Technicolor News & Views (June 1951)

TECHNICOLOR'S SUPER-SALESWOMAN CONTINUED FROM PAGE SEVEN When Betty was asked to say a few words, she rose and faced the assembly. “Gentle- men,” she said, “you see me in my true colors—blonde hair, brown eyes, blue dress. Right?” Appreciatively viewing the pretty young star, the audience acquiesced resoundingly. “Now, tell me something else, fellows,” Miss Hutton went on. “How would you rather see me on the screen—in techni- color, which shows me as I am now, or in b) ack-and-white ? ” A thundering chorus of “technicolor!” swept the room. Betty Hutton, diplomat without portfolio, turned and smiled. “You see, Mr. Balaban?” she asked de- murely. The picture, “Let’s Dance,” was made in Color by TECHNICOLOR. From that film Betty went into “Annie Get Your Gun” for MGM—another triumph both for TECHNICOLOR and for her. She is now before the cameras in “The Greatest Show On Earth” for Cecil B. DeMille, a super-extravaganza which presents all of the gay, gaudy spectacle of the circus in Color by TECHNICOLOR. By now, Betty refers to herself as “The TECHNICOLOR Kid”—a slangy but none- theless accurate description of the girl who is so wholeheartedly a proponent of the process. “I’m afraid it runs in the family, too,” Betty smiles. “My 5-year-old, Lindsay, saw her first thunderstorm in the mountains this summer. She wasn’t scared a bit—she just WONDERLAND-IN COLOR BY TECHNICOLOR CONTINUED FROM PAGE TWO During World War II, Disney training films were in use by every branch of the Armed Forces. “In some of the technical subjects we were obliged to deal with, adequate representa- tion would have been impossible without TECHNICOLOR,” Disney said to Dr. Kal- mus. “Weather maps, for instance, became enormously more readable by use of color. Again, when we had to simulate the flare patterns of a bombing run for an RAF train- ing film for pilots and bombardiers, tech- nicolor was invaluable.” Among the many official government films made by the Disney studio during the war were four educational pictures which quickly became rated as classics in their fields: “Aerology” (depicting the “inside” of storms, for Navy pilots), “Education for Death,” “Reason and Emotion” and “Ghicken Little.” In January, 1943, 94% of the Disney product bore the label of governmental agencies. In that month, 30,000 feet of negative was exposed—the same amount as had constituted the output of the Disney plant’s “biggest year” only a short time before. Disney’s impudent, debunking “Der Fuehrer’s Face” won for its creator an stood and watched the lightning zipping around, and then she looked up at me and said: “ ‘Mama—wouldn’t that be just BEAU- TIFUL in TECHNICOLOR?” Academy Award at a time when the car- toon’s prototype was strutting arrogantly through stricken Europe. The effect of this spirited and colorful assault on Nazi ideol- ogy perhaps could not be measured pre- cisely in terms of its uplift of American morale, but it was great. The Disney plant of today is a veritable fairyland to visitors fortunate enough to see the inner workings of the mammoth studio. On the “story board” can be seen key sketches in color, which outline the ma- jor action of the latest Disney production. Moving along the “production line,” the visitors penetrate the color laboratory (pic- tured on page two) where, as one aston- ished viewer commented, “it looks as if a rainbow had exploded.” Here the myriad colors necessary to cartoon production are mixed from raw pigments. Here, row upon row of jars of paint line shelves which ex- tend from floor to ceiling, the colors cover- ing every shade of the spectrum. Disney ar- tists work with more than 1000 tones, all carefully numbered, so the matching of shades becomes a mechanical matter. In connection with the requirements of his everyday work in the animated cartoon field, Disney summed up technicolor by describing it simply as “an ideal com- mercial product.” “It gives us everything we paint,” said the Wizard of Wonderland, “and that’s all any artist can ask.” It is quite obviously all that his public asks, too: the privilege of seeing, faithfully reflected in Color by technicolor, the sprightly wit, the elfin whimsicality and the superb artistry of Walt Disney on the na- tion’s theatre screens. TECHNICOLOR IS THE TRADE MARK OF TECHNICOLOR MOTION PICTURE CORPORATION HERBERT T. KALMUS, PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER