Johnny Belinda-'48

[Leon Rodriguez]

I was going through B&W '40s films and I really studied a picture called Johnny Belinda shot by Ted McCord in 1948 with Jane Wyman. Just great stuff. Ted McCord was so great! I can't recommend this picture enough, great exteriors with Ansel Adams wood grain accuracy but I was especially blown away by the staged interiors. Right with the emotional arc of the story. Beautiful work. All done with an extremely low ASA. But there was something else too, on the credits was something really interesting. It has Charles Lang on Sound! Is this the same Charles Lang the great DP? Anybody know? I'm just curious. I was a sound man myself.

[David Mullen ASC]

It's a great work of cinematography, often cited by other DP's as a big inspiration.

 

Charles BRYANT Lang was the cinematographer and Charles BURNET Lang was the sound person, according to the imdb. Same middle initial. This is a DP whose first credit was in the Silent Era and his last was in 1973! He shot many great films over the years, including one my favorite works of western landscape photography, "One-Eyed Jacks". Although that was the Monterey Coast -- but it was gorgeous in VistaVision.

 

Ted McCord is mostly remembered for "Sound of Music" and for being Conrad Hall's mentor. "Johnny Belinda" was a great work of b&w. In fact, I was just talking to Stephen Burum about it because he mentioned how great the old Mitchell matteboxes were, allowing lots of different filter shapes, sizes, mattes, etc. He said the McCord was great at cutting a piece of ND gel by eye to match a landscape horizon and putting it in the mattebox and having it line-up exactly.

 

Most films of that era were shot on Plus-X (64 / 80 ASA), a few on Super-XX (160 ASA) like "Citizen Kane". Later in 1954, Kodak introduced Tri-X (320 / 250 ASA).

 

Hey, John, did you notice that Kodak forgot to list the intro of Super-XX in 1938 on their chronology? They list Plus-X but Super-XX was introduced in the same year.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Hey, John, did you notice that Kodak forgot to list the intro of Super-XX in 1938 on their chronology? They list Plus-X but Super-XX was introduced in the same year.

 

Yes, Kodak Plus-X 1231 was introduced in 1938, replaced by 5231 in 1941.

 

What is your source on the exact date for Kodak Super-XX? I can only find reference to an "Improved Super-XX panchromatic film" in 1944, in the 1986 ASC publication "Creators of the Dream Machine", yet I know Gregg Toland used it for "Citizen Kane":

 

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/archiv...ors/toland.html

[David Mullen ASC]

Looked through the 1938 bound volume of AC at the Herrick Library this morning...

 

In the January issue, William Stull, ASC wrote an article about Agfa's new b&w panchromatic stocks, Supreme and Ultra Speed. Supreme had a Weston rating of 48 and Ultra Speed had a Weston rating of 96.

 

In March, AMPAS awards a Scientific Oscar to Agfa.

 

In December 1938, Emery Huse and Gordon A Chambers of Kodak publish an article titled "Three New Eastman Negative Emulsions: Background X, Plus X, and Super XX".

 

Background X = 24/16 Weston

Super X (the previous stock used by most Hollywood productions) = 32/20 Weston

Plus X = 64/40 Weston (becomes the main stock for production)

Super XX = 128/80 Weston (used on "Citizen Kane")

 

I can only assume that the Weston rating used by their meters evolved into the ASA/ISO system.

 

Not surprisingly, soon after this time, Kodak & Technicolor announced that they had increased the effective speed of their 3-strip Technicolor camera system by double (from 3 or 5 ASA to a whopping 10 or 12 ASA by my estimation!)

[David Mullen ASC]

I see from some online articles that ASA numbers are roughly one-third of a stop faster than Weston numbers, and G-E numbers were about a third of a stop faster than ASA numbers.

 

So that would have made Super X 40/25 ASA, its replacement Plus X 80/50 ASA and Super XX would be 160/100 ASA.

 

I see that Kodak back then said that the panchromatic stocks were 2/3's of a stop slower in tungsten rather than 1/3 of a stop as they say these days. I wonder if Kodak increased the red sensitivity over time or simply decided the difference was less than 2/3's of a stop.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Thanks, I'll have our webmaster update the Chronology.

 

I suspect later panchromatic sensitizers had a broader, flatter spectral sensitivity, reaching more into the red. I'll see if I can verify with our B&W emulsion makers.