‘WONDERLAND IN HOLLYWOOD (not)’

Color film began much earlier than most people think–it was in 1908 that Kinecolor process was first introduced. But I’m only one sentence into today’s post and already I’m getting lost in the weeds. The purpose of today’s viewing is to demonstrate a later (but still early) process called MultiColor. And it’s not necessarily the color process that I find interesting here. It’s the circumstances under which this little test film was made and the location is was shot in that give it its real value some ninety-five years after it was filmed. 

First of all, ignore the year that the YouTube poster has wrongly given. It was shot in 1930, not 1940. Anyone even remotely familiar with the era can tell that the models featured in this short are strictly of the flapper variety. Second, the film shows nothing of California whatsoever–it was all shot in New York. Most importantly, the location on which this was filmed was the set of the Marx Brother’s ‘Animal Crackers’, built on a soundstage at Astoria Studios in Long Island City. We see the film’s elaborate Rittenhouse Manor garden patio set on which a bevy of rather oddly costumed and made up models pose for the color cameras. (Actually the film begins with some boring shots of a parade on Riverside Drive—I suggest skipping it unless you’re a parade freak). At 3:38, something extraordinary happens. We wind up on the interior set of Rittenhouse Manor and are treated to a short snippet of the Marx’s between takes. Groucho prowls around looking suspiciously at the crew. Chico looks out of it. Harpo shows up out of costume–no wig, no overcoat, wearing only a bathrobe–and does a little rehearsal with Margaret Dumont. Why was this shot? My guess is that the models were being re-dressed in different wardrobe and the MultiColor crew thought it might be fun to crash the set and grab a little footage of the shoot-in-progress.

And what do we know about the MultiColor process? I’ll let AI (yes, AI) tell you what it knows and we’ll take its word that the info is correct.

Multicolor was a two-color motion picture process that was introduced in 1929 and was used in early sound films:

  • Process: A normal camera with two black-and-white 35mm film negatives was used to shoot a scene. One negative recorded red and the other recorded blue. The film was then exposed and processed on duplitized stock, with one record on each side. The film was then floated in a toning solution, where the cyan record was toned red and the red record was toned blue/cyan.
  • Success: Multicolor was briefly successful in early sound pictures.
  • Predecessor: Multicolor was based on the Prizma Color process.
  • Successor: Multicolor was the forerunner of Cinecolor. 

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