bd74
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Post by bd74 on Mar 7, 2017 0:51:07 GMT
I don't recall the specific years of the trend, but I do remember there being a brief period in the late 80s/early 90s where old black-and-white films were "colorized". That is, colors were superimposed on the films, which actually produced a cheap-looking end result. The first and only time I ever saw the movie Suspicion, it was a colorized version...and it looked pretty bad.
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Post by bonerxmas on Mar 7, 2017 0:53:49 GMT
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bd74
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Post by bd74 on Mar 7, 2017 1:16:01 GMT
Thanks for the link. Eclair, lol.
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Post by pippinmaniac on Mar 7, 2017 1:37:56 GMT
I remember that trend. I have one thing to say about it-
YUCK!
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Post by mikef6 on Mar 7, 2017 1:39:40 GMT
Indeed I do. The very idea was appalling. And they could never get the colors quite right. You could always spot a colorized former black and white film at a glance. Johnny Carson once joked that the next film to be colorized was the Humphrey Bogart classic, The Chartreuse Falcon.
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Post by jervistetch on Mar 7, 2017 1:47:29 GMT
I received a VHS copy of KEY LARGO as a gift and was very thankful. Later I realized it was the colorized version. I could never bring myself to watch it.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2017 1:50:19 GMT
Yeah it looked terrible. I think black and white adds a certain magical "other world" effect that colour and especially fake/added colour just lacks.
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Post by OldAussie on Mar 7, 2017 2:20:49 GMT
The colourised Maltese Falcon was unwatchable. Looked like a cartoon.
A colourised version Of Red River still plays on Aussie television and looks O.K. Maybe the outdoor setting suited the process a little better.
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zenzy
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Post by zenzy on Mar 7, 2017 3:17:42 GMT
It's still happening outside of the U.S. and the technology is improving. This film on YouTube was colorized in 2011. Can you tell?
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Post by london777 on Mar 7, 2017 3:22:31 GMT
It's still happening outside of the U.S. and the technology is improving. This film on YouTube was colorized in 2011. Can you tell? It looks fine to me. I would think realistic skin-tones would be the hardest thing to get right?
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rick220
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Post by rick220 on Mar 7, 2017 10:49:53 GMT
The colourised Maltese Falcon was unwatchable. Looked like a cartoon. A colourised version Of Red River still plays on Aussie television and looks O.K. Maybe the outdoor setting suited the process a little better. The color version of Red River was shown on the Dutch TCM channel as well. Ted Turner, the owner of TCM, basically was behind the idea of 'updating' classics by adding color. The problem of course is that color and light are two separate entities, where 1+1 is never 2. If you add color like Turner did, you mess up the lighting of the film, and the end-result is always flat and poor.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2017 16:16:47 GMT
There are some instances where not only do I not mind the colourized version, but it actually adds a little charm. Probably not the real classics, but oddly, some movies,...yeah, it adds quaint charm.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2017 16:28:29 GMT
There are some instances where not only do I not mind the colourized version, but it actually adds a little charm. Probably not the real classics, but oddly, some movies,...yeah, it adds quaint charm. I'm curious. Can you give some examples? Excellent question. Let me consider. I'm thinking of movies I've seen, mostly as a little kid, when I could tell they were heavily, and fake as all get out, colourized. Reminding me of stained glass in a way. I think it's a nostalgic thing more than a quality thing. Same way as I watch some old black and white silent movie stripping in a clunky way across the screen, or listen to vinyl, and I prefer all of that with their quirks. I'm not sure if the movies I'm remembering were meant to be colourized, or if they were done after the fact. Let me think about that some more to provide a good example.
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Post by snsurone on Mar 7, 2017 17:10:17 GMT
Whatever one thinks of Orson Welles, at least he had the gumption to openly declare that "Ted Turner and his crayons" would never get near his B&W classics, especially CITIZEN KANE. I believe it was written in Welles' will, so his movies will never be colorized.
BTW, back in the nineties, there was a program called TURNER'S FAVORITE MOVIES, which was hosted each week by some celebrity who was marginally connected with the film shown: Sandra Bernhard for FUNNY GIRL, Judge Wapner for WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION, etc. Well, this was the time that the infamous Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, and he made a comment about the "benefits" of orphanages, using Boys' Town as an example. Immediately, TNT scheduled a horrible, colorized print of BOYS' TOWN as a special viewing. The host? Why, Newt the Coot, of course!
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Post by snsurone on Mar 7, 2017 17:13:11 GMT
I've heard that colorization has improved since Ted Turner's heyday. It now looks rather like the three-strip Technicolor of the '40's and '50's.
If that's true, there are a few B&W films that I'd like to see in color. ROMAN HOLIDAY comes to mind.
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Post by TheOriginalPinky on Mar 7, 2017 17:31:29 GMT
Back then, it was really ugly looking and muddy. Today, it's much better, but I prefer watching a film in it's original format.
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Post by geode on Mar 7, 2017 17:42:10 GMT
I personally have always hated to see B&W classics colorized and have refused to watch them on principle, but I think a valid case could be made for doing so, like the one Ted Turner made. He said that it made a way for bigger audiences when televised, and that more people became aware of classic films as a result than would have otherwise. I think he may have been correct about this as I have known a lot of people that refuse to watch B&W films. I used to work offshore on a platform to drill and produce oil. They had a theater and would show films on tape that were sent out. The rental outfit at times appeared to send out tapes that were not in much demand. There would be a full house for bad action films in color, but one they sent out was "Beat the Devil" and a few seconds after hitting the screen half the house walked out. Within five minutes I was watching it with only two others. And the be fair to Ted Turner, he released on video two versions of the films he colorized, one in B&W. Many classics that would not otherwise be issued on tape came out because of him.
Yes, I can see why directors were not too keen for their films to be seen in an altered form, but the negatives were not altered. I have had a couple of films that were colorized and I simply turned off the chroma and watched them in B&W. The lighting isn't really changed at all when this is done. I still have some colorized films, all Laurel and Hardy films with B&W versions included.
I saw one colorized film on TV that was not so bad in some ways. It was "The Mortal Storm" and color added some drama to Nazi brown shirts burning books. The only real trouble I saw was some flesh colored walls.
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Post by MiketheMechanic on Mar 7, 2017 18:15:08 GMT
Mid 80's and I remember all the hoopla as if it were yesterday. The easiest thing to do when watching a colorized film was to adjust the color knob to black and white.
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bd74
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Post by bd74 on Mar 7, 2017 18:25:33 GMT
I've heard that colorization has improved since Ted Turner's heyday. It now looks rather like the three-strip Technicolor of the '40's and '50's. If that's true, there are a few B&W films that I'd like to see in color. ROMAN HOLIDAY comes to mind. If that's the case then I also would like to see some films in color. Now, Voyager would be at the top of my list.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2017 18:51:40 GMT
I remember it well. I was a 'snob' who didn't like the idea of corrupting the directors vision.
That said? I used to enjoy spotting the 'uncolored' parts of the early transfers. I believe they needed to leave a little 'black and white' as a benchmark for the colorization. There fore, maybe the 'ship' on the water in the background would still be 'grey', or military helmets, city buildings, tuxedos, etc, in 'black and white'.
That, for me, was fun. I remember "Laurel and Hardy's" clothing was always pure 'black and white', LOL.
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