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Sovcolor and modern prints


Robert Ante

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Watched a 1954 Russian film of Boris Gudunov on youtube. Film had very good color. Seems to me I saw this film in about 1955 at old Stanley/Cameo theater in New York. I remember that the film I saw at that time was in dreadful Sovcolor, so colors looked as if they were applied as a pastel gouache or poster paints , showing little detail.

Since I know next to nothing about movie color film processing and there are plenty of knowledgeable experts on this forum this is my question: Could the negative containing what I would call "neutral" information that was used for the Sovcolor print also be used more recently for a more realistic color print process? I can not believe that two films of the opera would be shot in one year.

The credits say nothing about the film stock or prints.

 

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Too many variables to guess at what you saw.

 

Early Sovcolor was based on WW2 Agfacolor I believe, not sure if it had a color mask like Eastmancolor did. But maybe they made b&w separations in the 1950's from the original negative that have now been used for a digital color-correction -- that would be a best-case scenario. But there are so many other possible paths, too many to make a guess.

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Thanks David. As I remember, if Sovcolor was based on Agfa color, the Soviets didn't quite get the hang of it. So all is not lost for a film originally made in Sovcolor. Started to see a film of Prince Igor made about the same time, again with pretty good color. Interesting that the credits say nothing about restoration.

The Stanley/Cameo theater was quite an experience. During news reels, audience would boo Eisenhower but cheer Stalin. Later, the theater became an XXXX Adult theater.

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