Colour versus Black & White

[Gerald Lovell]

Thanks very much, Gerald. Just as I remember it. One thing I failed to add towards that otherwise vivid description is that my dream took place when I was ill (yes, even then) and off school. It may have been a Friday morning/early afternoon, circa 1972. And yet, as I'm sure you will confirm, Doctor Who was always on Saturday evenings. A repeat maybe?

There were very few DOCTOR WHO repeats in those days. The only repeat in 1972 was a compilation version of "The Sea Devils" shown on Wednesday 27th December. However, it might have been the repeat of "Spearhead from Space" shown on Fridays from 9th to 30th July in 1971. Those repeats were in the evening though, at 6.20pm each week.

[cornershop15]

That's strange. The obvious conclusion is that the memory is playing tricks but I am certain this was during the week, around lunchtime. It is only the opening titles that have stayed in the mind though, so it could have been a trailer. Not knowing is terrible.

[CaptainWaggett]

The Sea Devils was repeated in the morning on Monday 27th May, 1974 ( a Bank Holiday). I remember this being tremendously exciting at the time. But as Gerald says, Doctor Who was hardly repeated at all - none of the 60s ones were shown again until a season during the Baker/Davison changeover.

[Elaine]

On the subject of b/w films and tv series. When I was growing up the screen on the tv was no bigger than a dinner plate, so you had to sit right on top of it to watch anyway, then b/w was fantastic. As the tv set grew larger, and colour became the normal on the big screen, then on the small, no one wanted to watch monocrome. After all, we see in colour. B/W can be very effective, I wouldn't want to see the old films in anything else, but then I enjoy colour as in Campbell's Kingdom. Those movies would be very dull indeed without it.
Never having seen footage of W2 in colour, only in b/w, when reels where found a little while ago. It became much more real for me. I know which I would rather watch in future.

[Gerald Lovell]

The Sea Devils was repeated in the morning on Monday 27th May, 1974 ( a Bank Holiday). I remember this being tremendously exciting at the time. But as Gerald says, Doctor Who was hardly repeated at all - none of the 60s ones were shown again until a season during the Baker/Davison changeover.

Apart from "An Unearthly Child" being shown again a week after its original transmission on 23rd November 1963 (in case anyone missed it due to the furore over President Kennedy's assassination the day before) and the cleverly crafted in "The Evil of the Daleks" repeat in 1968.
On the first, as a 5 year old, I remember being puzzled by the repeat and delighted when another episode was then shown. On the second, I was indignant that a repeat of all things was being shown instead of a new story and I wrote to JUNIOR POINTS OF VIEW complaining about it.

[CaptainWaggett]

Apart from "An Unearthly Child" being shown again a week after its original transmission on 23rd November 1963 (in case anyone missed it due to the furore over President Kennedy's assassination the day before) and the cleverly crafted in "The Evil of the Daleks" repeat in 1968.
On the first, as a 5 year old, I remember being puzzled by the repeat and delighted when another episode was then shown. On the second, I was indignant that a repeat of all things was being shown instead of a new story and I wrote to JUNIOR POINTS OF VIEW complaining about it.

Your letter was probably the tipping point that made them decide nobody would ever want to see all of Evil of the Daleks and that it was far more important to use the shelf-space for The Dominators

[Gerald Lovell]

You know, I was going to add to the end of my last post "but then we got "The Dominators"

[cornershop15]

The Sea Devils was repeated in the morning on Monday 27th May, 1974 ( a Bank Holiday). I remember this being tremendously exciting at the time. But as Gerald says, Doctor Who was hardly repeated at all - none of the 60s ones were shown again until a season during the Baker/Davison changeover.

It's possible, but I am quite sure I was a year or two younger when I had that Black-and-White/Colour dream. If only they could be transmitted to a big screen, like that episode of The Prisoner (A, B & C) and preserved on video.

There are more than a few dreams I'd like to see/experience again but maybe not one I had last week. Some hours after I'd finished a post at the recently-created John Cazale thread, I again found myself in a dream where I was in a train station. Bizarrely, I (felt I) was on a swing which carried me forward past Al Pacino, standing alone and frightened by a wall.

The actor's expression was identical to the one he had in the film Scarecrow, when he's in a catatonic state (traumatised by his wife's refusal to let him see their child). I swung back and forth seeing the same fear on Al's face and was so 'freaked out' myself it took a while to recover, upon waking up. I'm not a dream analyst but think I know why all those 'ingredients' were used to form that sequence.

Firstly, I haven't seen Al Pacino on screen for years. The still I posted at John Cazale's thread is from Dog Day Afternoon, which I haven't seen but know they were both in. In my experience, thinking about something most of the time means it won't feature in your dream. Because Al was a passing thought, he went straight to the back of my mind and therefore it was my subconscious that brought him back. It's the same with train stations. I haven't been to one for 15 years, and so these days they are part of recurring dreams like that one, which was in colour.

Apart from the one I mentioned, where I rolled a ball down a hill, the only black-and-white dream that's stuck in the memory is of The Likely Lads, James Bolam and Rodney Bewes, filming by a railway. I'd recently seen the film version (a 1982/83 broadcast), which opens with a Wartime b&w sequence. The subconscious again. This was before I knew of the 1960s series.

I was going to post something from Mystery and Imagination but will leave that until later today.

[cornershop15]

Scene from Mystery and Imagination: Uncle Silas (1968)

More Colour and Black-and-White comparisons. This is from the DVD's image gallery:

Patience Collier as Madame de la Rougierre and Lucy Fleming as Maud Ruthyn - in colour.

This is how they, and more significantly the costumes, looked in black-and-white, with Patience caught off guard! :

She was just as terrifying in TV's Who Pays the Ferryman? a decade later and, to a lesser extent, Endless Night.

This is the nearest equivalent to the colour picture. The old hag, Maud's guardian, has dragged her to her mother's grave:

"Tell me, or I will break your fingers!" - "No, Madame. You're hurting."

The year before, Lucy played Lydia Bennet in a BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, though
she is probably best known for the Sci-Fi series Survivors - and as the wife of Simon Williams.