Video of the 40's Despite a mistake or two It is pretty interesting!

[Steve Moskowitz]

https://1funny.com/1940s-america-classic-cars-people-and-cities-in-color/   This is one I have never seen.  Enjoy

[46 woodie]

What a great video! I know that many of the scenes that were depicted were during wartime, but it was a time when all American's were all "on the same page". I did notice a few wrong dates listed.

[Peter Gariepy]

On Youtube:

 

 

[Pfeil]

I like the TEXICO gas station 1941, with a 1950 Olds 88in the picture.

[The 55er]

Or a 1949 Olds 76 series. 

[Rusty_OToole]

Or the Packard taxicab. Fun video and nice job of colorizing.

[ply33]

59 minutes ago, Rusty_OToole said:

Or the Packard taxicab. Fun video and nice job of colorizing.

The description on the YouTube version says:

Quote

These photos are not colorized but actually were taken at the time using color film. Kodak came out with their color film, Kodachrome, in the 1930s, which most of these pictures were likely shot on.

 

[Rusty_OToole]

Oldest Kodachrome films I have seen date from 1937 or maybe 1936. Hollywood did some experimental short subjects before they did the first color feature film. Oldest feature I know of is Nothing Sacred but its color is not nearly as good as these street scenes.

[kar3516]

An amazing and worthwhile video of color still shots.  As I was born in 1961 I can’t help but think of the pre 1950 era as black and white as all the pictures I’ve seen are of course…shades of grey.  This is fabulous; thank you for posting!

[wayne sheldon]

"The Wizard of Oz" (1939) Kansas scenes were shot in black and white, while all the Oz scenes were in color in order to amplify the magic of the Land of Oz.

The story I read is that preproduction planning was for the entire film to be shot in B&W. That planning was in the mid 1930s and delays, script and cast changes, held it up. The cost for the color film went down a bit as the technology improved, and just before filming began, the decision was made to shoot "Oz" in color for the special effect

Don't know for absolute certain? But that was in a book I read about fifty years ago. And we all know how accurate history books are?

 

Color film then was terribly expensive, and much of Hollywood continued using B&W even through the 1960s. Color filming of parts of movies began even during the late silent era (mid to late 1920s). Very little of the color prints survive because the prints were so volatile, they basically self destructed. I can't recall any titles off hand, however quite a few films remain in B&W form as so many small theaters didn't want to deal with handling the more expensive color prints. Most of the color prints disintegrated, and we get to see the film in B&W because some of those managed to survive.