Modern Day IB Process

[Phil Jackson]

Forgive my ignorance on this subject as a director not a DP. I was looking up some info on Dye-Transfer which led me down a rabbit hole on this site from 20 years ago about the resurgence of Technicolor Imbibition process in the 1990s.  I thought IB had been discontinued in the 70s and realized that a number of movies like Batman and Robin, Apocalypse Now Redux, Toy Story 2 and Godzilla had an IB print and then I became sad that its unlikely the contemporary versions of those films looks anything like that and wished I had paid more attention when those movies were in theaters 25 years ago.

That led me to think, assuming it could be done, how would we do this today and would there be any advantages? To me a true dye-transfer image is unparalleled in terms of color richness and contrast. I don't know that I've ever seen any digital image get close. I think in part due to the organic way dyes mix, it seems like those syrup-y colors are very hard to recreate. Dealing with pigments and dyes is just a different ballgame. The reds in Jean Curran's Vertigo Project are unbelievable. Tyler Shields made some dye-transfer stills prints in 2019, which is a more obsolete process than motion picture dye-transfer processes given the fact that with stills everything is painstakingly done by hand, but those images look absolutely incredible, even when viewed digitally. I don't know that I've ever seen, for example, a natively digital red or deep blue come close to something like an Eggleston or Ernst Haas print. It seems like digital cameras can capture, reasonably, a dye-transfer print after it's been made, if you used something like a high-end scanner or Phase One camera or something that had the capacity to capture a large color gamut, but trying to do it purely with a 3D LUT or color grade, I'm not convinced by. I've just not ever seen a digitally captured image jump off the screen on its own in terms of color richness (but maybe someone at Fotokem, or Company 3 has already done it and has an answer).  

However, and maybe this is a question for David Mullen or some of the guys who were shooting in the 90s, could one potentially create film matrices from a digital camera? Create the separation negatives by stripping out the RGB channels from the camera source file? Controlling contrast is much easier today with DI tools and RAW files. In some ways, nowadays it would be the motion picture equivalent of an offset printer. Dye-transfer is similarly something of a lithographic process, so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to create your matrices from a digital source the same way it's done for high-end printing. After all people do stuff like this all the time with alternative stills processes like cyanotypes by creating "digital negatives" printed onto transparencies. Any graphic designed image for high-end offset printing is done digitally as is a lot of commercial photography. Also, since everything ends up digital at some point anyway, even a show shot on film, you could probably just create color separations fairly easily these days as well as soon as the film was scanned. Stripping out color channels from a .dpx isn't difficult at all. It's literally a button click in Photoshop for stills. I do remember David Mullen saying something to the effect of there being no advantage to doing color separations with modern day film stocks but I wasn't quite sure I followed why. 

I guess the real question would be then, assuming you were able to do this, how do you get it back to digital? It's my understanding that dye transfer film prints are quite contrasty. I think the richness of colors could maybe be picked up just fine in something like an ACES or other wide-gamut color space with the right capture tool, but a super high-contrast answer print (essentially) is a bit tougher overcome. You might not have a lot of room to tweak things from that point on. But then I also ask myself how is this all that different from hand-painted animation cells from yesteryear, which are inks and dyes as well? If you were rebuilding, Sleeping Beauty, rephotographing the original cells, for instance, you wouldn't have a ton of room to play with contrast afterwards there either. Knowing you were going to end up with a super contrast-y rich image why wouldn't you just shoot with that in mind, especially if you're using a digital camera and have tools like RAW and a good DIT/Colorist/Lab at your disposal? That's a situation where you could use a reference LUT to kind of at least get you close to where you'd end up after the dye-transfer and shoot accordingly. I might be missing something.  

