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Show r Movies in Color at Last Perfected !l 'I v I i - ' " . I fr r- tl i W 1 1 . c I V j Km - - r : i ' , A; '- ' " . , - xvv v Scene from "Becky Sharp," the first full-length, all-color moving picture, with Miriam Hopkins as Becky. Inset, left: Robert Edmond Jones, color director for the film. Inset right: Walt Disney, daddy of Mickey Mouse and first producer to employ the new color process. By WILLIAM C. UTLEY HOLLYWOOD, which of late years has probablj' contributed contrib-uted as much as literature to the shaping of American Ameri-can tastes and habits, is now going to work on our color sense. Producers Pro-ducers of moving pictures In the next year are going to spend $150,-000,000 $150,-000,000 In Hollywood, more than they ever spent before in any one year, and a considerable part of -kthis vat sum will go into the making mak-ing of pictures which not only move and talk, but will appear on the screen in the natural colors of their scenes and characters. It is not rash to predict that whole new schemes of decoration, new styles in dress, new fads in ( make-up for women will be the re sult. If you don't believe this Is possible, think back for a minute. Mae West says, "Come up and see me some time," and soon It is a catch phrase that sweeps over the nation. Delores Del Rio (lances a number called the Carloca, and before be-fore long we see thousands of couples doing the Carioca on New York's St. Regis roof, in Los Angeles An-geles Cocoanut grove and In the Crystal Palace ballroom at Paw Paw lake, Michigan. A popular movie, "It Happened One Night," shows long sequences with Clark Gable riding in a cross-country bus; a few weeks later a Florida bus line reports that its women passengers passen-gers have increased some 25 per cent. In 1927 Al Jolson sang a song called "Sonny Boy" in a picture entitled en-titled "The Jazz Singer." It was the first time the shadowy figures of the screen had ever been endowed en-dowed with tile power of speech. The picture revolutionized the entire en-tire Industry and lifted it from a doubtful and often slapstick quality to one of the most important influences influ-ences in American life. The picture pic-ture grossed $:i,50O,O00. Now after many years of effort, moving pictures have been given another dimension, so to speak. We are allowed to see them in their true colors. Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" lias been made into a movie called "Becky Sharp," in which the old varying shades of gray are banished ban-ished In favor of full reproduction In natural color, bringing to life the polychrome resplendency of I'.ock.v's colorful time and sphere in every hue on the spectrum. Another Step Forward. Color, say the producers and most of the critics, may he just as much n revolution as was sound eight years ago. It will not come so swiftly, swift-ly, however, for color is expensive, 'delicate to administer. Mistakes will undoubtedly be made, for color In the hands of a master can make the motion picture a thing of Incomparable In-comparable art, but a bungler could make It as frightful as a Christmas neck-tie. There will he both masters mas-ters and bunglers. There always have been, in Hollywood. Color in motion pictures Is really almost as old as the cinema itself. Only natural color Is new. The first colored movie, like so many other "firsts." was produced by Thomas Alva Edison in ISO t. It i m was "Anna Belle, the Dancer." ' . " Every separate panel of film was tinted by hand, like we sometimes tint photographs today. All the colors col-ors were there, but not as you would see them If you looked at them In the flesh. The tinting artist was a sort of artistic embalmer. You looked at Anna Belle and said. "My, don't she look natural; they sure did a good job on her." Yet so eager was the firm audience for color, many films, some over 1.000 feet In length, were colored by this long . and laborious process. Since Kdlson's attempt more than 2.Kl methods of making colored films have made an appearance. These are basically split Into four different differ-ent groups as to process; hand tinted, prismatic, thio-liuloxyl and tone films. Back in 1028 and 1929, fresh from sweeping triumphs in movies with sound, Warner Brothers decided to go the whole hog and make them in color, too. "On With the Show" and "Gold Diggers of Broadway" led the rush to color. But at that time only part of the spectrum could be reproduced and outlines were blurred. To make matters worse, the boom in color caused overproduction and forced the Technicolor Tech-nicolor Motion Picture corporation to turn out an inferior product. The resultant flops have kept most producers pro-ducers shy of color ever since. Responsible for Progress. Although there are other companies com-panies 41 of them in the field, who may later produce better color films, it is Technicolor which is responsible re-sponsible for the present state of perfection. It was named for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technol-ogy, the alma mater of Dr. Herbert T. Kalmus, who began experimenting experiment-ing with color cinematography (which is the elegant word for "shooting" movies) upon his graduation gradu-ation In 1914. Meriarn C. Cooper in the fall of 1925 returned from tropical jungles jun-gles with a film called "Chang." Not even the success of this film could placate Cooper for the loss of exquisite jungle beauty when it was reproduced in varying shades of gray, rather than in all its primitive, primi-tive, colored splendor. Cooper determined de-termined to create color movies and associated himself with Dr. Kalmus. Kal-mus. Their work progressed slowly, but in 1021 they were able to make "Toll of the Sea," with Anna Slay Wong, a color picture. It caused no flurries of excitement. Then in 102S the boom came and went. Two years