What was the first movie shot in color

[Doug Sclar]

I'm watching 'Dodge City' from 1939 and it appears to be in original color. If this has been 'colorized' they did a pretty good job. I know there was a color section from 'The Wizard of Oz' also from 1939. Were there any color films made prior to this year?

[Ed Bishop]

DODGE CITY was a Technicolor film; you're not seeing things... ;)

I believe the first Technicolor film was BECKY SHARP, from 1935. Before that there were experiments in color, but nothing that elaborate.

You might want to check out THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD(also starring Errol Flynn)for an early example of what fun and richness the Technicolor image could have. :)


:ed:

[Doug Sclar]

DODGE CITY was a Technicolor film; you're not seeing things... ;)

I believe the first Technicolor film was BECKY SHARP, from 1935. Before that there were experiments in color, but nothing that elaborate.

You might want to check out THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD(also starring Errol Flynn)for an early example of what fun and richness the Technicolor image could have. :)


:ed:

Thanks Ed,

This one just ended and I see that TCM has Robin Hood later on today. Now that you mention it I do remember seeing that one in color before.

[bartels76]

This should answer your question:

Two-Color and Three-Color (Full-Color) Technicolor Development:

One of the first 'color' films was Thomas Edison's hand-tinted short Annabell's Butterfly Dance. Two-color (red and green) feature films were the first color films produced, including the first two-color feature film The Toll of the Sea, and then better-known films such as Stage Struck (1925) and The Black Pirate (1926). It would take the development of a new three-color camera, in 1932, to usher in true full-color Technicolor.

The first film (a short) in three-color Technicolor was Walt Disney's animated talkie Flowers and Trees (1932) in the Silly Symphony series. [However, others claim that the first-ever color cartoon was Ted Eschbaugh's bizarre Goofy Goat Antics (1931).] In the next year, Disney also released the colorful animation - The Three Little Pigs (1933). In 1934, the first full-color, live-action short was released - La Cucaracha (1934).

Hollywood's first full-length feature film photographed entirely in three-strip Technicolor was Rouben Mamoulian's Becky Sharp (1935) - an adaptation of English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray's Napoleonic-era novel Vanity Fair. The first musical in full-color Technicolor was Dancing Pirate (1936). And the first outdoor drama filmed in full-color was The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936).

In the late 30s, two beloved films, The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939), were expensively produced with Technicolor - what would the Wizard of Oz (with ruby slippers and a yellow brick road) be without color? And the trend would continue into the next decade in classic MGM musicals such as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and Easter Parade (1948). Special-effects processes were advanced by the late 1930s, making it possible for many more films to be shot on sets rather than on-location (e.g., The Hurricane (1937) and Captains Courageous (1937).) In 1937, the Disney-produced Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was the first feature-length animated film - a milestone. The colorful Grimm fairy tale was premiered by Walt Disney Studios - becoming fast known for pioneering sophisticated animation.

[bartels76]

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmotionpictures.htm

[Steve Hoffman]

Right from my homepage. This is the best!


http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/index.htm

[Doug Sclar]

Right from my homepage. This is the best!


http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/index.htm

Thanks Steve and Shawn,

Great reading and great imfo.

[Steve D.]

Actually, the first two strip Technicolor feature was "The Gulf Between". Produced in 1917 by the Technicolor Co.

The 1920 United Artists production "Way Down East" contained Technicolor sequences.

1922 "The Toll of the Sea" from Metro.