American Cinematographer - April 1989 - 39

picture.

This actual frame

Recently, during production of the television
special "The Making of a Legend: Gone With the
Wind/' an attempt was made to obtain an original
print for reference, but the only thing found was a can
containing about 40 small rolls which had been given
to Eastman House in

from

Rochester, NY. None of this film

Opposite
The

version offers

major restoration project was begun to convert
of which

were on

safety Eastman negative. This

nitrate film, to

was just
that color reversal intermediate (CRI)

about the time
stock became

available, and most of the Technicolor conversions were
transferred to that type negative, which, in the long
run, turned out not to be as color-stable as anticipated.
In the last few years,

its use has been discontinued.
three-strip Technicolor negative of Gone
With the Wind was first used to make a single strip
interpositive. An interpositive is a print, made on a
special film suitable for creating duplicate negatives. It
is low contrast, and has an orange dye color in the base,
the same as a color negative. This was done by making
three passes through the optical printer, exposing the
new film
successively from each of the separation
negatives with the appropriate red, green or blue color
filter. From this interpositive, new printing negatives
were made. (See American
Cinematographer, Novem¬
The

ber

1967).
In addition to the 35mm

negative (for 70mm release prints)
In order to accommodate the 2.2

April 1989

of the 70mm

print, the picture had to be reframed in
original
image. The famous "sweep" main title was replaced
with a new title showing all four words on the screen at

bonnet.

each scene, with the loss of almost half of the

the

same

time.

Over the 20 year period since the first conver¬
sion to Eastman Color many duplicate negatives were

made, both as internegatives and as CRIs. Elements for
16mm

printing were also made from these same inter¬
positives. It is impossible today to trace the number of
generations of duplication which produced the nega¬
tives used in making current release prints. At the time
that I became

involved, there existed at the Metrocolor

Laboratory a CRI with the "sweep" title, and an inter¬
negative with the "block" title.
The 16mm negative was a poor quality CRI. It
became necessary to replace this 16mm negative, so a
new one was made
using the 35mm interpositive as a
source. It was
possible to retain the "sweep" title
originally used, and the overture, intermission and exit
music

were

included,

that this version contained all

negative, 65mm

was also produced.
1 frame dimensions

original release. The only
problem was that the interpositive was too many gener¬
ations away from the original, and it produced a nega¬
tive with too much contrast and grain.
The first restoration step that we took was to
remake the main title negative from the safety protec¬
tion master positive separations. After this was com¬
plete, it was used to replace the "block" title in the
printing negative. The quality of this new title further
showed up the inadequacy of the existing printing
negative.
Since Gone With the Wind will be 50 years old
this year, and there will be major showings during that
time, we wanted it to look its best. We were getting
requests from the Library of Congress, Eastman House
and the Museum of Modern Art to consider

a new

restoration from the

We in

original 1939 negative.
the Film and Tape Services department

of Turner Entertainment Co. recommended that

a new

restoration be made. The Technicolor

negatives were
shipped to California from Eastman House for testing.
YCM Laboratories in

lected to do

Burbank, CA

was se¬

test. Under the

supervision of Richard
Dayton and Pete Comandini a print of the first reel was
made directly from the original negatives. In spite of
stories coming down through the years that the sep-

American

Cinematographer

healthier-looking
Scarlett wearing a
gorgeously colored

of the material that was in the

tures and hundreds of cartoons and shorts in Techni¬

all of these, most

page:

same

image from the
newly restored

few years

color. A

costume.

almost candle-lit look, even in outdoor scenes.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had made 115 fea¬

re¬

Leigh
decidedly
sallow complexion
and a dull-looking
with

projected, but it could be identified as coming
from a regular theatrical print that had been serviced
out of MGM's Detroit exchange. By looking at it with a
slide projector, one could see that the picture had an

still carries.

earlier

shows Vivien

could be

Many of the prints manufactured in the first
of release had been stored, and used again in
the 1947 re-release. The first copies in the improved
Technicolor printing process came forth in 1954, after
the dyes were refined to the point at which the black
and white key image was no longer needed. Since this
occurred after the advent of safety film, several excel¬
lent prints from this era survive. The color timing was
still warmer than is common today. This probably
resulted from an attempt to maintain the tone of the
original 1939 prints. Technicolor again made release
prints for the third reissue in 1961.
When MGM planned another reissue for
1967, it was decided to adapt the film to allow printing
in their own laboratory. The MGM Laboratory had
been printing color since chemically developed pro¬
cesses became
commonly available in the early 1950s.
Several major productions of that period, such as Brigadoon, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and The Wild North
were
photographed and printed using Ansco Color.
This, and the more common Eastman Color negative,
became the regular color processes for MGM. The
laboratory was named Metrocolor, a name which it

issue of GWTW

American Cinematographer - April 1989

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