When Turner's colorized version appeared nearly 20 years ago, I read somewhere that YDD was originally intended to be shot in color, but was not because of cost and/or scarcity. Remember, there had been barely 20 three-color Technicolor features produced between 1934 and 1941. In addition to the added cost, I think that the availability of color film was severely impacted by greatly increased demand from the government and the military during WWII. Very few additional color features were produced until after the War.
Ironically, there were color "home movies" of the production which appeared in a 1990s TV documentary about the film. Recalling similar 1930s home movie color footage of Selznick, Toscanini, Hitler, the 1939 New York World's Fair, et al., I wonder if 8mm color stock was more affordable and readily available at the time.
Incidentally, I believe the economic impetus for the wave of colorization was largely based on the fact that many TV stations would not program B/W movies, in turn because there was a generation or two that had seen almost nothing but color TV and films. Having recently acquired his huge film library, Ted Turner wanted to maximize their market value.
My recollection is that the colorized YDD was better looking than most colorized films, perhaps the best. This is not to say one has to like it, but as long as the B/W original is still available, why not merely be grateful that the need for good source materials for colorization meant that many old films began to be remastered.
A wonderful source of information on early color in the movies (as well as widescreen filming systems) can be found at www.widescreenmuseum.com. Enjoy.
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19 years ago
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bunny226622
19 years ago
I thought Yankee Doodle Dandy was the first colorized movie although I could be misinformed. Unless they have done the job over again, it is a poor job for few reasons. The pallet is somewhat unnatural looking. Backgrounds in some scenes are untouched while foregrounds are colorized which make the overall image appear segmented. Strangely, the black characters (pretty much servants) aren't touched, as if black people are supposed to be dark gray. I personally felt that that was a racist thing to do and a visual disaster for the movie. Aside from those things, some parts are worth seeing in color such as the George M. Cohan stage productions, which being visually elaborate to begin with, are very dynamic in color.
As God is my witness,. . .I thought turkeys could fly!
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mielr
18 years ago
Technicolor films from the 30s and 40s were actually shot on 3 strips of BLACK and WHITE film. The color process took place later when the dye-transfer prints were made.
The main problem was that there were so few Technicolor cameras available, and if they were all in use at the time- you were out of luck.
I wonder why they didn't shoot the stage scenes in color, and the rest of the film in B&W (like they did in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wizard of Oz, etc). That would have saved some money, if cost was the reason they didn't shoot the film in color.
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