British Colour Cinema

Practices and Theories

Simon Brown, Sarah Street, Elizabeth Watkins, Simon Brown, Sarah Street, Elizabeth Watkins

• Publisher: British Film Institute
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781844574131
• eBook ISBN: 9781838714796
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Created as a companion volume to a major history of colour in British Cinema (also by Sarah Street), British Colour Cinema is a book based on a series of unique interviews conducted by Sarah Street and Elizabeth I Watkins with practitioners who worked in the UK with Technicolor and/or Eastmancolor during the 1930s-1950s.

PART I

COLOUR AND THE CAMERA: CINEMATOGRAPHERS

INTRODUCTION

One cannot over-estimate the tremendous task of creating a satisfactory colour film system.¹

(John Huntley, 1949)

I marveled as the first Technicolor camera emerged from its packing case with an air of proud, sleek beauty. It was painted bright blue and its shining chrome fittings reminded me of a brand new Rolls Royce.²

(Jack Cardiff, 1996)

When writer and film historian John Huntley wrote these words colour films were not the norm. After half a century of experimentation, three-strip Technicolor had however emerged as the most commercial process and Huntley’s book was a celebration of how British filmmakers had responded to the challenge of creating colour in the camera. With perhaps the exception of Jack Cardiff, who wrote a foreword to the book, most British cinematographers were trained to work with cameras that filmed in black and white. Mastering the exacting technical specifications of three-strip cameras, and acquiring detailed knowledge about how best to deploy colour in short and feature films, were problems technicians grappled with for many years. Yet most found working with colour highly rewarding and British cinematographers made ingenious and creative contributions to some of the most celebrated films. Through select interviews and documents this chapter recounts some of the trials and tribulations experienced by a number of key technicians who share their varied histories of and encounters with colour. Details of their careers and key films are included before each interview, and documents have been reproduced to support and illustrate some of the issues, films and points raised in the interviews.

The chapter begins with an interview with Chris Challis undertaken in 2008, supported by insertions from an earlier interview conducted as part of the BECTU History Project in 1988. Challis recalls the early years of Technicolor and of working with the Color Advisory Service established by the company in order to regulate use of its technology and its application. As in many of the other interviews, Natalie Kalmus, head of Technicolor’s Color Advisory Service, features as a figure who, in the opinion of Challis and many other technicians, imposed restrictions on the creative deployment of colour. The interview contains a considerable amount of technical detail about cameras, lighting and printing, and Challis tells of the challenges of working in locations across the world. He shot a great number of films over the years, and worked with filmmakers associated with colour, most notably with Powell and Pressburger on The Tales of Hoffmann (1951). Since many of the cinematographers interviewed grew up with Technicolor, they subsequently witnessed the ascendancy of Eastmancolor from about the mid-1950s. While films continued to be processed with Technicolor, the single-strip Eastmancolor stock meant that the Rolls Royce camera so admired by Jack Cardiff and other technicians was no longer needed.

The interview with Pat Jackson, conducted as part of the BECTU History Project in 1991, affords a case study of the logistical and other difficulties of filming Western Approaches (1944). Although Jackson directed the film, information on Jack Cardiff’s colour cinematography and experiments with monopack, are recounted in detail. The interview is supported by Cardiff’s first-hand account of this film, published in 1944. Jack Cardiff is mentioned many times by the interviewees. We were not able to interview him for this project because of his ill health towards the end of his life, but readers are referred to his autobiography, Magic Hour (1996), as well as to Justin Bowyer’s book of interviews with Jack Cardiff which cover the production circumstances of the many films he shot, including those in Technicolor.³ Ossie Morris, the third interviewee in this chapter, furnishes an extensive account of a long career as a cinematographer. It ranges from early experiences, learning his craft, working with celebrated directors and, in particular, the details of his distinguished experiments with colour on Moulin Rouge (1952) and Moby Dick (1956). At the end he discusses a question we asked several interviewees as to whether a ‘British School of Technicolor’ existed, and he comments on the impact of the different qualities of light in California and Britain. Yet again there is a fairly dismissive reaction to Natalie Kalmus, whereas her British counterpart Joan Bridge is generally admired. The interview extracts in the last part of the chapter come from interviews conducted by Duncan Petrie in the 1990s which he kindly allowed us to reproduce. They are particularly interesting because they include lesser-known figures who were nevertheless important in the history of British colour cinematography. Finally, some documents provide additional contemporary contexts for the chapter.

