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Of all God's gifts to the sighted man, colour is holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. (John Ruskin, English art critic and writer, 1819-1900)   The efforts to join colour to the moving image are as old as cinema itself. At least since the release of Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895) by the Edison Manufacturing Company, filmmakers had been hand-painting frames to add colour to black-and-white prints. In this 45-second short, Broadway dancer Annabelle Moore is dressed in white veils that appear to change colours as she swirls them. Hand colouring was often used in early European trick and fantasy films, especially those produced by pioneer French filmmaker George Méliès, who amazed audiences with his astonishingly intricate visual effects. Méliès first experimented with colour in Jeanne d'Arc (1900), leading to a more spectacular use of the technique in Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) and Le Voyage à travers l'impossible (1904), which offers four hues in at least t...

In honour of Clark Gable's 115th birthday, this week on «Film Friday» I thought I would tell you a little bit about one of his most iconic pictures. Also, every «Film Friday» in February, in a sort of countdown to the Academy Awards, I am going to bring you a film that has either won or been nominated for Best Picture. As the 1935 winner, this film fits in very nicely. Directed by Frank Lloyd, Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) opens in Portsmouth, England in December 1787, with the HMS Bounty about to sail to Tahiti to collect a consignment of breadfruit trees to the transported to the West Indies and replanted to provide cheap sustenance for slave labour. The Bounty 's crew includes William Bligh (Charles Laughton), the ship's sadistic captain, who routinely administers hard punishment to officers who lack discipline or defy his authority; Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable), the ship's young lieutenant, who openly disapproves of Bligh's treatment of the crew; and Rog...

Directed by W. S. Van Dyke, Marie Antoinette (1938) opens when Marie Antoinette (Norma Shearer) is informed by her mother, Empress Marie Therese of Austria (Alma Kruger), that she is to marry the heir to the throne of France, the Dauphin Louis XVI (Robert Morley). Marie expects a life of grandeur, but finds that Louis is a shy and introverted man, who proves to be an unwilling husband as well. Her problems at the court are increased by Madame du Barry (Gladys George), the scheming mistress of King Louis XV (John Barrymore), who takes special pleasure in taunting Marie's inability to conceive an heir with the Dauphin. Although Marie initially seems to enjoy the support of the Duke d'Orléans (Joseph Schildkraut), he later reveals himself to be a duplicitous and power-hungry confidante. Meanwhile, Marie meets the dashing Swedish diplomat Count Axel Fersen (Tyrone Power), and the two soon begin a romantic affair. A few days after their fourth wedding anniversary, as Marie goes t...