A friend made me a DVD from the Colorized VHS that Republic put out and not only is the color wonderful, their version is more complete than any other I've seen. It's been cleaned up very nicely, too. Dunne looks absolutely fantastic in color!
Thanks joes119-1, I just watched and I kind of like the idea of color for this movie. The quality I saw on netflix wasn't really all that good. I could hardly see certain scenes, so I probably got a really bad version.
Is this colored version only available on VHS, and not DVD?
The color version gifted to me is on DVD but it's definitely not commercial-grade so it possibly was copied from a VHS. There's a VHS on ebay right now that has a color screen-shot on its cover-perhaps you could 'ask the seller a question'. Uploads of this version to YouTube and Google video have been taken down because of infringement complaints from Alameda and Warner.
Color was very expensive in its early use and most decisions to go B&W were, I think, economically driven.