I recognize imbibition machines don't exist anymore this is a pure hypothetical and I know half the people say, "Who cares? Let the past stay in the past, use a 2393 LUT and be done with it." I'm just trying to wrap my head around how it could be possible (assuming someone could revive an IB machine somehow somewhere) to do with modern-day filmmaking process. I would think digital would give you so much more control than striking matrices from a color camera negative and modern-day color grading has moved us into the era of quite wild look development, and doing exotic things with color grading, dye-transfers of some of today's films, tv, commercials or music videos could be an interesting tool to play with. I guess the other way to do this would be some sort of inkjet style printing process where you'd print each frame and then re-scan those prints. 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by Phil Jackson

[Eric Eader]

Phil,

Sometime in the mid 1970's Technicolor sold the "Process" to China, and sometime in 1980 or '81,  I attended a SMPTE screening of their efforts in L.A.  They did not produce anything approaching a commercial/acceptable product.  If memory serves, the image was almost totally magenta and woefully lacking in sharpness.

The machinery, if it still exists, may still be in China.

Perhaps someone from SMPTE or Technicolor remembers that or a later screening and has follow-up information.

On the stills side, the late Jerry "Mr. Cibachrome" Burchfield, took our class to Bob Pace's workshop in L.A. to watch a three or four hour demonstration of Dye Transfer Printing (during that same timeframe).  Mr. Pace used to use a personally adapted Omega colorhead on which he would place a client's transparency and let them decide the color desired for their print.  Previous calibration tests enabled him to transpose those numbers to his required filterpack for the dye transfer.  He sorely lamented the fact that he was using a commercially produced colorhead, and therefore he could not "patent the process and rake in a fortune." (He printed many of the color covers and ads inside Life magazine among other things).

Eric Joseph at Freestyle Photo (in L.A.), gives seminars on Inkjet printing on just about every paper imaginable.  The hands-on show and tell is phenomenal.  His digital printing knowledge is encyclopedic and may be of help to you, not to mention maybe sending him along a new line of inquiry.

Hope this will help.

 

[Frank Wylie]

I think you would be much better off studying the spectral responses of the actual dyes used on the printing matrices  (the spectral response and upper and lower limits of each dye) to replicate the look than actually trying to make the physical product.

It WAS a lithographic process, so the only color synthesis possible was by the interaction of those limited dyes and the density matrix.

I feel the key to the "Technicolor Look" is more defined by what is left out of the image by the gaps in the spectrum overlaps of the colors of the dyes used and the addition of a neutral density matrix to bring the image up to density standards.

Starting with a color image, strip out the RGB as seperate MONO channels and then create a digital color matrix of each channel by substituting the dye spectral qualities for that particular channel.  Then recombine them with a totally desaturated density mask made from the combined RGB channels to balance density.

Treat it like a lithograph, but in the RGB color space, not the CYMK color space.

Besides, the 35mm matrix film used to create the printing elements has not been produced in many decades.  Good luck getting that made today...

Edited October 11, 2023 by Frank Wylie

[Phil Jackson]

3 hours ago, Frank Wylie said:

I think you would be much better off studying the spectral responses of the actual dyes used on the printing matrices  (the spectral response and upper and lower limits of each dye) to replicate the look than actually trying to make the physical product.

It WAS a lithographic process, so the only color synthesis possible was by the interaction of those limited dyes and the density matrix.

I feel the key to the "Technicolor Look" is more defined by what is left out of the image by the gaps in the spectrum overlaps of the colors of the dyes used and the addition of a neutral density matrix to bring the image up to density standards.

Starting with a color image, strip out the RGB as seperate MONO channels and then create a digital color matrix of each channel by substituting the dye spectral qualities for that particular channel.  Then recombine them with a totally desaturated density mask made from the combined RGB channels to balance density.

Treat it like a lithograph, but in the RGB color space, not the CYMK color space.

Besides, the 35mm matrix film used to create the printing elements has not been produced in many decades.  Good luck getting that made today...

Interesting. Good point about the matrix film. 

[Mark Dunn]

 Rumour has it that the last ones were of "Star Wars" made in London for the European release in 1978.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Mark Dunn

[Frank Wylie]

35 minutes ago, Mark Dunn said:

 Rumour has it that the last ones were of "Star Wars" made in London for the European release in 1978.

I really don't know; the death-rattle of Technicolor was long and shrouded in mystery.  We will probably never know the full story...

[David Mullen ASC]

The death of Technicolor dye transfer in the 1970s was mainly due to the economics -- it's an expensive process up front but a low cost-per-print, so it only was cost-effective with large print orders, which were on the decline in the 1970s.

