Jim

Right on there PS! It's the same with B/W stills photos - they convey much more drama than the coloured versions!

Good morning boys.

vedakis777

There are seventeen films are known to exist in Multicolor:

This Thing Called Love (1929)
His First Command (1929)
Red Hot Rhythm (1929)
Sunny Side Up (1929)
Married In Hollywood (1929)
The Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 (1929)
The Great Gabbo (1929)
Hell's Angels (1930)
New Movietone Follies of 1930 (1930)
Delicious (1931)
Untitled film (Marx Brothers) (1930)
The Hawk (1931)
Tex Takes A Holiday (1932)
Krakatoa (1933)
Holiday in Mexico (1930s)
Over the Seven Seas (1932)
Power of Love (1927)

Carmel

Some films are great in black and white for instance The secret garden with Margreat O'Brian and Rebecca and Jane Eyre these films in remake were not as atmospheric as the originals, the earry house's in black and white were great you cant capture that in colour.

vedakis777

There are 5 more films discovered in Prizma Color:

The Roosevelt (1921)
Prizma Comedy (1922)
Nature's Grandeur (1919)
A UPIE BANK COMEDY PRIZMA COLORS (1919)
Watch For The Dates (1923)

vedakis777

There is one known movie in Dufaychrome (formerly British Tricolour) in existance:

VICTORY COMES TO LONDON (1945)

vedakis777

The color on film is taken place in 1892.

Only seven of Emile Reynaud's films are known and two still exist in any form today.

Pauvre Pierrot (1892)
Clown et ses chiens (1892)
Un bon boc (1892)
Un reveau coin de feu (1894)
Autour d'une cabine (1894)
Guillaume Tell (1896)
Le prémiere cigare (1897)

All of the films except Pauvre Pierrot (1892) and Autour d'une cabine (1894) are lost due to Reynaud threw it away in the river.

vedakis777

There are four known films (I have found the titles) in Gaumont Chronochrome are known to exist:

Trichromies Gaumont (1912)
Lion Let Loose (1912)
The Same Bouquet (1912)
Victory Parade in Paris (1919)

The other titles in Chronochrome are missing.

smiffy

Were they that bad he couldn't watch them?
How about a little more content V

I May be getting older ,but I refuse to grow up

vedakis777

There are 13 films in Fullcolor are known to exist:

The Goldwyn Follies (1947)
Tests (A) 1940s
Tests (B) 1940s
Tests (C) 1940s
Tests (D) 1940s
Three bears (1946)
Angry god (1948)
Anything to please (1946)
Concierto (1946)
Don Antonio (1946)
Kid from Brooklyn (1946)
Red Riding Hood (1946)
Song of the frog (1946)

vedakis777

There are only two movies in Rouxcolor are known to exist:

Belle meunière, La (1948)
Weiße Abenteuer, Das (1952)

Chris B

Some other atmospheric films that work great in black & White and you can't imagine them in colour THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, Starring Bert Lancaster Tony Curtis, very hard hitting. LAURA, Starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, intriguing thriller. SUNSET BOULEVARD, starring Gloria Swanson William Holden, Erich Von Stroheim, very atmospheric, it was said that at the preview L.B.Mayer was to have said to Billy Wilder "You bastard" because the film showed the down side of Hollywood. And on the British side NEVER LET GO, starring Peter Sellers, Richard Todd, Mervyn Johns. very stark and hard hitting.

JVerity

I have heard, somewhere, long ago, that Hitchcock shot Psycho in color but decided to release it in B&W. True?

There is a wonderful documentary available called Visions of Light (1992), about cinematographers and their art. Every film buff should seek it out. I forget the exact quote, but someone in it states that every cinematographer today would like to make at least one major B&W film but that it's terribly difficult to get funding for this because the public is so enamored with color. All these people have studied the great B&W films of the past and become familiar with the wonderful lighting techniques that were invented, but they're all frustrated that nobody will pay them to use those techniques.

Because it is an abstraction, B&W imagery (still and cine) is artful from the get-go. It is also "all about" light and about how objects get revealed by light.

I am looking forward to the new Criterion treatment of Green for Danger. And I have been thrilled by their disk of A Canterbury Tale.

Here is the Guardian's obit for Erwin Hillier, who did Canterbury's marvelous photography:

Erwin Hillier
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's gifted black-and-white cinematographer

Ronald Bergan
Tuesday February 8, 2005
Guardian

Erwin Hillier, who has died aged 93, directed the celebrated black and white photography of two major films in the canon of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Although by the time he worked for them, he had already had experience in the UFA studios in Germany, working for FW Murnau and Fritz Lang.
Hillier's family was Anglo-German, and he was born and educated in Berlin. He first studied art, but family financial difficulties forced him to leave school. A friend put him in touch with Murnau, who was impressed by his paintings and offered him a job as camera assistant to Floyd Crosby on Tabu (1931).

