Tweet GOOD NEWS color sequence

Does anyone have a first generation source that GOOD NEWS had a color sequence? It's not listed in Technicolor's filmography and I couldn't find anything mentioning Technicolor on ProQuest.

Does anyone have a first generation source that GOOD NEWS had a color sequence? It's not listed in Technicolor's filmography and I couldn't find anything mentioning Technicolor on ProQuest.

It was Multicolor I've heard. Don't have any sources though.

Re Good News. The last reel is said to be color. I believe I have mentioned this in other blogs in the past but I used to get the magazines & TV catalogues from Broadcast Information Bureau(BIB) in the 1970s having been altered to this group by Nostalgia Book Club who were selling off copies cheap and I eventually joining the company as a subscriber to the magazines etc.

The TV shows only listed those that were available to broadcast and all the details so such shows as Mr Peepers were not listed, for example at the time. But the film catalogue had all known film titles and their availability was listed. Thus Good news was listed but said Withdrawn, negative deteriorated. This applied to a number of other films in this period. If the film used Multicolor and not Technicolor, then this material should not have been at Technicolor when they cleaned out the vaults in the later 1950s. But then who was Multicolor and what was the policies at the time???

Multicolor started as an offshoot of Prizma. It was run by William Crespinel who worked with William Kelley at Prizma. When Howard Hughes bought Multicolor, Crespinel up and left, and started Cinecolor with Alan L. McCormick and Alan Gundelfinger. Lots of Williams and Alans in that market, I guess.

As far as I can tell, Cinecolor ended up taking over the film holdings of Multicolor, although the two were still co-existent around 1932-33. Cinecolor later printed re-issues of a number of Multicolor titles, such as PHANTOM OF SANTA FE (originally THE HAWK) and the short, WONDERLAND OF CALIFORNIA.

The MGM/Multicolor connection is baffling, though, since I think they had an exclusive contract with Technicolor at the time.

Thanks for the information, Jack. As you say it is odd & I wonder if the quality was as good as Technicolor at the time. late in the 1940s Paramount & Columbia used these lesser color systems for a few films. Then there is Trucolor. But this opens up a new topic that this discussion was not about.

Trucolor was CFI's color process, similar to Cinecolor. It was actually their second, which used duplitized stock with a dye coupler for red and green on either side (similar to regular Eastman color). CFI's original system was Magnacolor, which was an exact replica of Cinecolor.

Paramount was using Cinecolor for their "Popular Science" and "Paramount Color Cruise" series, but switched to Magnacolor some time around 1941, I believe. I don't know exactly when or why, but I suspect because CFI offered them a better deal. Incidentally, during the '50s, Technicolor did a lot of Paramount's B&W work.

CFI before Republic was founded had a big fire around 1930 and people were killed there that night. MGM had stuff being printed at the time and titles were mentioned but those titles seem to exist although they were listed as destroyed. Other majors apparently used this facility at the time.

In the 1970s I got prints in 16mm ordered legit from producers that were made at the old MGM film labs. Such was Rock, Rock, Rock in a beautiful print in that format with MGM labs leaders at each reel front & end. They seemed to have the reputation of making good prints. There was one with a good reputation in NYC which closed a longtime ago now.

As far as film stocks go Fujicolor was frowned upon by projectionists I knew in the 1970s. They said it broke easily. I had 16mm items using Fujicolor that I got from Thunderbird Films in Glendale/Eagle Rock. I had no trouble. Had a couple on DuPont from elsewhere and they seem to have a bad reputation.

I used Agfa stock when I did a few things sourced from the now closed local branch in Melbourne but never used Ilford who are now gone here. Ilford was used a lot by Rank in the 1950s and according to projectionists I knew in UK who attended screenings on Saturday nights with me at a private house in London the stock broke easily and faded quick even in b&w but I have no personal evidence of this. I don't know what Rank used in the 1940s after the war but I had a friend(deceased) at the BFI who found mutiple prints of a film in 35mm at the Highbury Studio vaults that had gone to dust in the 1960s when he went to collect a print for a screening(The Wicked Lady).

I did a few quick reversal 16mm in the 1970s on Kodak stock in color but they have faded now. I never did 35mm. The labs have almost all gone now and there were some sharks out there.

Fuji and AGFA prints tend to hold their color a bit better than Eastman, but when Fuji was poorly processed, it was pretty terrible stuff. Sometime something would manifest itself that some folks started to call "Fuji rot" where the emulsion would sporing these orange dots throughout the picture. The '70s Movielab prints are notorious for this.

In the '30s in particular, there were dozens of color processes that sprung up on the market, trying to take a hand at competing with Technicolor and Cinecolor, who cornered the market. Obviously from the years some companies were in business and the advertising that was taken out by them, a lot of money was sunk into these ideas. A lot of them were a re-hash of the bipack color process, but some of them had some truly astounding and impossible techniques for producing color. To date, I've probably come across two dozen ads and articles talking about Cosmocolor, and they were listed in the Film Daily Yearbook for many years, but I've never run across such a print!