NOTES

1.John Huntley, British Technicolor Films (London: Skelton Robinson, 1949), p. 15.

2.Jack Cardiff, Magic Hour (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), p. 46.

3.Justin Bowyer, Conversations with Jack Cardiff (London: Batsford, 2003).

INTERVIEW

CHRISTOPHER CHALLIS, BSC, FRPS

Chris Challis was born on 18 March 1919 in Kensington, London and attended school in Wimbledon. He entered the film industry, working as a camera assistant on Gaumont-British newsreels before working at Denham Studios when three-strip Technicolor was introduced to Britain. Challis was an assistant on the World Windows travelogues shot by Jack Cardiff in the late 1930s and on other productions, including location work in India for The Drum (1938). He worked as a cameraman for the RAF Film Production Unit during World War II. In the post-war years he was camera operator on Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes before photographing The Tales of Hoffmann, Gone to Earth (1950), The Elusive Pimpernel (1950), Oh … Rosalinda!! (1955) and The Battle of the River Plate (1956). During his long career he photographed many popular British films including Genevieve (1953) and Footsteps in the Fog (1955), and worked with British and American directors, most notably Stanley Donen, Billy Wilder, Joseph Losey, J. Lee Thompson and Ken Annakin. He became known for his ingenuity, reliability and expertise and is credited as cinematographer on major box-office successes including Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and Evil under the Sun (1981). He won a BAFTA for Best Cinematography for Arabesque (1966). He retired in 1985 after working on Steaming (1984), Joseph Losey’s last film. He died in May 2012.

FILMOGRAPHY

Films as Director of Photography unless other role stated. Colour process indicated where information is available; film director listed and country of production

1984	Top Secret! (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, USA/GB: Metrocolor); Steaming (Joseph Losey, GB: colour)
1983	Secrets: First Love (Gavin Millar, TV transmission, GB: colour)
1981	The Nightingale (Christine Edzard and Richard Goodwin, GB: colour); Evil under the Sun (Guy Hamilton, GB: Eastmancolor)
1980	The Mirror Crack’d (Guy Hamilton, GB: Technicolor)
1979	S.O.S. Titanic (William Hale, USA/GB: Technicolor)
1978	Force 10 from Navarone (Guy Hamilton, GB: Technicolor); The Riddle of the Sands (Tony Maylam, GB: Eastmancolor)
1977	The Deep (Peter Yates, USA/GB: Metrocolor) Challis nominated for BAFTA for Best Cinematography
1976	White Rock (Tony Maylam, GB/USA: Fujicolor) Cameraman; The Incredible Sarah (Richard Fleischer, USA: Technicolor)
1975	In This House of Brede (George Schaefer, USA: colour); Mister Quilp (Michael Tuchner, GB: Technicolor)
1974	The Little Prince (Stanley Donen, USA: Technicolor)
1972	Follow Me! (Carol Reed, GB: Technicolor); The Boy Who Turned Yellow (Michael Powell, GB: Eastmancolor)

