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The results of their experiment were discussed last week by the man whom Pioneer chose as the first to carry the title of ''color director," which may soon become a familiar and important one in the Hollywood hierarchy. He was Robert Edmond Jones, famed Manhattan scenic designer, who arranged sets and worked out color schemes for both La Cucaracha and Becky Sharp. In 1930, Technicolor cameras had used two negatives, one to record reds and yellows, the other to record blues and greens. The chief faults in this process were that it blurred all outlines, failed to register either pure blue or pure yellow and had a range limited to garish greens and oranges. By 1932, Dr. Kalmus had a new process based on a camera which split light through a three-sided prism onto three negatives (red, blue and yellow), which recorded all the colors of the rainbow with fidelity. By this time the only producer who would listen to him was Walt Disney, whose Silly Symphonies in 1932 were the first movies made with the new three-color process and the ones which inspired Producer Cooper to interest the Whitneys in color. Said Color Director Jones: ". . . Black & white films had never interested me. Nor had the old two-color process, with its limited color range. . . . The technique of color is mechanically perfect now. Just as soon as the public gets a taste for color, it will no more consider going to a 'black & white' movie than it would now think of paying money to see an oldtime silent film. . . . Color on the screen is not only more natural than black & white, it is more stimulating, more exciting, more dramatic. Color, properly selected and composed, can immeasurably enhance the dramatic value of a screen story.''
Enthusiasts like Robert Edmond Jones expect that Becky Sharp will revolutionize the industry as thoroughly as the first talkie, The Jazz Singer (which grossed $3,500,000), did in 1927. Less sanguine observers have suggested cause for doubt. The human ear, which accepted sound in cinema so readily, has been scientifically found to be much less sensitive and hence much less critical than the eye. A wax effigy, much more lifelike than a statue, can still be less impressive, since its effort to achieve reality calls attention to its failure. Hollywood producers, though most of them expect color to arrive eventually, were still timidly dubious last week. That it costs about 30% more than black & white production (for stronger lighting, expert cameramen, special cameras and added film and processing cost) was only a minor reason for their feeling.
Stars. Major cause of Hollywood's fear of color is the fact that if it supersedes black & white film, it will destroy the value of a star whose pigmentation is unsuitable, as sound destroyed the value of squeaky or hopelessly uncultivated ones in 1927. Color experts think that blondes with clearly chiseled features have the best chance. The star of Becky Sharp was chosen because, if the picture does produce a Hollywood upheaval, she is the actress surest to survive it.