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smoke. Individual producers, too, had their tonal prejudices, both before and after the introduction of panchromatic stock. But it was not enough. Now we have the final fling of generous showmanship, when numerous super-productions are afforded the full resources of an ill-assorted spectrum. These glories have long been confined to translated musical comedies, and so have merely emphasised blatancy instead of creating it. Indeed, a few scenes have been improved by colour, and there have been one or two interesting experiments, as, for instance, the coloured cartoon in the King of Jazz and the very successfully coloured Silly Symphonies.
Technical considerations are involved. Complete realism is impossible, for the colours of the theatre can be reproduced fairly satisfactorily, but the more subtle gradations of natural scenery cannot. Although this difficulty may be, perhaps is being, overcome, still it is surely commercial suicide to torture "fandom" and to alienate potential but sensitive film-goers with the crudely unintentional distortions of the moment? It is, indeed, doubtful whether man will ever be able physically to appreciate colour in motion, except in the most obvious masses. We can grasp form, and even form in motion, but it is extremely hard to enjoy the composition, as well as the literal content, of colour in motion. Indeed, most people, except the very sensitive or the very unsophisticated, find it more easy to understand even a painting in photographed reproduction than in the canvas. Our colour sense may be developing, our spectrum dividing, but until the retino-cerebral apparatus is far more advanced than it is at present, it is improbable that we shall sensually enjoy coloured films, except for their purely kaleidoscopic characteristics. The kaleidoscope is an abstract of great value as exercise to the aesthete and the technician, but it is training for a form of expression at present immensely difficult to appreciate. It is certainly not the preoccupation of the producers of super-films.
The manipulation of light and movement is, then, much better controlled in black and white, or any definite monochrome, than in imperfect if triumphant colours. The vociferous yearning for more patter and less art has not altogether deprived us of films with some intelligence of construction and precision of purpose, but these would soon be thinned even more drastically by the adoption of a universal system of colouring. Such a system must, at present, hide form and clarity, making the whole composition less exciting as a continuous pattern, and less convincing as a story, than it would otherwise have been. In fact, colour films are, at the moment, a pronounced mistake.
It is difficult, therefore, to account for the reticence of the more reputable authorities. Are they just frightened or tired, after the terrible hullabaloo about talkies, or suddenly unwilling to enter
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