Trucolor was a process used and owned by
Consolidated Film IndustriesConsolidated Film Industries was a film laboratory, and film processing company, and was the leading film laboratory in the Los Angeles area for many decades. CFI processed negatives and made prints for motion pictures and television...
division of
Republic PicturesRepublic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....
. Trucolor was originally a two-strip (red and green) process based on the earlier work of William Van Doren Kelley's
PrizmaThe Prizma Color system was a technique of color motion picture photography, invented in 1913 by William Van Doren Kelley and Charles Raleigh. Initially, it was a two-color additive color system, similar to its predecessor, Kinemacolor...
color process. It later became a three-color process.
Republic used Trucolor mostly for its westerns, through the 1940s and early 1950s. The premiere Trucolor release was
Out California Way (1946) and the last film photographed in the process was
Spoilers of the Forest (1957). With the advent of
EastmancolorEastman Kodak Company is a multinational imaging and photographic equipment, materials and services company headquarted in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded by George Eastman in 1892....
and
AnscoAnsco was the name of a photographic company based in Binghamton, New York, which produced inexpensive cameras for most of the 20th century. It also sold rebadged versions of cameras made by other manufacturers, including Agfa and Chinon...
color films, which gave better results at a cheaper price, Trucolor was abandoned, coincidentally at the same time as Republic's demise.
Trucolor process
In its two-color version, Trucolor films were shot in
bipackIn cinematography, bipacking, or a bipack, is the process of loading two reels of film into a camera, so that they both pass through the camera gate together...
, with the two strips of film being sensitized to red and green. Both negatives were processed on
duplitized filmDuplitized film stock was a type of film available through various companies used in color photography and special effects. It was introduced in the early 1910s...
, much like Trucolor's rival process
CinecolorCinecolor was an early subtractive color-model two color film process, based upon the Prizma system of the 1910s and 1920s and the Multicolor system of the late 1920s and 1930s. It was developed by William T. Crispinel and Alan M...
. Unlike Cinecolor, however, the film was not dyed with a toner but a color coupler, similar to Eastmancolor film. Because of this chemical composition, Trucolor film fades over time, unlike Cinecolor.
Three-color Trucolor was first used in 1949, for making prints of cartoons photographed in the "successive exposure" process, in which each animation cel had been photographed three times, on three sequential frames, behind alternating red, green, and blue filters. Multilayer Du Pont Color Release Positive Film was used as the printing material.
DuPontE. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...
supplied the stock for Trucolor's three-color process between 1949 and 1953; prints after 1953 were on Kodak color print stock 5382, and at that point, the name "Trucolor" became synonymous as many other trade names for Eastmancolor processing.
Republic PicturesRepublic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....
introduced live-action three-color Trucolor with the release of the
Judy CanovaJudy Canova , born Juliette Canova, was an American comedienne, actress, singer and radio personality. She appeared on Broadway and in films...
musical comedy
Honeychile in 1951. Kodak Eastmancolor negatives were used for principal photography. DuPont positive stock (type 875) was used to make release prints. This stock had a monopack structure that used synthetic polymer rather than gelatin as a color former.
Trucolor films
Though renowned for being used in
Roy RogersRoy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye , was an American singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain...
and other Westerns, Republic used Trucolor in a variety of films.
John FordJohn Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
filmed a
Korean WarThe Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
documentaryDocumentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
in the process,
This Is Korea (1951). Republic made an epic version of the
battle of the AlamoThe Battle of the Alamo was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launched an assault on the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar . All but two of the Texian defenders were killed...
,
The Last CommandThe Last Command is a 1955 Trucolor film about Jim Bowie and the fall of the Alamo during the Texas War of Independence. Filmed by Republic Pictures, it was an unusually expensive undertaking for the low-budget studio.-Production:...
(1955) where the Mexican uniforms were made in sky blue to look better on the screen. Republic also made a
South SeasThe South Seas genre is a genre of literature, film, or entertainment that is set in Oceania.Though many Hollywood films were produced on studio backlots or Santa Catalina Island, the first feature non documentary film made on a Tahiti location was White Shadows in the South Seas.Elements of the...
adventure
Fair Wind to JavaFair Wind to Java is a 1953 American adventure film directed by Joseph Kane and starring Fred MacMurray, Vera Ralston, Robert Douglas and Victor McLaglen. An American sailor voyages to search for diamonds on a volcanic island but has to contend with mysteries, pirates and an exploding volcano....
(1953) that climaxed with the explosion of
KrakatoaKrakatoa is a volcanic island made of a'a lava in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. The name is used for the island group, the main island , and the volcano as a whole. The island exploded in 1883, killing approximately 40,000 people, although some estimates...
. Nicholas Ray made notable use of Trucolor for his offbeat 1954 western, "Johnny Guitar", which starred Joan Crawford. Trucolor went on location to Europe as
William DieterleWilliam Dieterle was a German actor and film director, who worked in Hollywood for much of his career. His best known films include The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Hunchback of Notre Dame...
filmed the life of
Richard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
in
Magic FireMagic Fire is a biographical film about the life of composer Richard Wagner, released in the United States on March 29, 1956 by Republic Pictures. It had been released in the United Kingdom on July 15, 1955...
(1956) and
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
featured in the
potboilerPotboiler or pot-boiler is a term used to describe a poor quality novel, play, opera, or film, or other creative work that was created quickly to make money to pay for the creator's daily expenses . Authors who create potboiler novels or screenplays are sometimes called hack writers...
LisbonLisbon is a 1956 American crime film produced and directed by Ray Milland and starring Milland, Maureen O'Hara, Claude Rains, Edward Chapman, and Jay Novello. An American smuggler based in Lisbon is hired to rescue a wealthy industrialist from behind the Iron Curtain.The film was shot on location...
(1956) directed by and starring
Ray MillandRay Milland was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend , a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind , the murder-plotting...
.
Republic made a John Ford
AmericanaAmericana refers to artifacts, or a collection of artifacts, related to the history, geography, folklore and cultural heritage of the United States. Many kinds of material fall within the definition of Americana: paintings, prints and drawings; license plates or entire vehicles, household objects,...
type film in the process
Come Next SpringCome Next Spring is a drama film made in Trucolor for Republic Pictures starring Steve Cochran as a former alcoholic who returns to the wife he deserted years ago, played by Ann Sheridan, and their children....
(1956).
However,
John FordJohn Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
refused to film
The Quiet ManThe Quiet Man is a 1952 American Technicolor romantic comedy-drama film. It was directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen and Barry Fitzgerald. It was based on a 1933 Saturday Evening Post short story by Maurice Walsh...
(1952) in Trucolor despite Republic's head Herbert J. Yates insisting on the process, so
TechnicolorTechnicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
was used.
In addition to feature films, Republic commissioned Robert Clampett to make one cartoon,
It's a Grand Old Nag. Leonard L. Levinson was commissioned to make four animated cartoon
travelogueTravelogue films, a form of virtual tourism or travel documentary, have been providing information and entertainment about distant parts of the world since the late 19th century.-History:...
s, Sloan Nibley wrote a real travelogue
Carnival in Munich, and Lewis Cotlow filmed the feature-length
Zanzabuku in Africa.
See also