To date, I've probably come across two dozen ads and articles talking about Cosmocolor, and they were listed in the Film Daily Yearbook for many years, but I've never run across such a print!

I suppose that doesn't bode well for any Cosmocolor prints surviving for Isle of Destiny. It was a 1940 film produced by Fine Arts/Franklyn Warner and released through RKO. The cast looks pretty interesting: William Gargan, Wallace Ford, Gilbert Roland and Katherine De Mille, among others with direction by Elmer Clifton. The AFI catalogue notes that lenses and prints were by Cinecolor and it appears to have been the only Cosmocolor feature, at least under that brand name.

-Harold

Movielab. That was the New York filmlab I was thinking of that went out of business.

Fuji had been used for a lot of porn that was shown in Australia and I knew projectionists who worked at a couple in Melbourne downtown in a theatrette basement setting. This was the 60s & 70s. I never went to them so I have no evidence of what they looked like. One was the Roma underground in Bourke Street Melbourne where the street level floor was open and had telephones where international calls could be made. They showed the Greek film, Young Aphrodities there(on DVD now) & a film advertised in the theaters pages as having voices coming from unusual parts of the female body. Don't know the title of that one.

Then there was the Star Theatrette in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. This may have also screened legit films also from time to time. Mondo Cane comes to mind as having been shown here, if my memory serves me right and not on DVD to my knowledge. Another showed some R type called the Times Theatrette underground of another large house owned by a company still going called Greater Union who made Aussie films in the 1930s and had The Rank Organisation as a partner. Those old houses are all gone now replaced my modern complexes and porn sort of went to booth cinemas with a good supply of Kleenex in the booths. One was called The Barrel Cinema in Swanston Street, Melbourne near where I worked in the city in the 1970s. Also gone now. never went there either.

As a final note, some projectionists used to self censor films to get the clips for themselves!!!! Musicals often lost a song or two as well. They blamed torn film and said it had to be cut. Must be a few unique reels hiding some where with these clips.

I found these articles in the Google News Archvie that mention that the football wedding finale was in "Natural Color":

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=5C ... wlor&hl=en" target="_blank"

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8i ... olor&hl=en" target="_blank

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Hq ... olor&hl=en" target="_blank

Does anyone have a first generation source that GOOD NEWS had a color sequence? It's not listed in Technicolor's filmography and I couldn't find anything mentioning Technicolor on ProQuest.

Yes, the original sources definitely attest to a colour sequence:

From the Hobart Mercury of 22 May 1931 (via http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/29909633): A brilliant cast has been gathered together for the M.G.M. adaptation of the noted stage production, "Good News," which will be presented at His Majesty's Theatre to-morrow. "Good News" is full of action, both thrilling and amusing, and there are some spectacular colour scenes. There are no fewer than 10 song hits. Bessie Love has a featured role, and others in the cast are Mary Lawlor, Stanley Smith, Lola Lane, Gus Shy, Cliff Edwards (Ukelele Ike), Billy Taft, and Dorothy McNulty. "Good News" is a college story.

And, from the Melbourne Argus of 12 January 1931 (via http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/4247220): [...] With a garish riot of technicolor (sic), the picture ends in a jazz marriage.

The Argus review is worth reading in full, because it's so hilariously snarky.

Thank you, guys!

Does anyone have a first generation source that GOOD NEWS had a color sequence? It's not listed in Technicolor's filmography and I couldn't find anything mentioning Technicolor on ProQuest.

Okay, Jack, I have the definite answer for you (from a first generation source: the MGM cutting continuity script for GOOD NEWS, dated July 10, 1930).

As we can see in the credits there is no color process credited, in fact color is not even mentioned. In MGM's cutting continuities they would indicate at the start of each reel whether it or any part of it was in black & white, tinted or color. In the final reel (reel 11) of GOOD NEWS at the start of the 10th scene (at the 178 foot mark) the script states:
MULTICOLOR
The reel continues in Multicolor to the end title (scene 20, at 443 feet).

This info also disproves the common misconception that the entire last reel of GOOD NEWS was in color.

Okay, Jack, I have the definite answer for you (from a first generation source: the MGM cutting continuity script for GOOD NEWS, dated July 10, 1930).

As we can see in the credits there is no color process credited, in fact color is not even mentioned. In MGM's cutting continuities they would indicate at the start of each reel whether it or any part of it was in black & white, tinted or color. In the final reel (reel 11) of GOOD NEWS at the start of the 10th scene (at the 178 foot mark) the script states:
MULTICOLOR
The reel continues in Multicolor to the end title (scene 20, at 443 feet).

This info also disproves the common misconception that the entire last reel of GOOD NEWS was in color.

Now this is fascinating--not only do we have a previously unknown Multicolor credit, but we also have one of the very rare instances of MGM using a process other than Technicolor before 1952, when they started using Ansco for some films (I had previously assumed that Gallant Bess was the only exception).

-HA