Colorized Movies...Your Opinions...

[ponderbear]

I agree film noir shouldn't be touched. Also agree it's a completely different art form than shooting in color, I mean just look at the crazy light sources making those super-dramatic angled shadows in a masterpiece like Cat People. You flat-out couldn't colorize that pic without serious compromise of artistic vision.

But I don't see a need to be overly curmudgeonly. I bought a 2 DVD set of It's a Wonderful Life for two reasons (other than that fact my wife and I love it): one, the print you end up seeing around Christmas on TV is almost always an old crappy one, I wanted to see it in better quality that usual; two, disc two contains a colorized version, and I am really curious to see how it turned out.

Just curious, you understand. I don't expect great things. But if I see it and I like it and the artistic vision is not besmirched, it's fine with me.

[electroking]

Originally Posted by MAXZ28

I distinctly remember an acquaintance making a stupid remark walking out of the theater about how he didn't like Schindler's List because it was filmed in B&W. I never understood that guy.

IIRC, Spielberg used a few color elements very sparingly in his movie,
again confirming that for at least 50 years the choice of B&W has
been an artistic one.

[Jack Lord]

I am generally against it, but its not like it is forced down my throat by decree. Well actually, The Third Man in color would not work. It just would not.

I have a thrift store copy of Miracle on 34th Street (yes the original) and it has been colorized. I actually got a kick out of it as it added a rather surrealistic aura to an old chestnut. The copious amounts of Celebration Ale probably helped a well.

At the end of the day, its trying to make something into something that it is not.

[ke4jhj]

Personally, I never cared for colorized movies. I equate colorized movies to "electronic stereo" versions of monophonic sound recordings. The results can be impressive, but rarely realistic.

[reggaenaut]

Coloring a black and white sometimes produces disastrous results; garish unnatural looking pictures. Moreover the use of black and white at times accentuates certain aspect of a picture; e.g drabness of East Berlin in "Spy who came in from the cold".

[Randy Bassham]

I remember seeing a cartoon once that showed a fellow standing in front of St Peter at the Pearly Gates. St Peter looks up from the books at the fellow and says "You colorized Casablanca, how unfortunate"...

[soundmotor]

Originally Posted by diddlybopper

I've personally never cared for them.But I watched a colorized version of the original 1951 THE THING and wow was it nicely done...added a new dimension to the movie.

My reaction -





Lash the Colorizers (or Ted Turner at least)!

[Cosmic]

Colorization should be punishable. Both for the stupidity inherent in the idea of doing it, and for the arrogance in taking someone else's long-finished piece of work and thinking they will improve it.

The medium IS the message: you react to B/W differently than you do to color for many reasons.

May Orson Welles come back to haunt them.....

C.

[Brian]

The effects and what the director is shooting for in b&w is totally lost when the print is colorized. When one comes on the tube, I hit the color controls and go to b&w. Sadly a color tele does not do b&w as well as a real b&w set and the colorization destroys a lot of the beauty contained within the original print.

[slow_jazz]

I hate them...

[starcycle]

It's a travesty. Just as bad (worse?) is pan and scan/cropping. letterbox rules.

[Pyrrho]

Originally Posted by caddisgeek

I was looking for a copy of Hitchcocks "Strangers on a Train" could only find colourised, refused to buy it

Use the following to search for DVDs:

www.dvdpricesearch.com

You can get that title, not colorized, for less than $10 delivered (in the U.S.), though if you want the Special Edition, it will be a bit more.

[Pyrrho]

Originally Posted by Brian

The effects and what the director is shooting for in b&w is totally lost when the print is colorized. When one comes on the tube, I hit the color controls and go to b&w. Sadly a color tele does not do b&w as well as a real b&w set and the colorization destroys a lot of the beauty contained within the original print.

That is because in the colorization process, they play with the contrast. You cannot get back to the original by just turning down the color on your TV. Basically, once a film is colorized, it is ruined. You simply need to get a copy that has not been colorized if you want to view it properly.

[Sandy G]

The only one I ever saw that I HALFWAY liked was a Laurel & Hardy 2 reeler-The one where they were trying to move the piano up that LOOOOONG flight of stairs-It didn't suck, it actually looked like it was in color, rather than some joker takin' a pastel Magic Marker & going to town w/it.

[Tower Boss]

Well I have mixed views on this, but I must say that after watching the “Wizard of Oz” the other night, a horse of a different color seemed to really work for the scene in the colorized version!

Regards,
TB