COLORIZING OLD MOVIES

The colorization controversy began quite a few years ago, with sounds of outrage heard from certain quarters, and others overjoyed to find that some of their favorite films would now be in color. Then there were middle-of-the-roaders. It was one thing to colorize the Christmas-y It's a Wonderful Life, but another to colorize film noir -- that wasn't fair, people felt, to the original cinematographers who carefully arranged compositions of light and shadow (of course this would not necessarily be lost with the colorizing process).

Over the years there have been many colorized films on DVD. There are more than one channel on youtube that specialize in colorized versions of old movies. The best is probably Colorized Cinema, which also has its own website. You can sign up to get email alerts for new colorized films, many of which you can watch for free on youtube, while others you can buy on their website. 

The other channels on youtube are catch as catch can. Sometimes the colorizing is extremely well-done while at other times it looks like it was done in somebody's garage. There are cliffhanger serials that look great in color and others that simply have mediocre coloring jobs impressed on prints that were already fuzzy. (It's better to watch a clear black and white print than a colorized print that causes eyestrain).

You will notice that I have been reviewing a number of colorized films on both this blog and my brother blog B Movie Nightmare. Others are free to disagree but I happen to think that some monster movies and cliffhanger serials look great in color and increase my enjoyment of them. 

One has to remember that even if a film is colorized, you don't have to watch that version. The original black and white versions are still available. The DVDs of most movies that have been colorized give you the option of watching in color or black and white anyway. It reminds me of what (I believe) Raymond Chandler said when someone remarked that the movies were ruining his books. He pointed to his bookshelf and replied that the books were still there, unchanged, regardless of how good or bad the film versions were. 

Ditto for colorization. You can enjoy it -- or ignore it.