Page 1 of Colourising old movies....

Just bought some of the Laurel and Hardy DVD`s and though the black and white transfers are excellent (in common with most of Universal Studio`s classic movie output....the early horrors, Abbott & Costello Collection etc), I personally think the colourised versions are horrible. I`m not just being luddite or traditionalist....just the softness and the pastelly colours lose all the nuances of expression that make the duo so funny....

Any other views on this? :B (inserts anorak emoticon)

I`ll let you know when I get round to watching them - they`re the most recent additions to my enormous pending pile! Other colourised films I`ve seen are interesting from a technical point of view - the `birth` of Technicolor - but lack the clarity and sharpness of the original monochrome.

I have the boxset and couldn`t resist watching them in colour, However after 2 minutes i switched it off as not only did it seem wrong to be watching Laurel & Hardy in colour but the colours seemed so outrageously vile.
The flesh tones were all wrong and the rest just seemed so ugly and bold not rich and sharp as i was expecting.



(A.C.C founder)
The New Anti.Clown.Coalition

The L&H films were one of the earliest examples of 80`s colorisation,along with Its A Wonderful Life and so the quality is dreadful.

It was perhaps because they were so bad that the general feeling towards the process became very negative and collectors and most broadcasters quickly stopped being interested in the stuff.

However,in the 21st Century the technology has come a long way and if you take a look at the first 2 seasons of Bewitched (and other stuff) its absolutely impossible to tell they were not originally in colour.

ON the + side,the process has made it possible for some aging tv shows to be repeated as most channels wont entertain B&W stuff,they just miss those out and move to the colour seasons.

But as with the L&H dvd`s (and Bewitched on R1) its nice to have the choice.
As a film collector I prefer to watch them in B&W if thats how they were made,but if a colourised version is presentable then at least other viewers get to watch.

But L&H are not an accurate representation of whats possible with colorising today

I`d be really interested in seeing the Beweitched material ....I know with the first coupla seasons of the R2 sets you had to make the choice. I`m guessing you get both options on the R1 sets. Are they flippers?

I didn`t know that the L&H atempts were twenty years old. They look awful.

My brother bought Night of the living dead colourised on VHS (Remember them) years ago and it was terrible it. A woman thought that a guy wandering about in a graveyard was just some doddery drunk even though he had a bright marker pen illuminous green face because he was a zombie.

I`ve always thought since the late 60s that one day it will be possible to turn all B/W movies/TV into colour. But my belief is that the colour information is hidden in the greys etc & one day there will be a programme that will automaticaly change them to perfect colour & perfect sharpness with no scratches. I`ve always known that most movies can be turned into 3D quite easily by running two frames of the same movie at the same time about 3/4 frames apart. For instance if you took one of those 3D viewers & inserted almost any movie frame into the left side & a frame from the same movie just 3 or 4 frames away it will appear to be 3D. So in theory probably fact, all movies can be turned into 3D colour movies. I`m sure computer programmes will overtake my 3D idea. I would love to see more of the B/W in colour even L & H but lets be honest they could never be the same to people who`ve first watched them in B/W.

Quote:
lets be honest they could never be the same to people who`ve first watched them in B/W.

I think that the poor effects and B/W are what make them so funny to some and special to others.



(A.C.C founder)
The New Anti.Clown.Coalition

Can you imagine `Citizen Kane`, `Duck Soup`, `Tokyo Story`, `Rules of the Game` or `Casablanca` colourised and in 3D? They would look terrible.

OK I have to admit to only seeing the colourised versions of some old films and documentary footage which looked awful, but one thing that has been said (by Barry Norman IIRC) is that (well made) films in particular were set up with the lighting, filters etc specifically for B/W film and this would make it difficult, if not impossible to effectively colourise the "film".

LB2