TCM is showing the 1952 John Huston movie Moulin Rouge tonight. Huston wanted the movie’s look to match the color palette of Toulouse-Lautrec prints and paintings, so they designed it as such as much as they could, and then they asked for a muted color mix in the film print. From what I understand, Technicolor did this but demanded a meeting to protest, where the film was shown, and they said it was unacceptable. John Huston asked his cinematographer what he thought, he liked it, Huston liked it too, so according to what I’ve read, John Huston stood up and said, to the Technicolor people: “Gentlemen, fuck you,” and they walked out of the meeting. The movie was released the way Huston wanted it, and this forever broke the fascist stranglehold Technicolor color consultants like Natalie Kalmus had over color movies. Now we have all kinds of different possibilities due to digital grading and such. But before that, John Huston was the guy who bucked the system and made it possible to experiment with color, rather than be told what to do by corporate bureaucrats. And for once, art defeated commerce in big studio Hollywood.
(For those who don't know, Technicolor was very strict with their color process, and Natalie Kalmus, who was married to the founder of Technicolor, tried to help with, or intrude on, depending on how you look at it, how color movies using Technicolor were made. She was the big cheese, but there were others too, who were color consultants on movies using Technicolor, which meant they told the costumers what colors they could and could not use, told art directors what to do, and ultimately the color consultant had control of the color mix in processing. This was supposedly so that the movies would work the best for the Technicolor system, and to make the movies look their best. It is hard to argue with their approach when you see movies like The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), with its NC Wyeth look, but artists like to experiment, and they also like to have control over their own work, and so eventually this rebellion was going to occur anyway. And little did they know it, but Eastmancolor was nipping at Technicolor's heels starting in 1950, and it soon took the place of Technicolor on lower budget and more experimental movies starting in the late 1950s, like The Curse of Frankenstein (1957).)
(For those who don't know, Technicolor was very strict with their color process, and Natalie Kalmus, who was married to the founder of Technicolor, tried to help with, or intrude on, depending on how you look at it, how color movies using Technicolor were made. She was the big cheese, but there were others too, who were color consultants on movies using Technicolor, which meant they told the costumers what colors they could and could not use, told art directors what to do, and ultimately the color consultant had control of the color mix in processing. This was supposedly so that the movies would work the best for the Technicolor system, and to make the movies look their best. It is hard to argue with their approach when you see movies like The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), with its NC Wyeth look, but artists like to experiment, and they also like to have control over their own work, and so eventually this rebellion was going to occur anyway. And little did they know it, but Eastmancolor was nipping at Technicolor's heels starting in 1950, and it soon took the place of Technicolor on lower budget and more experimental movies starting in the late 1950s, like The Curse of Frankenstein (1957).)
This movie is also especially fun for getting to see Jose Ferrer walk around on his knees and stand around on his knees with shoes on his kneecaps.
