Siskel & Ebert & the Movies Colorizing: Hollywood's New Vandalism (1986–2010) Online

Siskel & Ebert & the Movies Colorizing: Hollywood's New Vandalism (1986–2010) Online

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert speak out against the colorization of black-and-white movies. Colorization, Inc. in Toronto and Color Systems Technology in Marina del Rey, California, are the major players. Ted Turner's Atlanta Superstation has a deal with the latter company to colorize the black-and-white Hollywood classics Turner now owns. Ebert shows clips from the color version of Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) that was recently shown on Turner's TBS station. Siskel reads off a memo written by Gene Allen, former president of the Motion Picture Academy and an award-winning art director, who accepted a position with Color Systems, saying that he had a unique opportunity to preserve George Cukor's original intentions as the company colorized Die Kameliendame (1936). They show colorized clips of various movies. The color bleeds in some clips. Others reveal outrageous gaffes: Frank Sinatra's blue eyes become brown in Der Attentäter (1954). But Siskel says that arguing that the ...