RITA RULES! STILL THE GOLD STANDARD
All beautiful women are measured against the young Rita Hayworth. And there ain't nobody nowhere that is in her weight class. Last nite TCM presented one of the usual "who cares" musicals from 1944 called Cover Girl. It featured Rita looking 22, Gene Kelly looking around 21 and a glorious process called Technicolor, a dye transfer film technique that still has no equal. Any movie made with that process looks hands down better than any movie shot in color today.
I used to cut some of my movies across the street from the old Technicolor Studio and the very last Technicolor (called Technicolor 4) movie was being edited across the street. One of the guys invited me to watch the process, that I'd learn something. I won't get too technical here but the process used three strips of film, each in a separate color. They would run the film in the editing room and the production people would color "balance" every scene. And then transfer the images to black and white film. The colors you see in Technicolor do not exist in the real world. They are a result of a system called "dye transfer" and that process combined with the three strips of film just became too expensive. An added expense was for costuming that would look good (actually fantastic) when transformed into Technicolor. And in Cover Girl the process really shows, especially in a couple of Rita's musical numbers.
The last I heard, Universal was thinking of reviving the process but nothing came of it, perhaps because the new Kodak color is so good. At any rate, Cover Girl is Technicolor at its very very best. Unfortunately the movie itself is just plain ordinary in spite of music by Jerome Kern and George Gershwin . Gene Kelly and Rita are fabulous, especially her. I was surprised at her energy and dancing. But putting up with the rest of it can be tedious.
Recommended because of the gorgeous and vivacious Rita, the young Gene, and Technicolor.
Singin' in the Rain is filmed in the old Technicolor 3, that only shows its true colors when projected in a large theater. It is there that you appreciate the signature number because Technicolor lights it up like nothing else. Real colors just can't look like that
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Another neat thing about Technicolor: The prints don't fade over time. If you can find an undamaged piece of 1940's-vintage nitrate Technicolor, and manage to project it without having it catch fire, it'll look just like it did when new.
Back in the 70s I was working for a classic/art moviehouse. We booked John Wayne's The Quiet Man, and, just to see what would happen, ordered up a trailer for it. National Screen actually was able to come up with a copy, and they sent it to us. The trailer was printed in Technicolor, was at least 30 years old, and looked gorgeous. Imagine our disapointment when the actual print turned out to be a 20-year old CRI version from the 50s reissue: It was badly faded with a magenta cast, and all the greens had turned to a muddy blue-gray.
The Singin' in the Rain deluxe CD set has a TCM documentary "Glorious Technicolor" included in the bonus stuff. It's short on technical details, but wow, what beautiful images.
Nothing like Rita. I'd watch her doing detergent commercials over any young actress of today in a movie.
Okay, maybe Helena Bonham Carter gets my ancient urges to flutter...
You guys are lame old farts. Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan smoke that old hag Hayworth. Get into the new century....
Hilton and Lohan are skinny girls with no character; I prefer women to girls.
Dear Anonymous above;
Paris and Lindsay have issues that make Rita and the older generation of Hollyweird girls (or women) look positively straightlaced (and boy, let me tell you, they were NOT!).
Paris is famous for being famous; LiLo is famous for being even more out of control than Paris.
HBC, OH Yeah; Julia Roberts, okay; Meg Ryan, one of the most powerful women in Hollyweird, hotter than you'd think.
The problem is that too DAMN many of the young women in La-La land are too damn busy being 'famous' and getting stoned or drunk to take the time to work. Even Rita, who had a problem or one type or naother, managed to do some damn fine work between her bouts of depression. Look at Monroe - now THERE was a neurotic twit (but MAN did she look good) but she worked. Drew Barrymore was an alcoholic by 18 but she kept at it, beat the bottle and the other junk she was sticking in her body, and is a damn good actress now (although not what ole Kim duToit prefers).
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