First colour movie

This page was last revised on 2009-11-24.

NB Full references to printed sources may be found at the foot of this page.

First colour movie

In the Will Day collection, at the Cinémathèque française, is an experimental three-colour film only a few seconds in length, of a bearded man dancing with coloured scarves. This may be seen in the introductory film Un Rêve en couleur, in the 2004 French DVD set Les Premiers pas du cinema, where it is dated to 1902. It is believed to have been made by William Norman Lascelles Davidson (c.1871-c.1944) and Benjamin Jumeaux (b. c. 1852). The film is 82mm wide, with three parallel black-and-white images, each registering a red, green and blue image. The Cinémathèque has identified this as Davidson-Jumeaux, apparently through evidence supplied by a perforator. [The Bioscope dates this film to c. 1903.]

'Essai trichrome du Dr Doyen', from 1912, was made in Eugène-Louis Doyen's (1859-1916) own 3-colour additive process (using three black and white prints), but of the three colours the blue has decomposed, so that what survives is in two colours only. This film is currently available in the 2004 French DVD set Les Premiers pas du cinema.

Léon Gaumont (1864-1946) developed the Chronochrome 3-colour additive process - the first natural colour film - which was demonstrated to the Société Français de Photographie on 15 November 1912, in Paris; the patent had been registered on 11 Feb 1911 [Abel]. The Gaumont Pathé Archives list ten 3-colour films from 1912, of which colour stills are shown. Of these ten, most of the 6 minute 19 second Deauville-Trouville. La plage et le front de la mer is included in the compilation above. Chronochrome was first shown in public at the Coliseum in London on 16 January 1913. A successful 3-colour film, presumably in Chronochrome, was made of the wedding parade for Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia, daughter to Kaiser Wilhelm II, on 24 May 1913. The most notable Chronochrome film, however, was Victory Parade in Paris, made in 1919.

The Glorious Technicolor documentary on disc 2 of the 2004 special edition DVD of The Adventures of Robin Hood shows a few seconds of 3-colour Technicolor footage of Walt Disney and others, apparently from demonstration film made by Herbert Kalmus prior to Disney's 3-colour animation Flowers and Trees, released in late 1932.

The last reel of the MGM musical The Cat and the Fiddle, released 16 February 1934, was the first live-action footage shown in 3-colour Technicolor (described by Coe as 'the first entirely successful colour process used in the cinema'). [NB Basten (2005) gives priority to The House of Rothschild, but IMDB gives 14 March 1934 as the release date for the latter.]

The first live-action film shot from start to finish in 3-colour Technicolor was the Warner Brothers comedy short Service with a Smile, cleared by the Hays/Breen office on 17 July 1934 and released on 28 July, but for which filming began on 16 April 1934. The delightful La Cucaracha, usually claimed as the first, received Hays/Breen clearance four days earlier, but shooting had not begun till about 15 May 1934. There is a fascinating discussion of priority at Nitrateville.

First colour movie of a person

See above.

First colour movie of a woman

The Huntley Film Archives catalogue synopsis appears to confirm that this Kinemacolor film is of a male clown in a blue costume and a female clown in pink with blue baubles. It is a 145' short, of about 1 minute duration.

First 2-colour feature film

With Our King and Queen Through India (a.k.a. Delhi Durbar, The Durbar at Delhi), 1912

Kinemacolor documentary recording the 12 December 1911 celebrations in India relating to the coronation of King George V. Surviving prints of the film (released on 2 February 1912) are about two hours, but the film may have originally been as long as six hours. Most of the 1911 colour footage has surfaced in an archive; sequences of the cavalry ride-past from the original Kinemacolor version appeared in the TV series The British Empire in Colour. [IMDB]

First 3-colour feature film

Becky Sharp, 1935

The first feature filmed in 3-strip Technicolor, Becky Sharp was released on 28 June 1935. Producers: Kenneth Macgown and Rouben Mamoulian; director: Rouben Mamoulian. [Basten (2005)]

Earliest-born person to be filmed in colour

The earliest so far identified is US President William Howard Taft (1857-1930), who was filmed in Kinemacolor, probably on 14 October 1912. All that survives is a 47-frame (nearly a second and a half) 35mm nitrate positive, found at the Library of Congress. From this fragment a 35mm colour positive print has been made, images from which, with an account of the preservation process, may be found at Colorlab.

Earliest-born woman to be filmed in colour

The earliest so far identified is Lillian Russell (1860-1922). The UCLA Film and Television Archive has a few seconds of this actress, from the 1913 Kinemacolor film How to Live 100 Years. This footage is included in the Glorious Technicolor documentary on disc 2 of the 2004 special edition DVD of The Adventures of Robin Hood.

© 2009 Benjamin S. Beck

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