It was resurrected in the late 1990s briefly as an experiment at a time when print orders were larger than ever due to simultaneous release worldwide, but now the problem with dye transfer was two-fold: (1) it took too much time to set-up, at a time when studios were used to delivering a cut negative just two or three weeks before release, and Technicolor needed a month to set-up the matrices properly and time them; (2) the prototype printer couldn't crank out thousands of prints quickly -- in fact, during that time, studios were used to delivering multiple dupe negatives to more than one lab in order to make so many prints at once. And it certainly wasn't cost-effective compared to making normal color prints.

The look of the prints comes from the dyes and the whole subtractive color look of prints in general so there's no reason to scan them or scan b&w separations from color negative origination to create the look for digital projection, which is an additive color process. At best, like with the D.I. of "The Aviator", you could create a print emulation LUT that simply cut-off the color frequency ranges of each color channel into the area that the color dyes were limited to, similar to the Vision print LUT ("The Aviator" used a LUT to limit the range of the color channels from a scan of the color negative to match the color response of a 3-strip Technicolor camera, which had less crosstalk between channels compared to color negative.)

[David Mullen ASC]

As far as creating positive b&w matrices from a digital source, that's not hard IF the b&w matrices stock existed, which it doesn't.  After the demise of 3-strip cameras, Technicolor had to create the b&w matrices from a color negative anyway, so one could laser record a color negative from the digital master, and then make the b&w matrices from that negative.

I suppose in theory it would be possible to laser record color separations directly to the b&w matrix stock, I don't know, but one could definitely laser record to b&w fine-grain film as negative images and then optically make the b&w positive matrices from that.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Now that we have laser projection with better contrast and deeper blacks, I suppose one could map the color gamut of a dye transfer print and try to create a LUT to emulate it. but I suspect it still won't feel the same as a projected dye transfer print due to the difference between subtractive and additive color.

[Deniz Zagra]

7 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

I suspect it still won't feel the same as a projected dye transfer print due to the difference between subtractive and additive color.

Is there really much of a difference between the final image when it comes to comparing additive and subtractive color?

[David Mullen ASC]

8 hours ago, Deniz Zagra said:

Is there really much of a difference between the final image when it comes to comparing additive and subtractive color?

Yes and no, sort of depends on your sensitivity about such things. You can match them to some degree, but fundamentally you cannot get more saturation and more brightness with subtractive color because more saturation means more dye, which cuts light, whereas with additive color you can increase both saturation and brightness.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

 

On 10/11/2023 at 2:08 AM, Eric Eader said:

Phil,

Sometime in the mid 1970's Technicolor sold the "Process" to China, and sometime in 1980 or '81,  I attended a SMPTE screening of their efforts in L.A.  They did not produce anything approaching a commercial/acceptable product.  If memory serves, the image was almost totally magenta and woefully lacking in sharpness.

The machinery, if it still exists, may still be in China.

Perhaps someone from SMPTE or Technicolor remembers that or a later screening and has follow-up information.

On the stills side, the late Jerry "Mr. Cibachrome" Burchfield, took our class to Bob Pace's workshop in L.A. to watch a three or four hour demonstration of Dye Transfer Printing (during that same timeframe).  Mr. Pace used to use a personally adapted Omega colorhead on which he would place a client's transparency and let them decide the color desired for their print.  Previous calibration tests enabled him to transpose those numbers to his required filterpack for the dye transfer.  He sorely lamented the fact that he was using a commercially produced colorhead, and therefore he could not "patent the process and rake in a fortune." (He printed many of the color covers and ads inside Life magazine among other things).

Eric Joseph at Freestyle Photo (in L.A.), gives seminars on Inkjet printing on just about every paper imaginable.  The hands-on show and tell is phenomenal.  His digital printing knowledge is encyclopedic and may be of help to you, not to mention maybe sending him along a new line of inquiry.

Hope this will help.

 

 

Do you have Pace's dye transfer book? Ctein was going to loan me his copy to scan, but I had a falling out with him and that was that. I worked with Pace in the early 1970's in Hollywood at Graphic Process Co. Lots of stuff, including videos of Pace at the Internet Archive.

