MovieChat Forums > It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) Discussion > It's Not Easy Being Green.............

It's Not Easy Being Green.............

posted 17 years ago by obit1
9 replies | jump to latest

I broke down and rented the colorized It Came From Beneath the Sea (I have the original dvd *beep* cover design] but it's very nice and all in its monochrome glory).

Anyway...my two cents.

The octopus is kind of a dark, green gray in color....ans so is the one that is hauled out of the tank in the "lab".

Octopuses (or octopi, if you're going to get all anal about it) are mostly in the alpha state, a kind of reddish brown/tan kind of color. This is not just knowledge I gathered from watching Jacques Cousteau specials...I have held them in my hands...both Atlantic and Pacific.

Now when they get really mad they change color to a bright fire engine red (no kidding) and I am sure we know that many species of octopi can change their pigmentation (and their skin texture!) to match a background they are on so as to try and camouflage themselves.

I've seen little octopuses that have more colors than a Christmas tree in Rockerfeller Center,

But I ain't NEVER seen a gray green octopus.

Colorizing the octopus with this color made it look phoney....IMHO (as the kids say) if a more realistic attention to detail was given in the color scheme...like the brown that they are...I think the thing would've been more realistic looking and not so...."puppety"

(I guess the misguided thinking was that it comes from beneath the sea and that it should look like algae)

It's sort of like if you have a really bad outfielder on your baseball team and you give him a pink glove.....just calls attentioin to the fact.

Now I know the film was in black and white but if it had been me colorizing IT (and right here I want to say that I really am not a colorization supporter but, say, they offered me a lifetime of free pizza and pepsi and a Stepford Wife that looked like Salma Hayek, I just might be inclined to accept their offer...HEY! I DIDN'T SAY THAT I COULDN'T BE BOUGHT!!!)

Where was I...?

Oh yeah,

If it was MOI doing the colorization, I would play on the mostly well known fact octopi can change color and would have used THAT to a great extent....he could be green underwater....but brownish tan when he slobbers all over the Embarcadero...and...and...he could become red when they hit him with the flame throwers....see? See? Then there would be a cheesy REASON to colorize the film.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....

And two things...

One...You will Never convince me that Kenneth Tobey and Faith Domergue had the same skin tone...like the crayola crayon "flesh"...'member that? Every human comes off with a pasty tan color. In black and white you have different gray scales because the film was shot in black and white and makes visual sense.

But when you just dump "flesh" into the area of a human head and hands...well....it's....phoney.

And second and final and most damaging of all....when they colorized the film it made the special effects compositing more obvious. This makes the scenes look more....(sing it with me, now) ....PHONEY!

The scissoring of split screens are more obvious and so is the grain of the back projections.

I am assuming that Tim Burton's interview with Ray (actually Tim Burton's "gushing" at Ray for 45 minutes) will be in all of these things (IT, Flying Saucers, and Ymir) so seeing it once, I don't think I'll miss anything by sticking with my black and white dvd's. And until the colorization police come in and force me to watch a colorized film, I'm fine with that,

Of course, you know I can be bought....so put the pepperoni on the pizza, not Miss Hayek.

Although..................

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[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

obit, you're the greatest!

Be careful what you wish for...you may get a gray/green Stepford Salma....

[–] obit1 17 years ago

I would deal with that, my friend, I would deal with that...

Remember the green animal women from Orion in the old (and my favorite) Star Trek.

"It is said that no Earth man can resist them..."

Like I said....I would deal.

(God, I am such a nerd! LOL)

Oh and in addition to colorization, I watched the movie with the commentary on...and RAY DID NOT SUPERVISE THE COLORIZATION!!!! He kept saying, "But it's....green....it's....green..." As if he had never seen the colorized film before and was dumbfounded at the green color of not only HIS little octopus but the real live one they pulled out of the tank in the lab.

"Well," said Harryhausen...(who didn't seemed to be too pleased) "I guess we can say that an octopus can change its coloring so...." He seemed to be making an excuse for the bad green coloring. So since he wasn't there overlooking the work (seemingly lending his name to the project to get people to buy it)
then the whole reason for owning this thing in color is worthless....if the man himself isn't going to color the creatures the way they were....then what's the point?

Now, I am sure, because the film was made in black and white originally, that the octopus was gray, maybe with some brown in there because Ray went to a San Diego aquarium in '54 and took pictures of a big one in a salt water tank. THAT'S probably why he was so bent out of shape with the visage...."Oh...it's...GREEN!" He said that about six times during the first two reels.