1971	Villain (Michael Tuchner, GB: Technicolor); Mary, Queen of Scots (Charles Jarrott, GB/USA: Technicolor); Catch Me a Spy (Dick Clement, GB/France/USA: Technicolor)
1970	The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Billy Wilder, GB/USA: Deluxe)
1969	Staircase (Stanley Donen, USA: Deluxe)
1968	Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Ken Hughes, GB: Technicolor) Joan Bridge: colour/costumes); A Dandy in Aspic (Anthony Mann, GB: Technicolor)
1966	Arabesque (Stanley Donen, USA/GB: Technicolor) Challis won BAFTA for Best British Cinematography; Two for the Road (Stanley Donen, GB: Deluxe); Kaleidoscope (Jack Smight, GB: Technicolor)
1965	Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes (Ken Annakin, GB: Deluxe), Challis nominated for BAFTA for Best British Cinematography (Colour); Return from the Ashes (J. Lee Thompson, GB: black and white)
1964	A Shot in the Dark (Blake Edwards, GB: Deluxe); The Americanization of Emily (Arthur Hiller, USA: black and white) Additional photography
1963	The Victors (Carol Foreman, GB/USA: black and white), Challis nominated for BAFTA for Best British Cinematography (B/W); The Long Ships (Jack Cardiff, GB/Yugoslavia: Technicolor); An Evening with the Royal Ballet (Anthony Havelock-Allen and Anthony Asquith, GB: Technicolor)
1962	H.M.S. Defiant (Lewis Gilbert, GB: Technicolor)
1961	Flame in the Streets (Roy Ward Baker, GB: Eastmancolor); Five Golden Hours (Mario Zampi, GB/Italy: black and white)
1960	The Grass Is Greener (Stanley Donen, GB: Technicolor); Surprise Package (Stanley Donen, GB: black and white); Sink the Bismarck! (Lewis Gilbert, USA/GB: black and white); Never Let Go (John Guillermin, GB: black and white)
1959	Blind Date (Joseph Losey, GB: black and white)
1958	Rooney (George Pollock, GB: black and white); Floods of Fear (Charles Crichton, GB: black and white); The Captain’s Table (Jack Lee, GB: Eastmancolor)
1957	Miracle in Soho (Julian Amyes, GB: Eastmancolor); Windom’s Way (Ronald Neame, GB: Eastmancolor); Ill Met by Moonlight (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GB: black and white)
1956	The Spanish Gardener (Philip Leacock, GB: Technicolor); The Battle of the River Plate (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GB: Technicolor)
1955	Footsteps in the Fog (Arthur Lubin, GB: Technicolor); Raising a Riot (Wendy Toye, GB: Technicolor); The Adventures of Quentin Durward (Richard Thorpe, USA: Eastmancolor); Oh … Rosalinda!! (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GB: Technicolor); The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Michael Powell, USA/German Federal Republic: Technicolor)
1954	Malaga (Richard Sale, GB: Technicolor); The Flame and the Flesh (Richard Brooks, USA: Technicolor)
1953	Twice upon a Time (Emeric Pressburger, GB: black and white); The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (Sidney Gilliat, GB: Technicolor); Saadia (Albert Lewin, USA: Technicolor); Genevieve (Henry Cornelius, GB: Technicolor)

1952	Angels One Five (George More O’Ferrall, GB: black and white); 24 Hours of a Woman’s Life (Victor Saville, GB: Technicolor)
1951	The Tales of Hoffmann (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GB: Technicolor)
1950	The Elusive Pimpernel (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GB: Technicolor); Gone to Earth (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GB/USA: Technicolor) Photography and location footage
1949	The Small Back Room (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GB: black and white)
1948	The Red Shoes (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GB: Technicolor) Camera operator
1947	Black Narcissus (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GB: Technicolor) Camera operator; The End of the River (Derek Twist, GB: black and white)
1946	A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GB: colour and black and white) 2nd Camera operator; Theirs Is the Glory (Men of Arnhem) (Brian Desmond and Terence Young for the Army Film Unit, GB: black and white) Photography
1937–40	World Windows series of travelogues (Technicolor) Assistant
1938	The Drum (Zoltan Korda, GB: Technicolor) Focus puller

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anon, ‘A Feature Cinematographer Photographs the Olympics’, American Cinematographer vol. 57 no. 4, April 1976, pp. 406–7, 458–9.

Brett, Anwar, interview with Chris Challis, ‘Refl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Permissions
• About the Editors
• Introduction
• Part I – Colour and the Camera: Cinematographers
• Part II – Post-Production
• Part III – Restoration/Preservation
• Part IV – Assessing Colour’s Impact: Contemporary Theories
• Index
• List of Illustrations
• eCopyright