Look, dye transfer had its day...cine and still. It is gone! The kids nowadays can't even develop BW film...hardly. During my short time at the dye transfer forum at Yahoo, there were some Germans that had brought it back...but only for paper prints. I may have some of that info in the Archive. I was only there for a few weeks before they banned me.

GD...those technicolor prints had a look all their own...huh! You can tell it is a 3-strip print as soon as you look at it. Even without the lab head.

Dye Transfer lab head DDTJRSGFA

 

Here is some DT stuff on YT.

(1285) technicolor process - YouTube

 

Here is a nice book on the DT history.

 

The Dawn of Technicolor: 1915–1935: Layton, James, Pierce, David, Cherchi Usai, Paolo, Surowiec, Catherine, Barnes, Bruce: 9780935398281: Amazon.com: Books

I got a copy of it, but too new to chop up and scan, otherwise would share it. Bot it used from a gay couple in Palm Springs for $85. Took me years to find an affordable one. They were cheap at one time...but you know how that goes.

<><><><>

 

Dye Transfer Print

From Dye Transfer Printing from the 1950's

by D.D. Teoli Jr.

 

 

 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

You want to see some dye transfer prints...buy some on eBay. Not that pricey for 16mm shorts, like trailers. 

16mm IB Tech for sale | eBay

But you have to keep looking. I picked up a nice IB Tech trailer for $12+ shipping.

35mm IB Tech is even cheaper sometimes.

35mm IB Tech for sale | eBay

But whether it is 16 or 35, hold out for a nice example to do the IB Tech process justice in your edification process. 

DT just had a look all their own...

Blue Skies Fred Astaire 1946 : D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Edited October 12, 2023 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Eric Eader]

Daniel,

Sorry, no I don't have his book.

As for analogue still-photo processes, there are still colleges teaching them.  Santa Monica College and Daytona State College are two I have first hand knowledge of offering B&W and color printing, in addition to Alternative Processes, along with Digital photo.

No doubt there are others in New England, New York, and San Francisco (though I doubt any one wants to brave the apparent lawlessness in San Fran; "stolen cameras anyone?").

Double transfer color carbon printing is probably the best alternative to Dye Transfer now --------- at least materials are available.

"Uh, but is it easier?"

"I Dunno."

 

[Phil Jackson]

3 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

 

 

Do you have Pace's dye transfer book? Ctein was going to loan me his copy to scan, but I had a falling out with him and that was that. I worked with Pace in the early 1970's in Hollywood at Graphic Process Co. Lots of stuff, including videos of Pace at the Internet Archive.

Look, dye transfer had its day...cine and still. It is gone! The kids nowadays can't even develop BW film...hardly. During my short time at the dye transfer forum at Yahoo, there were some Germans that had brought it back...but only for paper prints. I may have some of that info in the Archive. I was only there for a few weeks before they banned me.

GD...those technicolor prints had a look all their own...huh! You can tell it is a 3-strip print as soon as you look at it. Even without the lab head.

Dye Transfer lab head DDTJRSGFA

 

Here is some DT stuff on YT.

(1285) technicolor process - YouTube

 

Here is a nice book on the DT history.

 

The Dawn of Technicolor: 1915–1935: Layton, James, Pierce, David, Cherchi Usai, Paolo, Surowiec, Catherine, Barnes, Bruce: 9780935398281: Amazon.com: Books

I got a copy of it, but too new to chop up and scan, otherwise would share it. Bot it used from a gay couple in Palm Springs for $85. Took me years to find an affordable one. They were cheap at one time...but you know how that goes.

<><><><>

 

Dye Transfer Print

From Dye Transfer Printing from the 1950's

by D.D. Teoli Jr.

 

 

 

David Doubley's site is a treasure trove of knowledge of dye transfer as well.

[Phil Jackson]

3 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

 

 

Do you have Pace's dye transfer book? Ctein was going to loan me his copy to scan, but I had a falling out with him and that was that. I worked with Pace in the early 1970's in Hollywood at Graphic Process Co. Lots of stuff, including videos of Pace at the Internet Archive.