There was one really good color shot in the film....it's a scene where Faith Domergue, Donald Curtis and Kenneth Tobey are sitting at a table in a little Hawaiian restaurant...God save me, the colorization in this scene is BEAUTIFUL!!! It works!!!! The sunset behind them(rear projection) is bright orange and the skin tones are ok and Faith's crimson lipstick and blue silk scarf....PERFECT. One scene. That's it. Everything else looked pasty and retouched like those hand painted lobby cards. And that's why I'll stick to my black and white dvd's.

Oh the Golden Gate Bridge looks good and the little balloon that is used to show the military how the octopus jet propels itself through the water is a nice, eye-popping rose color...(but that scene always makes me laugh as Donald Curtis releases that balloon and it "farties" all over the room as the military types look bemused.

http://www.woodywelch.com

[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

Now what you say about Ray's commentary is incredible....

Here we've been listening to all sorts of people saying, well, it was Ray's movie, he can do what he wants with it, he knows how it was "supposed" to look, colorization (as a principle) can't be so bad if RAY HARRYHAUSEN goes along with it, why he's so good he can even supervise the coloring of films he had nothing to do with (SHE, THINGS TO COME), why stop at just "his" (or should that be"His"?) films...etc., etc.

Now it seems that Ray not only did NOT supervise or even work with the colorization vandals but apparently didn't even bother to check on it until it was already in the can (in every sense of that expression). What is this, give me the money, I'll give you my official imprimatur, and you do the rest? I HOPE he's learned his lesson -- too late, perhaps, but it might serve as a caution to those few veteran filmmakers who toy with such a heretical idea...and it may also shut up all the whiners who embraced colorization in no small part because their hero did!

Mind you, I'm a big fan of Ray's original work and talent, but his gaga embrace of colorization appalled and astounded me. If he's disappointed, as seems to be the case, then -- good!

Elsewhere....

Ah yes, Yvonne Craig...one of the 60s' most palpably pleasurable TV delights (plus a few films). Actually, she seemed to edge closer to turquoise than straight green in that "Trek" episode, but let us not quibble. I always thought it a mistake to cast her as Batgirl in that she detracted from the allure, albeit evil, of Catwoman. (Now there's an intellectual discussion!) I saw a photo of YC a few years ago, she would have been about 60, and she still looked fantastic. Hard to believe she hits 67 this year. Where did the twentieth century go...?

[–] obit1 17 years ago

I invite anyone to listen to the commentary...Ray seems genuinely shocked that the octopus is green...and he kept saying..."Well....I guess we can excuse it because...the octopus can....change color so...." But it was a hint and a half for my fanny that he probably sat down with everybody and talked a bit but that he wasn't there looking over anybody's shoulder. maybe on Earth vs, I don't know.

Anyway, what's done is done, and I'm going to stop looking at the man behind the curtain.

But speaking of green and colorization....my fave Orion slave girl was Susan Oliver in the first Star Trek Pilot (the one with Captain Pike as the captain of the Enterprise). Since this was a new show, when scenes of her by herself, dancing erotically, were sent to the paramount lab, the technicians were shocked to see her come out green.

Evidently no camera repot had been submitted with these rushes and the lab people thought they had screwed up because here was this lovely harem girl and she was green. (If another actor had been in these medium close ups it would have been obvious but all they saw was her!)

They filtered the printer lights and were able to make her skin color a more fleshy hue. When viewing the rushes Gene Roddenberry had a heart attack (almost). The lab guy was there and proudly said..."Her skin came out green....BUT WE FIXED IT!"

If he was looking for compliments he didn't get any. Luckily the color "correction" was done on the workprint to be viewed and NOT the original negative, so a new workprint was made, green skin and all, without a costly reshoot.

I DO remember the next Orion woman, Yvonne Craig, and read about how her body paint kept coming off on Willaim Shatner.

Wow! The title of this thread is starting to really make sense!

LOL

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[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

I could abide it if circumstances conspired to cause either Yvonne's or Susan's Orion-green make-up to rub off on me.

Susan Oliver was quite lovely, and a good actress. RIP, sad to say.

