A SHORT HISTORY OF “NATURAL” COLOUR CINEMA.
From about 1910 to 1920 "natural colour" films were rare, and many of the devised systems were made in the USA, and never seen elsewhere. The principles of the additive and the subtractive systems were well known before 1900, and the analysis procedure using three cameras and therefore three film strips, or using one camera with one film with three sequential images was well understood, and had been outlined by Du Hauron in the 1880's.
In Europe and the USA, in the first 20 years of the decade, there were numerous demonstrations of natural colour film in cinemas, but most used cumbersome multiple projection, or rotating filters in sequence with the synthesis frames. While it is clear that some of these demonstrations were extremely dramatic, effective and the results were occasionally of the very highest quality, a fact that is not always appreciated today, none of them were practical solutions that could be applied to cinemas, in all their infinite variety, throughout the world.
By 1920, it was recognised, by the most realistic inventors, that the essential requirement of a commercial colour system was that the positive should be projected on a conventional unmodified 35mm projector, and this could only be achieved by subtractive prints. Nevertheless, many bizarre and complex projection methods still made their debut, only to be almost instantly rejected as too complex, too costly or uncontrollable. A number of systems were devised that were compromises with genuine natural colour and used only two primaries instead of three. Additive mosaic systems [for example "lenticular" Kodacolor and Dufay] made several appearances in the 1920's and 40's, but their low screen brightness, mosaic image and complex printing made them obviously impractical.
The search for a practical colour print system was the basis of the majority of the inventions tried out until 1935 when Technicolor Inc., an American company that had tried out a number of alternative processes since 1917 [including 2-colour and all called Technicolor], finally introduced the 3 colour imbibition or dye transfer print system we think of today as Technicolor. By 1950, Technicolor was dominant in colour print production, and although the principle of the Technicolor print system was largely unchanged for 30 years, the camera films and camera techniques varied quite widely. There were competitors to Technicolor, which was not alone in the market at any time, and although, to the general public, all colour prints were thought of as Technicolor, other systems also existed especially in the 1940’s.
Some of the competition to Technicolor was 2-colour film made by exposing in the camera two-separation films [sometimes in the form of bipack]. The print was made on “duplitized” i.e. double coated, film toned blue-green on one side and orange-red on the other. Eastman, Agfa and DuPont made films for this process, but the laboratories gave them trade names such as Magnacolor and Cinecolor.
Technicolor prints were distributed widely after about 1936, but largely these were American or, to a lesser extent, European feature films. Technicolor imbibition prints were made in Los Angeles from 1936 to 1973, New York from 1936 to 1973, London from 1938 to 1973, Rome from 1950 to 1973. Many countries making their own films could not afford Technicolor prints, nor was it often practical to travel to a Technicolor laboratory to have one made. Technicolor was a process that was costly for the production of just a few prints and it was often said by the mid 1960's that making less than 25 prints was so expensive that any other method was to be preferred.
The negative-positive colour systems first appeared in 1935 [Agfacolor] but it was not until Eastman produced the first masked negative in the early 1950's that this system became effective. The early colour negatives, especially up to 1960, used dyes that have faded considerably and these films represent some of the most difficult material of all to restore.
In a world view colour in the cinema was very patchy until the mid 1960's. "Natural colour" was a very rare event until 1935, whereas "coloured" films were probably very common everywhere until 1930. From 1930 to 1935, the cinema was almost entirely black and white everywhere in the world, with just a handful of "spectaculars" being made in the USA and Europe. From 1935 to about the mid 1960's colour gradually increased in the developed world, but only from the 1960's onwards did colour extend world wide with the advent of the negative-positive systems especially Eastman. Although the first negative-positive incorporated coupler colour films [Agfacolor] were on the market in 1935 it was only from about 1950 that Eastman began to dominate the colour market, and an important aspect of negative film success is the use of integral masking originating from coloured couplers.
In many major producing countries [such as India, USSR, Pakistan and Turkey] which could not afford to pay for colour film stocks in dollars or sterling, colour only became common with the advent of cheaper colour print materials from East Germany [Orwo] and the USSR [Sov] in the early 1970's. China imported the Technicolor print system in the 1970’s but until that time almost all Chinese film was black and white.
Although all cinema and most television film is negative-positive, reversal colour films have played a major part in the historical changes. Kodachrome in 1936 had a major impact on 16mm documentary and amateur use and in 35mm was, for a while, the camera original film for Technicolor prints. Later reversal films played important roles in documentary production and news film.