Look, dye transfer had its day...cine and still. It is gone! The kids nowadays can't even develop BW film...hardly. During my short time at the dye transfer forum at Yahoo, there were some Germans that had brought it back...but only for paper prints. I may have some of that info in the Archive. I was only there for a few weeks before they banned me.

GD...those technicolor prints had a look all their own...huh! You can tell it is a 3-strip print as soon as you look at it. Even without the lab head.

Dye Transfer lab head DDTJRSGFA

 

Here is some DT stuff on YT.

(1285) technicolor process - YouTube

 

Here is a nice book on the DT history.

 

The Dawn of Technicolor: 1915–1935: Layton, James, Pierce, David, Cherchi Usai, Paolo, Surowiec, Catherine, Barnes, Bruce: 9780935398281: Amazon.com: Books

I got a copy of it, but too new to chop up and scan, otherwise would share it. Bot it used from a gay couple in Palm Springs for $85. Took me years to find an affordable one. They were cheap at one time...but you know how that goes.

<><><><>

 

Dye Transfer Print

From Dye Transfer Printing from the 1950's

by D.D. Teoli Jr.

 

 

 

Jeez man, the cyans and magentas on that leader are unreal. Rich and dirty at the same time. That video of Pace going through his process on YouTube is an absolute treasure. He was such a master of his craft. Part of a generation of artisans who really knew their stuff that sadly seems to have faded away. 

[Mark Dunn]

13 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

You want to see some dye transfer prints...buy some on eBay. Not that pricey for 16mm shorts, like trailers. 

16mm IB Tech for sale | eBay

But you have to keep looking. I picked up a nice IB Tech trailer for $12+ shipping.

35mm IB Tech is even cheaper sometimes.

35mm IB Tech for sale | eBay

But whether it is 16 or 35, hold out for a nice example to do the IB Tech process justice in your edification process. 

DT just had a look all their own...

Blue Skies Fred Astaire 1946 : D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Some of that stuff is almost reasonable. I might get a kick out of having some IB to show on the Steenbeck, just to be able to say I had it.

Edited October 13, 2023 by Mark Dunn

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

18 hours ago, Eric Eader said:

Daniel,

Sorry, no I don't have his book.

As for analogue still-photo processes, there are still colleges teaching them.  Santa Monica College and Daytona State College are two I have first hand knowledge of offering B&W and color printing, in addition to Alternative Processes, along with Digital photo.

No doubt there are others in New England, New York, and San Francisco (though I doubt any one wants to brave the apparent lawlessness in San Fran; "stolen cameras anyone?").

Double transfer color carbon printing is probably the best alternative to Dye Transfer now --------- at least materials are available.

"Uh, but is it easier?"

"I Dunno."

 

 

Oh, I know film photography is still being taught...somewhere. But when you read some of the comments on the film forums, they are ecstatic if they get anything to 'come out' as we used to say.

Film was no big deal back in the day. It was just what we did to get an image. Never thought a thing about it. Same way we shot manual. Now kids brag like 'shooting manual' is something big. The lenses were not all dummied down and the cameras had actual shutter speeds on the bodies. 

The big deal was color chemistry and nitrogen burst processing. It has to be pretty exacting. I liked BW better, more forgiving. I only brought up BW film to compare it to Technicolor which was the pinnacle of complexity compared to BW and how things have degreaded.

I found some vintage material on carbon / carbro printing. 

Article on Carbro Process Chambers 1941 D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Article on Carbon Process Chambers 1941 D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Outerbridge was a big carbro color person back in the day. Carbro was the pre-dye transfer era.

Photographing In Color Paul Outerbridge D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

I got more carbro / carbon material, but have to find it.

Autotype colour printing processes : Autotype Company, author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Here is a book (incomplete) some guy gave me. He was scared to scan the photos for copyright. So, they are missing.

Amateur Carbro Colour Prints, Viscount Hanworth 1952 2nd Ed : D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

7 hours ago, Mark Dunn said:

Some of that stuff is almost reasonable. I might get a kick out of having some IB to show on the Steenbeck, just to be able to say I had it.

 

Keep at it, you will find some.