Hillier, who was involved in the pre-production, was about to leave for the South Seas with the crew when his father forbade him to go, because he had heard rumours of Murnau's promiscuous homosexuality. Murnau took no offence at the slight and introduced Hillier to Lang, about to begin work on his first sound film, M (1931). Hillier was assistant cameraman to Fritz Arno Wagner on this masterpiece of low-key expressionism; some of his use of chiaroscuro found its way later into Hillier's best monochrome work.

After Hillier arrived in England, he became camera operator at Gaumont's Shepherd's Bush studios and worked on two musicals in 1934, Alfred Hitchcock's uncharacteristic Waltzes From Vienna, and Victor Saville's Evergreen, starring Jessie Matthews. In 1935, he was camera operator on The Girl In The Crowd, a "quota quickie" directed by Michael Powell. Powell later remembered him as "an almost insanely enthusiastic young man - always dreaming up new angles, new points of view for the camera to explore, new movements for the camera to make, which would intensify the atmosphere and the action."

Other Powell films on which Hillier was camera operator were The Man Behind The Mask (1936) and The Spy In Black (1939), scripted by Emeric Pressburger. Powell and Pressburger then went on to form their company, the Archers, in 1941, to produce films that were a curious blend of the very British (Powell) and the very Middle European (Pressburger).

They got Hillier as director of photography on their second and third films: A Canterbury Tale (1944) and I Know Where I'm Going (1945), both distinguished by the monochrome cinematography, evoking the near-mystical landscapes of Southern England and the Hebrides.

"With this film [A Canterbury Tale], Hillier sprang to the front rank," wrote Powell in his memoirs. "He had a keen eye for effect and texture . . . whether in the studio or on location. The only thing he was a bit loony about was clouds in the sky. He detested a clear sky, and it sometimes seemed to me that he forgot about the story and the actors in order to gratify his passion. 'Meekee, Meekee, please wait another few minutes,' he would plead. There is a little cloud over there and it is coming our way, I'm sure it is.' This would go on all day. I admired his dedication."

But Powell and Pressburger decided to revert to colour expert Jack Cardiff, who had shot their film The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp (1942), for their next three films, which were to be in Technicolor. Powell offered Hillier the possibility of working with Cardiff as co-DP on A Matter Of Life And Death (1946), but he refused. Hillier never got to work in Technicolor during its greatest decade, 1939-1949, except for the disastrous London Town (1946), Britain's first major Technicolor musical.

Hillier returned to his forte with The October Man (1947), one of the best British attempts at film noir, shot atmospherically in monochrome, reflecting the angst of John Mills as an amnesiac trying to prove that he is not a murderer. With Peter Ustinov's Private Angelo (1949), Hillier began a long association with Michael Anderson, who co-directed the film.

Hillier shot 10 films for Anderson, including Chase A Crooked Shadow (1958) - a good title for a noir cinematographer; Shake Hands With The Devil (1959), starring James Cagney as an IRA man; and, most successfully, The Dam Busters (1955).

It was decided to shoot The Dam Busters in black and white to allow the integration of original footage of the bomb trials, and to preserve a docudrama style. The Ruhr was in flood, which allowed the crew, including Hillier doing much of the aerial photography, to film inundated towns and valleys and incorporate the footage into the closing scenes.

Anderson and Hillier were reunited on Operation Crossbow (1965), another wartime story covering the development of a new type of bomb and using many special effects. For The Quiller Memorandum (1966), Hillier returned to Berlin for an offbeat tale of espionage, scripted by Harold Pinter.

Hillier retired in 1968 after shooting the plodding papal picture, The Shoes Of The Fisherman, for Anderson.

He is survived by his wife and daughter.

· Erwin Hillier, cinematographer, born September 2 1911; died January 10 2005

Steve Crook

No, this sort of thing is never true. Especially of any good film. The decisions made about the design and what is filmed are totally different for B&W and colour. If you watch a colour film with the colour turned right down it is hardly ever very interesting visually. When you photograph things in B&W you are looking for quite different things to put in the frame.

Exactly. Which is why it's unlikely someone would make a film in colour and then release it in B&W - or allow their B&W film to be "colorised".

Criterion are also due to release 49th Parallel on Feb 20th
That's another great B&W film, full of Canadian scenery and some great character studies.

Steve

AndrewLA

If he retired in 1968, he was only 57. Many DPs go on much longer. Was he ill, perhaps...?

Steve Crook

I don't think so, he lived on until 2005 and seemed to be healthy enough in various interviews like on the documentary on the Criterion DVD of A Canterbury Tale.
I think that to some extent that it might have been that his main successes wer in B&W cinematography. Although he did some work in colour, that was never as successful. And there just weren't the opportunities to work on major films in B&W after the late 1960s.

Steve