10 great British Technicolor films

Technicolor arrived in Britain in the mid-1930s. Its innovative three-strip cameras were leased from the US-based Technicolor Corporation and colour consultancy was part of the package. A British laboratory was established in 1937, and in the following years British films – often labelled ‘the British School of Technicolor’ – were admired and distinctive.

From the 1930s to the 1950s, the number of Technicolor films made in Britain was relatively small. Immediately after World War II there was a shortage of cameras, and production only increased when cameras were manufactured in the UK. Technicolor was expensive, so to use it a special case had to be made. Black-and-white films still dominated the market and for many the conventions associated with their monochrome aesthetic represented the best qualities of screen art.

British Technicolor films were thought to typically present a more restrained use of colour than the gaudiness often associated with American Technicolor films. Even so, they most definitely exhibited colour in unusual, often innovative ways, bringing out its attractions, symbolism and means of vivifying a film using multiple imaginative techniques.

Working with colour was highly collaborative, spread across cinematography, costume and production design, colour consultancy and specialist laboratory skills. Other important factors contributed to the generally softer look of British Technicolor films, such as prevailing cultural tastes, lower light levels for location shooting compared to Hollywood, and even the quality of water used in the laboratories.

Often pushing Technicolor’s guidelines, Britain was a recognised hub of experimentation.

Director: Harold Schuster

As the first British Technicolor feature, Wings of the Morning showcases many exquisite, pastel colour shots of its primary location in Kerry, Ireland. Even though registered as a British film, there was considerable input from Technicolor specialists from the USA, including cinematographer Ray Renahan and director Harold Schuster. Renahan was assisted by Jack Cardiff, who went on to become Britain’s most celebrated Technicolor cinematographer.

The film’s colour palette, intended by Technicolor consultant Natalie Kalmus to be “soft and restful”, contrasted with the more vivid costumes worn by lead French actress Annabella. An emphasis on naturalism was followed consistently throughout the film, including location shooting at Epsom Downs for an exciting Derby Day horse race sequence which was punctuated by an accent on red for isolating more spectacular details. Processing, using Technicolor’s unique dye transfer method, was done in the USA because the film was completed just before the British-based Technicolor laboratory opened.

Director: Victor Schertzinger

Although Technicolor is often referred to as ‘vivid’, The Mikado exemplifies the pastel accents more typically associated with British Technicolor films. The high-quality colour reproduction was considered by critics to be the film’s best feature, with exquisite shades for over 750 costumes designed by Marcel Vertès made from velvet, satin, taffeta and silk.

It was the first screen adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, which encouraged very careful pre-planning of sets and costumes. The characters were exquisitely dressed in contrasting colours and fabrics. Shot entirely at Pinewood, the colours were precisely planned, even though with Technicolor films it was not possible to judge their accuracy until after processing. The film’s lavish advertising campaign highlighted it as a ‘screen event’ that was all the more special for its use of Technicolor. Perhaps less well-known than other British Technicolor films, its quality can be appreciated in recent restorations.

Director: Pat Jackson

This suspenseful docudrama tested the practicality of Technicolor’s large, cumbersome camera in locations such as the Irish Sea during wartime. Varying weather conditions caused problems for cinematographer Jack Cardiff who experimented with filters and overexposure to combat lighting issues. When filming on the cargo ship to New York he used monopack film that could be shot using a camera normally used for black and white. This was a relatively new colour stock, but there were problems matching it with the three-strip Technicolor footage. Cardiff said he had “never had a job that was so onerous and nerve-breaking”.

The film nevertheless has many breathtaking shots of the sea, sunsets and shimmering moonlight on the horizon, seen by the sailors adrift on a lifeboat as they wait rescue. The film was very popular, proving the Ministry of Information’s conviction that “colour automatically adds 100% value” to the most effective propaganda films.

Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Colour is shown up in all its varieties when directly contrasted with black and white. This film uses this strategy to great effect with its creation of the heavenly universe in black and white, and with scenes taking place on earth depicted in colour. Michael Powell’s aim to “play with Technicolor on the screen in a way that nobody had ever played before” governs the design of some remarkable transition scenes when a rose literally becomes pink, or when the central character Peter (David Niven) loses consciousness.

Above all, colour is for earthly life and living, an idea that would have been particularly resonant in the immediate post-war world when the film was released. The wistful line, “We are starved for Technicolor up there”, spoken by the heavenly occupant Conductor 71 (Marius Goring), expresses the film’s emotional sensibility that everything is better, and more animated, when in living colour.

Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Michael Powell wanted to create and control the atmosphere of this iconic Technicolor film by filming almost entirely at Pinewood. The adaptation of Rumer Goden’s end-of-empire novel, with its pre-partition India backdrop, was a studio film which showcased colour as one of its key attractions. The vibrancy of the abundant flora and costumes are invested with an essence of exoticism but without exaggeration.