England has lots of film collectors selling stuff on eBay. I would love to buy some of the 16mm from England, but shipping generally kills it. Same with Canada...crazy shipping. They have interesting titles we don't see here in the USA. 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

18 hours ago, Phil Jackson said:

Jeez man, the cyans and magentas on that leader are unreal. Rich and dirty at the same time. That video of Pace going through his process on YouTube is an absolute treasure. He was such a master of his craft. Part of a generation of artisans who really knew their stuff that sadly seems to have faded away. 

 

They used to just bang that stuff out. They didn't think anything of it. Those are the witness marks on the lab head to show it has been run though the various color dyes. The lab tail had the same. 

Yes, Bob Pace and Frank Tartaro, in NYC were some of the last of their generation of dye transfer printers. Pace used to print for Irving Penn when he had a lab in NYC. 

Lots of interesting printing material from back then. This is a Kodachrome print. It was an early 'Type R' material for direct from slides print. It was plastic coated like a Cibachrome print.

DDTJRAC

I think most of you would have been happy if Kodak still made 16mm Kodachrome for cine' shooting. I've got some old 16mm Kodachrome from the early 1940's that still looks good. Even some from the late 1930's. The earlier Kodachrome had fade issues until they changed the formula. 

Kodachrome was gorgeous stuff!

Kodachrome 35mm slide 1950s - DDTJRAC

The dyes Kodak used for dye transfer were also improved over the years. I had tested Kodak dyes for light stability from the 50's 60's 70's and 80's. I had asked the dye transfer forum at Yahoo for scrap samples of work prints from the latter dyes in the 1990s to test, but never got any help. Kodak stopped making dye transfer material in 1994.

Dye Transfer print 1950's - 6 months of sun

DDTJRAC

1980's vintage dyes Kodak used were pretty good. Almost as good a lower end inkjet print. But not as good as an archival pigment inkjet print. I also tested carbro prints for fade resistance in the sun. They seem very good, but can't find the test samples. When I closed down and moved the storage locker, lots of stuff got lost. I don't want to test the carbro prints again. They are $$ if you can even find some and hate cutting them up.

Well, if you can't reproduce Technicolor, use some Technicolor films in your film projects. Work them in some how to keep the process known. Like have a person into film running some Technicolor shorts on a pair of rewinds and show some of it. Cinecolor is another process they used, mainly of cartoons of their day. tons of processes that have evolved. That is what I'd do. 

Just like textured 3D roofs...most everyone in the know of how Technicolor worked, is in the graveyard...or near to it. A photo forum was trying to recreate the early autochrome process. They couldn't do it. Lots of history has been lost.

 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Mark Dunn]

I see there's a complete 16mm IB Tech of "Oklahoma!" on ebay starting at $100. Reckon that will go a bit higher.

Only problem- it's being listed as flat. But some of the screenshots are squeezed. Could be just the titles. I don't think 'Scope was ever really much of a thing in 16.

Speaking of B/W vs Technicolor- most of Technicolor was a B/W process. Three strips of monochrome neg.

 

Now Kodachrome- that was complicated.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Mark Dunn

[Frank Wylie]

I have a 16mm Technicolor Salesman Reel somewhere around here.  It promoted their process for that brief period portable projectors were the rage with traveling salesmen and product point of sale booths.

Imagine, you could have had a IB Tech reel for selling your windows and vinyl siding!  '

I have to think they would have had to have done 35-32 dual rank prints and then slit them down to 16mm rather than fabricate an entirely separate printing facility.

We programmed a fair number of Cinemascope 16mm prints at the University I attended as part of the English Literature series for Freshmen. (couldn't get them to read, but they would watch movies)

I specifically remember screening the full restoration (at that time) of Abel Gance's "Napoleon" (1927) that was a grueling 330 minutes and the final reel of triptych scenes were on a separate reel in anamorphic.  The film was great but, I think the cheering of the audience when the curtain closed was no small measure of relief that it was ending, as much as respect for the artistry the film.

I still have an Elmoscope Anamorphic projection lens on my shelf to remind me of those days...

Edited October 15, 2023 by Frank Wylie