Hadn't heard the "Trek" tale, but it reminded me of a story Warren Beatty told of the premiere of BONNIE AND CLYDE in London. He and Penn and the sound guys had worked out the particularly explosive sound effect they wanted out of the gunshots, part of the film's then-groundbreaking presentation. But every time the shots were fired during the London showing, the sound was very low and muffled. Beatty finally went up to the projectionist's booth, where the guy was very excited to meet him. After complimenting him on the film, the projectionist enthused as to how, in running the print prior to the actual showing, he had discovered that the film's sound men had made a great error and had reproduced the noise of the gunshots too loud -- but that it was okay, because he (the projectionist) had painstakingly gone through the film and timed each segment so that he knew exactly when he had to step in and lower the sound in the theater's speakers so as to present the film as Beatty had intended! (He added that he had experienced the exact same problem once before -- but had taken care then to make sure the gunshots weren't as loud as the careless sound department had made them on his print. That movie was SHANE!)

It's not easy being deaf either, I guess. Or maybe the projectionist was just green on the job...my vain effort to reclaim some link to the thread's title!

[–] obit1 17 years ago

Great story! I love it!

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[–] SteveM-1 16 years ago

I watched the first few scenes with the commentary again, and it also seemed like Harryhausen was surprised with some other color choices too. He commented on the Orange Radiation Suits they wore when examining the radioacive octupus sample. And yes, he commented several times on the Green Octopus. Somebody also commented on the bright yellow diving suits worn by the navy seamen when examining the sub and also when fighting the octopus, but I think it was one of the other men and not Harryhausen who made the comment.

Out of the three Harryhausen films that were colorized, this seems to have the more strange color combinations, and some of the colors didn't work quite right. The bright yellow diving suits and the orange sherbet colors of the radiation suits seemed particularly out of place. Also, later on, when they were using the flame throwers on the octopus tentacles, some of the flames and smoke appeared to switch back to Black & White in some frames. Maybe the computer couldn't keep up very well.

Ray's surprise seems unusual because I was under the impression that he supervised the colorization process for all three movies. There is a documentary on this included with "Earth vs the Flying Saucers" and "20 Million Miles to Earth", but it wasn't included with the "It Came From Beneath the Sea" special features. Ray was instrumental in assisting with the colorization process and in selecting the colors, but obviously he wasn't there for the entire process on all three movies. With ICFBTS, this seems more like an experiment and that the colorization on the other two films was more perfected.

But then again, maybe we don't want to see the Octupus as it really was. In the commentary, Ray said that the stop motion octopus (or "sextopus" as it only had 6 tentacles), was actually colored "lavender-mauve". Not sure what that looks like, but it sounds like a variation of purple. I don't think I would care to see a Purple Octopus tearing down the Golden Gate Bridge.

Since the whole premise of the movie is to be Science Fiction and it's supposed to be "way out there", I can forgive a Green Octopus. It may not be like that in the real world, but it's also not 200 feet long with six tentacles either.

:-)

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

I couldn't listen to much of the commentary, especially given my disappointment that Ray H. would willingly assist in the marring of three of his films. (Not to mention his "assistance" in colorizing other films he had nothing to do with, She (1935) and Things to Come (1936), which he had no business being involved with.) So I'm sort of surprised (in a smug, I-told-you-so way) that he was surprised at the poor color choices, and the overall poor colorization job. I think you're right, SteveM-1, he must have been involved only cursorially and with little acutal oversight of the process itself. I love Ray, but serves him right. Colorization is always lousy, and an artistic travesty.

As I've said elsewhere, I bought the colorized discs of this film and Earth Vs. only because they restored the original Columbia logos at the beginning and end of both pictures (they had been deleted for some pointless, inexplicable reason on the original b&w DVDs). I just toggle the DVD menu to watch the b&w versions of each. I saw a clip on line from 20 Million Miles to Earth and saw that the "Ymir" was colorized the same green as the sexa- hexa- pus in ICFBTS. Very discriminating.

Anyway, I could forgive a green octopus if it had actually been filmed that way. What I can't forgive is a colorized octopus, even had it been given the "correct" color. (I wonder what color the Ymir really is.)

[–] Jasons_Argonaut 16 years ago

This is not at all surprising. I was not in the least bit interested in seeing these films colorized, and this just galvanizes my opinion. What's wrong with viewing the films in the manner they were originally made. Why do some people think that color is a requirement. AT times, I think the black and white adds atmosphere to certain films, and colorization kills it. Some of the film makers of the time made their films based on the fact that it was going to be black and white. They used the limitation to their advantage. Well, it's just my opinion, but I think it humorous that Ray was disappointed in the colorization effort here.