorated really badly compared to the other two strips and needed very special restoration work .. that led to my Technicolor assumption.
Anyway, I still want it .. and want my three adult children to get busy producing grandchildren to watch it with me!
Cheers

Talk of Pollyanna gets me reminiscing about RAH's original articles for The Digital Bits - "Yellow Layer Failure". Pollyanna was shot on Eastman 5248 and as a result suffers from YLF, meaning blacks are blues, skies are green and everybody has a lobster complexion. To compound problems there was a snafu at the sep mastering stage and instead of Yellow, Cyan and Magenta seps there are two Cyans and a Yellow.
Reading those articles, I learned more about the technical side of film preservation than I have in thirty years of being an avid film nerd. Happy days. Shame the original articles seem to have evaporated into the ether. Vinegar syndrome perhaps...

 

[Robert Harris]

Talk of Pollyanna gets me reminiscing about RAH's original articles for The Digital Bits - "Yellow Layer Failure". Pollyanna was shot on Eastman 5248 and as a result suffers from YLF, meaning blacks are blues, skies are green and everybody has a lobster complexion. To compound problems there was a snafu at the sep mastering stage and instead of Yellow, Cyan and Magenta seps there are two Cyans and a Yellow.
Reading those articles, I learned more about the technical side of film preservation than I have in thirty years of being an avid film nerd. Happy days. Shame the original articles seem to have evaporated into the ether. Vinegar syndrome perhaps...

I believe the CCM situation may have been Airport. It was SOP to not QC masters. Scott MacQueen did some wonderful work with faded negs while at Disney.
RAH

 

[benbess]

1945. One of the highlights of this year is the creepy classic Leave Her to Heaven. It was also a box office smash. And now we cringe, for this is a Fox Title, and the boy geniuses in charge of Fox in the 1970s, even while rolling in the profits of Star Wars, ordered the Technicolor negative of this and every other 3-strip they'd ever made thrown in the trash. I have, however, seen what seemed to be a good print of it on TV a few years ago.

 

[benbess]

A few others from 1945....

 

[Matt Hough]

The Picture of Dorian Grey has only Technicolor inserts of the painting; most of the film (99% of it) is in black and white.

Other very popular Technicolor films of 1945 were Anchors Aweigh and Ziegfeld Follies, both MGM films.

The DVD of Leave Her to Heaven looks very rich in its color saturation.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

Yes, it must have been Robert Harris's essay I was remembering. I do remember it being a great read although obviously I had forgotten the technical details ...
Still an impressive piece of restoration ... but it makes me wonder whether it would even be possible now to bring Pollyanna to Blu ray since the original elements are probably even worse today !~

 

[Robert Harris]

Yes, it must have been Robert Harris's essay I was remembering. I do remember it being a great read although obviously I had forgotten the technical details ...
Still an impressive piece of restoration ... but it makes me wonder whether it would even be possible now to bring Pollyanna to Blu ray since the original elements are probably even worse today !~

Should not be a problem

 

[Mark Oates]

With respect, Sensei - from Digital Bits:

However...
...remember long ago when I mentioned Pollyanna? Well, Pollyanna had a "however" of a different kind.
Some forty years ago when the sep masters for Pollyanna were produced, three records were made from each negative roll and the newly minted assets safely vaulted away.
Quick cut to 2000 or so and Disney Home Video, coming to terms with new DVD market, decides to make the investment necessary to create top quality software for the new audience and the orders go out to inspect the original negatives, and do whatever is necessary to not only properly preserve their assets, but concurrently to create a film element which will serve as a source for the new video master.
Remember what I mentioned about 1959 to 1960? How many of you are paying attention? Guess what year Pollyanna was photographed? Everyone run for your copy of Leonard Maltin at the same time. Leonard would tell you that Pollyanna is a worst-case scenario.
1960.
If you'd like to see what the original negative looks like today, printed as best possible, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy and view Mr. MacQueen's restoration piece. This is something that I've wanted to do for years, but Jim and I are constantly told that it's too boring and no one cares. I'm glad that someone finally did it and my hat is off to the folks at Disney.
What you'll see on the disc are scenes with no blacks, blue shadows, skies, that if an attempt at correction is made, turn green, and lovely crustacean facial highlights.
And one would hope that all that Mr. MacQueen would have to do was to put together the three records and voila! - a new dupe negative.
Nope. When a print off the resultant negative for a certain reel was screened, things weren't quite what were expected - or even worse.
You really need to get your hands on this disc now.
Seems that when the separation masters were produced those forty years ago, someone, well... some forgot to change a filter in the printer. For in the cans that Mr. MacQueen opened were three sep masters. The problem was that what was supposed to be a yellow record, a magenta record and a cyan record... turned out to be a yellow record, a cyan record and another cyan record.
What's an archivist to do?
Fortunately for Disney, Mr. MacQueen and his staff met the challenge, and with YCM Labs, came up with the answer. You see - when a negative fades, all three records do not usually fade evenly. Normally the first layer to go, and go the fastest, is the blue information, carried in the yellow layer. While the cyan information and the magenta will have some fade, they normally are nowhere nearly as bad as the yellow.
So the original negative of Pollyanna was pulled back into service once again. YCM Labs was able to create an entirely new magenta record from information still extant in the forty-year old original. Now, this new separation element could be combined with the two extant seps, and a proper new dupe could be produced.

 

[John Morgan]

Has the 1940 RKO film IRENE been mentioned? It has a Technicolor sequence and TCM shows it with the color sequence.