3/16/24
Newsletter #572
The Crack of Dawn
The very first, full-length feature film shot in the glorious, three-strip Technicolor process was Becky Sharp (1935), starring Miriam Hopkins and directed by Rouben Mamoulian. I met Mr. Mamoulian when I first moved to Hollywood in 1976. He spoke for a class at AFI and I attended. I asked him several questions. Because I met him, and he directed Becky Sharp, therefore I have a connection to the birth of Technicolor, though admittedly vague.
Anyway, the Technicolor Corporation started in Boston in 1915, then moved to Hollywood. It took them 20 years to figure how to make a color movie, and the three-strip system only lasted a short time because it was so expensive, difficult and cumbersome – it shot three 35mm negatives at the same time (each one known as a matrix). It was a beautiful system, but there are only a handful of three-strip films made (this isn’t a complete list) – The Garden of Allah (1936), A Star is Born (1937), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), then culminating with The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, both in 1939, and both making astounding, breathtaking use of the intensely vibrant colors.
Then, just when everything was going so well for Technicolor, World War II had to go and start. Interestingly, I think, war and color didn’t mix; nobody wanted to see red blood. Everything safely returned to black and white. All the newsreels were in black and white. Hollywood was shooting brilliant black and white at that time, mind you. The Grapes of Wrath, Citizen Kane, How Green Was My Valley, Casablanca. Black and white never looked better.
On the other side of the country, in Rochester, New York, George Eastman and his company, Kodak, came up with Kodachrome 16mm film in 1935. Kodachrome, for all intents and purposes, did everything Technicolor did, but achieved it on one piece of film, not three (with a larger, though not nearly as vibrant, spectrum of colors). At first Kodachrome was so novel, and expensive, plus that damn war and all, that just about the only person who took advantage of it was the Hollywood film director, George Stevens. George Stevens joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps and headed a film unit from 1943 to 1946. His unit shot black and white footage, but George Stevens had his own 16mm camera and color Kodachrome film. His personal footage was the only color film shot during the war in Europe. He documented the Normandy landings (D-Day), the liberation of Paris, the meeting of American and Soviet forces at the Elbe River, and the Allied discovery of both the Duben labor camp and Dachau concentration camp. Seeing World War II in real color (not colorized) makes it seem a lot more real and immediate, particularly the concentration camps. The footage was finally released as George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin in 1994.
But the three-strip Technicolor era was not quite over. Kodak was very slow in rolling out Kodachrome. First it was only available in 16mm movie film, then 8mm movie film, then finally 35mm film, though specifically aimed at still photograph market. Kodak didn’t get into the Hollywood color movie market until the 1950s.
But when World War II was over, the British, who had been rather busy during the conflict, now set their sights on three-strip Technicolor. In particular it was the writer-producer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, along with the brilliant cinematographer, Jack Cardiff. They made three films in a row trying to push the limits of Technicolor – Black Narcissus (1947), one of my favorite films; The Red Shoes (1948), not one of my favorites, but it sure looks great; and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), which also looks great, but flops as a movie. Powell, Pressburger and Cardiff pushed the three-strip Technicolor process to some of its exquisitely wonderful limits. There is a sunset sequence in the monastery in Black Narcissus that is amazing. You can’t achieve that particular color of orange on Kodak film.
At the age of 96, cinematographer Jack Cardiff still cared enough to supervise the digital transfer of Black Narcissus. This is the version to be found on the Criterion DVD, and possibly what they show on streaming, but not necessarily.
And yet another glorious day is upon us.
Thank you. The LA County Museum has one of the very last nitrate prints of "Black Narcissus." There was some kind of weird extra dimension to nitrate film stock.
Josh
Your newsletter has been a pleasure to follow. Thanks to your insistance many years ago, I had the opportunity to see a nitrate print of BLACK NARCISSUS at the LA County Museum. It was absolutely beautiful!
Thank you. Hope you are doing well. Sue