Actually, I learned about all this through my hobby, home theater and DVD-collecting.

I didn’t put this in the lecture, but I find it quite fascinating that 3-strip Technicolor films are more akin to painting than I previously understood. They are basically black and white pictures which have been painted.

There were interesting limitations to Technicolor, colors which couldn’t be achieved, and other colors which looked completely different onscreen than what they were (in life). For instance, when Dorothy enters Oz (Munchkinland), it’s in Technicolor, but many of the colors aren’t reproduced exactly as they were intended. Her blouse looks white and her dress is a light blue-checked gingham. But the blouse was actually a very light pink — they designed it this way, because white actually “glows” and the last thing they wanted was a radioactive Dorothy. You can’t see the pink at all.

Another very interesting thing in Oz: the original movie was printed by Technicolor, because the sections at the beginning and end are sepia-colored — actually a brownish color that is quite different from black and white. But there is a shot of Dorothy opening the door from her bedroom and walking out into Munchkinland in full color. Today this might be achieved digitally, but back then they had to paint her room sepia color, make a sepia-colored costume and makeup for Dorothy, Judy Garland’s stand-in wears this and opens the door, and then Judy herself (in full color regalia) walks out into Oz.

Say, do you want to convert this post to an excerpted 1st paragraph and then a continuation?

I do think that in future we’ll see b&w films digitally “reconstituted” into color films, probably lots of older children’s stuff, light comedies like Laurel and Hardy, and musicals.

I’m not a fan of colorized B&W films such as those you mention. I think they’re a mockery of decent movies.