Cinematographer Jack Cardiff experimented with creating a subtle, painterly sensibility, particularly for evoking contrasting chromatic shifts as the nuns grapple with their emotions. The set designs by Alfred Junge and costumes by Hein Heckroth also contributed to creating this vision of India through colour. Many details are extremely memorable, such as Sister Ruth’s red lipstick in her dramatic rebellion scene. The ‘stalking’ sequence towards the end shows how colours were matched to the musical score in a technique Powell was experimenting with known as the ‘composed film’.

Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

In many ways this is Powell and Pressburger’s quintessential Technicolor masterpiece. It allowed them to continue experimenting with the ‘composed film’ idea, especially in the Red Shoes ballet sequence. Colour is integral to the precisely planned scheme designed by Hein Heckroth, which showcased an extraordinary, imaginative theatricality. There was even a short film made of his sketches to guide the preparations for the actual shoot.

Red was a particularly vivid colour when shot in Technicolor, and The Red Shoes exploits this, as well as the cultural symbolism associated with it, to the full. A pair of red ballet shoes is featured from the title sequence and thereafter red is presented most often in different hues and contexts. Other colours are also striking, such as the sumptuous blue sea and shimmering sun in the Riviera locations when the ballet company arrives in Monte Carlo, and for the many gorgeous costumes.

Director: Marc Allégret

This film deserves to be more recognised as a Technicolor classic. It’s a great example of how colour dramatises historical melodrama. Cinematographer Guy Green experimented with the impact of different lighting set-ups on colour, particularly when shooting in atmospheric low-light levels.

The film inspired imaginative advertising campaigns. The vivid red lipstick worn by Blanche (Valerie Hobson) was marketed as ‘Fury’ by Dorothy Gray, and endorsed by Hobson. Her satin-striped, ‘Fury Red’ taffeta evening dress was modelled in shops and factories, as well as in some cinemas before the film was shown. It captures the spirit of the tenacious Victorian heroine whose tempestuous relationship with Philip (Stewart Granger) is marked by conflict between reds and blues, colours with which each character is associated. The sequence showing a devastating fire, with flames swirling against a black sky, is reminiscent of the burning of Atlanta in Gone with the Wind (1939).

Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Designer Hein Heckroth wanted storytelling expressed through colour to be an essential approach to this film adaptation of Offenbach’s comic opera. The symbolism associated with colours was exploited to the full, such as yellow for frivolity, red and black for richness and nobility, and silver greys, light blues and olive greens as suggestive of maturity.

These codes were applied to the film’s episodic structure for each tale. The second tale of Giulietta has a gorgeously rich palette of red, gold, black and green. Gauzes, exquisite fabrics and textures add to the spectacle of colour and sensuality. The final tale is very different, featuring blues and greys to reflect its tragedy. The Technicolor consultant was Joan Bridge who worked on many British films. She contributed to creating this remarkable film’s showcasing of Technicolor at its best in a dazzling display of ballet, sumptuous costumes and sets, and theatrically charged atmosphere.

Director: John Huston

Director John Huston worked with several collaborators in creating this film’s colour design: production designer Marcel Vertès, cinematographer Oswald Morris and photographer Eliot Elisofon. They wanted to recreate a colour look associated with the biopic’s subject Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and the bohemian Parisian nightlife depicted in his paintings.

At first Technicolor disapproved of Morris’s experimental technique of using fog filters and smoke to create a diffused atmosphere. The company subsequently congratulated him on the cinematography’s ambient replication of the artist’s style. An overhead shot of dancers at the Moulin Rouge brilliantly captures their frenetic movement as their dresses create swirling patterns of colour, including whites, as memorialised in Toulouse-Lautrec’s iconic posters. Darker times in the artist’s life are reflected by more sombre-toned blues and greens, such as when he attempts to take his own life. The scene brightens when he changes his mind, opening a window on the rooftops of Paris.

Director: Alexander Mackendrick

While Ealing’s films are most often associated with black and white, colour is used very evocatively in The Ladykillers, shot by Otto Heller in ‘expressionistic’ Technicolor for a low-key, black comedy aesthetic. As with other Ealing colour films, the title cards provide an emblematic guide to its colour design. This is typified by contrasts between pastel colours worn by Mrs Wilberforce and her friends and for the genteel, pale patterned wallpaper in some of the rooms, and the darker forms, colours and objects associated with the gang and their ‘operations room’.

For a film marked for much of the time by low-key lighting, primary colours are nevertheless outstanding to accentuate contrasts. Red is a key colour throughout the film, both within the house and outside as details accumulate to form a palette which is visually arresting for colour contrast, repetition and surprise. Colour is also used to punctuate comic moments.