later Dr. Kalmus improved im-proved his process so that a full and faithful range of colors could be shown and images could be given definite outline. By this time noho.iy in Hollywood could be interested in-terested except young Walt Disney, Dis-ney, best known as the father of "Mickey Mouse." Disney had never allowed precedent prece-dent to interfere with his art. He believed in Technicolor and backed bis belief with a "Silly Symphony," called "Flowers and Trees," produced pro-duced by the new process. It was artistically successful. It was followed fol-lowed by "Three Little Pigs," which certainly needs no introduction anywhere in the world where there is a motion picture house and which lias often been said (seriously) (serious-ly) to have done more than any other one thing to take the mind of the world off the gloom of depression. de-pression. Whitneys Take It Up. Certainly Mr. Disney's porkers ended the depression for Technicolor, Techni-color, for they it was who interested inter-ested John Hay ("Jock") Whitney and his cousin, Cornelius Yander-bilt Yander-bilt ("Sonny") Whitney in color movies. The Whitney millions bought 15 per cent of the shares of Technicolor Motion Picture corporation cor-poration and organized Pioneer Pictures, Pic-tures, Inc., to produce pictures by that process. One of the first steps of the Whitneys Whit-neys was a wise one. From the New York stage they brought Robert Edmond Ed-mond .Kmies, whose design work for "Rebound," "Mourning Becomes Electra," "Ah, Wilderness!" and other plays had established him as the leader In his field. With Jones as the minister of the palette. Pioneer produced an experimental experi-mental two-roeier, which proved definitely that natural colors had arrived on the screen. The picture, "I.a Cuearuelia," grossed $250.0" XI, more than any short in black and white had ever drawn. "Becky Sharp" followed. It cost approximately $l.iY0.:n. Whether or not It shows a profit does not concern the Whitneys much. To them, the important thing is tiiat, artistically, it has been hailed by most critics as a success, as the final "arrival" of natural color to the screen. Some critics were cold to it, but they felt that way not because of Imperfections in color reproduction, but because of the tremendous possibility that abuse may, and in their opinion, will, destroy de-stroy color films. As the reviewer of the sophisticated and wary New Yorker said : "What someone else, someone other than Mr. Jones, someone, say, with a weakness for pretty postcards, post-cards, may do with the marvels of the new scientific advance I shudder shud-der to think I may some day know." More of Them Planned. Tioneer Pictures has on its schedule sched-ule eight more color movies. It has been reported that the next one will contain songs and dances. Every motion picture studio in southern California is already beginning be-ginning to experiment once more with the colored cinema, or is actually actu-ally planning the production of a film in natural colors. It costs about 30 per cent more to make a picture In colors than to make It In black and white, not counting additional staging extravagances. It has been conservatively estimated esti-mated that there will be at least ten full length color features made during 1930, that in three years half the films will be in color and that by the end of five years at least 90 per cent of all the films made in Hollywood, at least, will be in color. One of the most ambitious of the new color movies will be the one now in production at the Disney Dis-ney studios. It will be the first full-length animated cartoon ever made, and will be called "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," based, of course, upon the fairy tale of the same name. What a stupendous stu-pendous undertaking this is may be understood from the fact that somewhere some-where between S0.000 and 100,000 separate drawings and exposures will be necessary to a cartoon of this length. It has already been in the making a year and a half and Disney estimates that it will take another year and a half to complete it. The cost will approximate approxi-mate .f350,000. Only this fall will you begin to see animated cartoons other than the Disney product on the screen in all the primary colors. That is because Disney, with his customary custom-ary foresight, acquired a year's exclusive ex-clusive contract on the use of full Technicolor for animated cartoons. That contract expires some time this month. The other cartoons you have seen in colors of late were made by the old two-color process. Technicolor is made in the sub-tractive sub-tractive color process which has been mentioned. There are three separate magazines of film which run through (he camera. Each of them photographs one of the primary pri-mary colors from which all colors are compounded. From each of the negatives a matrix (which may be loosely termed as similar to an engraved en-graved plate such as Is used in printing) Is made. How It's Done. A properly prepared film holds the master black. Color Impressions Impres-sions are transferred from the matrixes mat-rixes to this master film by the use of what are called subtractive primary pri-mary dyes, In a process of imbibition. imbibi-tion. The dyes used are cyan (minus (mi-nus red), magenta (minus green) and yellow (minus blue). All colors col-ors must be transferred to the master mas-ter black before the color print is ready. Such an explanation Is, of coarse, vague at best, but Is about all that can be accomplished within the limits lim-its of a short article. The process is foolproof. In that It Is Impossible to alter the cclnrs. The camera registers the Cu'.nrs exactly ex-actly as it spos them. The only human hu-man t-rrors possible are lack of t;isc In preparing the settings and lark of precision In printing the film. Western Nows-r aper L'nioa. |