Color Version

I respect your right to your opinion.
I think It was done to attract youth.
I wish they would film all 33 of drury's novels.

its an abomination to colorize films. I have CASABLANCA colorized dvd and trust me its awful

The technicolor was quite expensive in the early 1960s. Remember, all color television broadcasting was not pervasive until the late 1960s. I grew up in the black and white television. There are still plenty of us around. But we shall be goner soon in a few decades. Already the generation that grew up before television is dying out. By the year 2030 there won't be any left around [my mother, she is almost 90, is one of them]. What will happen when all the generations that grew up with the black and white tv are gone, and there are still too many old black and white movies around? Dump them to the waste basket because they were not in color? Some stupid old movies not worth to watch I wouldn't mind, but many classics we watch like "King Kong" of 1933 and "Citizen Kane" are black and white. The law forbidding colorizing movies made in the late 1980s is the stupidest of laws. And I don't consider most movies "works of art". There are just for entertainment, of course you can learn something but don't take it too literally, and some forms must be done to keep them for future generations. I have seen "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street" colorized and look much better. Funny, in the 1960s people wanted color tv broadcasting, and now they want to keep the old black and white movies "black and white". But I fear a decades from now with a future generations that grew up only watching color movies and tv.

It's not the Mona Lisa! The director probably also never envisioned the film being viewed on television, or on I-phones, or in other formats. As technology advances, there may be high quality colorization techniques, 3D and all kinds of new and promising ways to make this film more interesting to younger viewers or people who would like to see it in a different way. I agree that there is something charming and pristine about seeing a film in the way the director originally wanted it, but let's not be so pretentious about it. It's just a movie.

Before I begin, I must state that I LOVE old b/w films - they're pretty much my preference. I agree that colorization of classic b/w films is a bit like drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa. But I'm not so intolerant that I reject it summarily. I can appreciate the art and technology that went into it. It's more like drawing a mustache on 'a print' of the Mona Lisa. The original still exists, no harm done. I don't really think anyone should make big profit from it - unless (far-fetched) the original producer or director should actually commission it. True, some of the early colorizations were abominably bad. As a graphic designer/photo retoucher, I hate it when someone asks me to colorize a b/w portrait - especially if I don't know what color eyes, skin tone, hair color, etc. But ... I must admit, if a colorization is effectively done, I do get a kick out of watching it (in small doses). Recently, some I Love Lucy episodes were very expertly colorized along with a handful of other classic TV shows. Masterfully done. Looked almost real. I got a kick out of seeing them, but didn't really want to watch whole episodes - and that was apparently due to my subconscious preference for the originals. Had the same reaction to another one, Laurel & Hardy's The Music Box. Cool to see "color footage", but I still prefer the original b/w versions. I don't know if "novelty" is the right description of the experience, but it's close. A more acceptable form (which drew few complaints) is Warhol's Marilyn Diptych. He didn't take the original photograph, but he colorized the heck out of it for his purposes. And surely, it's a bit more elevated art than colorized films. But it's no more or less disrespectful of the original.

Five of Preminger's independent productions are owned by his estate: THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM, THE MOON IS BLUE, SAINT JOAN, ADVISE AND CONSENT, and THE CARDINAL. In the late '80's, the rights to these films were sold to Hal Roach Studios, a company that did not actually have a direct tie to the old Hollywood producer but owned many of his shorts, along with other old movies. HRS also had close ties with a company called Color Systems Technologies, which was one of the two large companies adding color to B&W movies. (The other, Colorization Inc., was almost wholly owned by Turner Entertainment.) HRS released many colorized films on their label, mostly public domain material, but they also did create a color version of ADVISE AND CONSENT since they had rights at the time. To their credit, HRS did license proper B&W versions of ADVISE and SAINT JOAN on VHS and to Image Entertainment for laserdisc, along with THE CARDINAL. THE CARDINAL was even letterboxed.
In the late '90's, the Preminger films left HRS and were resold to Warner Bros. for home video. Warner released all five films on VHS, and ADVISE was also given a letterboxed transfer.

Basically, if you are looking for a VHS copy of ADVISE, make sure you get the WB VHS edition; a Hal Roach copy may inadvertently stick you with the colorized version.

Actually, it's not true that a b&w version wasn't available. My brother had a b&w VHS copy of this film that was also, surprisingly, in wide screen. Perhaps the library from where the movie was obtained did not have a B&W copy in stock.

"As I recall, the only way this was available on VHS was colorized"

That's true. Videosmith (an excellent video store) got the colorized version and tried to send it back. They were told it wasn't available in b&w on video at all. This was back in the days when everybody thought colorizing was a great idea (it isn't of course). The DVD that came out a few years back though is in b&w.

Sorry, but some of us can always tell when something's been colorized, even without knowing that the original was in b&w (although most of the time we do know, of course!).

Yeah, colorization has "progressed", if I may be forgiven for using such a word in this connection, since the 80s, and it is true that a lot of it today is less bad (does not = "good") than stuff 15 or 20 years ago. But that's all entirely beside the point.

Colorization is fake, phony, and inaccurate. It is impossible to ever know, imitate or capture the true colors of people or objects in a b&w film. And even if it could be done, which it cannot, a colorized film is not the film as intended, and I'm fed up with the colorization minority citing some filmmakers and claiming they would've shot their films in color if they could have afforded it.

Maybe some would have; most wouldn't have. But that too is beside the point.

The only salient fact is that a b&w film was in fact shot as "intended" -- in b&w. Period. End of story. It apparently never occurs to colorizers that because films are specifically designed, lit, and photographed differently for b&w or real color, the process involved in daubing phony colors onto a b&w film necessarily destroys the integrity of the original print and changes the entire base of the film's appearance. Smearing fake and inaccurate colors onto a b&w film does not equate with shooting it in actual, honest, natural color. It can never be the same, and no advances in the technology can ever begin to reproduce the richness, the subtleties, the nuances, the tones, visible in actual color.

This also leaves aside the issue of anyone's artistic right to mar a film from its original.

If you like colorization, why not change the music tracks or sound effects or cut out scenes you deem offensive? People do these things too. Colorization is exactly the same kind of thing: it alters the film as it was shot and meant to be shown.

Leave the damn films alone! If someone can't make his delicate sensibilities bear the sight of a black & white film, then don't watch it. Colorization is, by defintion, a fraud and a lie.

Whether one thinks colorized films look good or bad is essentially beside the point. The point is that they are tampering with, changing a piece of art into something different, adding phony color (and colors, since they almost never know what color an object in any scene actually was and can't duplicate real color in any case), and this opens the door to other changes in films -- soundtrack, dialogue, whatever. No one has the right to do this. Whether some movies would have been filmed in color but for the expense or whatever is also irrelevant -- the fact remains, the films were NOT shot in color, and colorizing is NOT color.