Colour Prejudice

[Son of Solo]

I have a copy of Romero's Night of the Living Dead that was converted to colour. It's bloody terrible in colour. Thankfully it came free with a magazine a few years back.

[OptimusNemesis]

Originally Posted by Son of Solo

I have a copy of Romero's Night of the Living Dead that was converted to colour. It's bloody terrible in colour. Thankfully it came free with a magazine a few years back.

I think I have that one as well - buried somewhere at the bottom of a large pile of freebie DVDs... and there it will stay too!

- Nem

[Of Mars]

Originally Posted by DaveC

The Bluray copy of "Miracle on 34th Street" has both the B&W and Colorized version so I guess best of both worlds

Surely in this thread we should refer to the above as The-colour-that-shall-not-be-named-ray?

[Of Mars]

Originally Posted by Happy-Hangman

As it happens I'm rather more fond of more actual frogs than I am of most Frenchmen, so it's actually a compliment...of sorts.

[my former flatmate - Emilie from Champagne - found that funny, so I'm sticking with it]

Whatever happened to the spirit of the Auld Alliance?

[Of Mars]

Those that think B&W is boring and colour is great, must have one heck of a confused time watching "IF"!

[Perdide]

Originally Posted by Son of Solo

I have a copy of Romero's Night of the Living Dead that was converted to colour. It's bloody terrible in colour. Thankfully it came free with a magazine a few years back.

I've seen that, if you're talking about that bloody awful 80s version that managed to completely balls up the opening moments of the film by colouring the ... Hang on can I say this, yeah it been out for years and is now PD so sod it... Zombies Green!! Thus spoiling the moment when a zombie first appears and is mistaken for a real person. A real person who is now green. Yeah, well done colorisation team you bunch of &*#¥%.

Rage subsiding...

Somehow it's quite ironic how there is quite a reluctance on TV companies to show old b&w TV series or films yet there was a bit of a trend of making a b&w episodes in some of the old 90s series, I remember ST:Voyager pulling that one all the time. Plus there are films out now which use a restricted colour palette or tinted ones which is used to enhance the film (well in some cases), yet strangely old Film Noir is seen as being... Somehow lesser because it's not in colour.

[Happy-Hangman]

I must confess, I've never heard an aficionado of Noir express disdain for B&W. It seems to be the genre whose monochrome associations are most resistant to colour prejudice.

BBC2 and Channel 4 regularly show B&W films, and there have been a few great wee mini-seasons of comedy, Noir and horror classics on BBC4, so they aren't entirely absent from the schedules.

Similarly, every time the GFT or Cineworld in Glasgow) I can't speak for other cinemas, as I don't frequent then regularly) show classics in monochrome they get huge audiences. 'All About Eve', 'The Maltese Falcon', 'Some Like It Hot', and 'Casablanca', when I saw them, were packed - and the GFT's annual showings of 'It's A Wonderful Life' is normally sold out well in advance of screenings.

[Daarck]

Originally Posted by Perdide

I've seen that, if you're talking about that bloody awful 80s...

I've seen that one, starring Patricia Tallman ( I think) who was the red-headed telepath from Babylon 5 - it was awful. Seem to remember someone (maybe her) trying to kill a fat bald zombie with a crowbar, but it was pretty much a punch-bag full of helium the way it kept bouncing around.

However, there was a trend (for about 5 mins) to 'colorise' B&W movies - they did it with Night of the Living Dead, and they did it with It's a Wonderful Life too - blasphemy, heresy, one of the two - worth a look though to see just how stupid an idea people can get away with in LaLa Land. Might be better now what with computers etc, but back then (late 80s, early 90s?) it was done like a kid colouring in a book - no shade of any sort just GREEN there, FLESH COLOUR for skin - horrible, an affront to the eyes.

Missed the point too, that Night of the Living Dead works really well because it's in B&W, not despite the fact.

[Son of Solo]

That was the remake. Which is actually pretty well received. I was talking about the black and white film with colour added.

[Perdide]

Originally Posted by Son of Solo

That was the remake. Which is actually pretty well received. I was talking about the black and white film with colour added.

As was I. I'm pretty sure the recolourisation was done in the 80s and yes, it's just blobs of colour whacked on over the b&w. Badly done and with no regard to the story at all. The copy I saw was on VHS which added extra colour bleed to the mix. Terrible.

As I said though the original is now PD (public domain) and can be sourced from all the usual legal online. channels for free. It may have been a cockup by the distributor but now it's PD they can't take it back.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night...Dead#section_6