8mm Forum: Dr.Cyclops

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Posted by Melvin England (Member # 5270) on July 03, 2016, 12:11 PM:

There is currently a Universal 1x 400' copy of Dr.Cyclops on Ebay UK where the seller has mentioned the colour has turned to sepia (with visual examples).
I,too,have a copy of this film. Mine is a "perfect" tone of sepia.As such,I assumed this film was originally black and white then toned, as opposed to being a colour film that had faded and "gone off." My theory seems to be supported by the fact that this second copy is also sepia. My other Universal 400' films have hardly faded over the years.

Can anyone confirm,please, whether I am right,or whether both copies were originally colour and have completely faded? My film runs beautifully and has no scratches.... just sepia "colour!"

(Sorry... meant to post this in the 8mm forum section,not films for sale)

Posted by Oemer Yalinkilic (Member # 86) on July 03, 2016, 02:34 PM:

Dr. Cyclops was shot in Technicolor, so all sepia color prints are on faded eastman film stock.

Posted by Melvin England (Member # 5270) on July 03, 2016, 04:09 PM:

Oemer - I assume,then,that this would have been in full colour when it had just been printed?

Posted by Oemer Yalinkilic (Member # 86) on July 04, 2016, 11:09 AM:

Yes, but I never had the chance to watch it in color as it was released. I had a 16mm version and it was also already red.

take look here, you can watch the trailer in color: web page

Posted by Mal Brake (Member # 14) on July 04, 2016, 04:37 PM:

I bought a brand new sealed print at one of Derann's open days many years ago-and yes, it was sepia. When I queried this, Derek Simmonds told me all 8mm prints of Dr Cyclops looked the same. I now have the dvd which has very nice Technicolor.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on July 05, 2016, 11:50 AM:

I remember Douglas Meltzer (co-owner of this very site) stating many years ago that, even when this digest first came out, the color was very iffy to start with.

It would be nice to see screenshots of this digest to see what the color actually looks like. Color is so variable with collectors. Most oversell the color of a print (bad color) but sometimes some folks nicely over-estimate how poor the color is, and the color turns out to be pretty good, always a plus for the collector.

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on July 05, 2016, 03:07 PM:

The color was basically sepia when the digest was first released by Universal 8. It would have been better to put it out only in B&W, as Castle did.

Osi,

Thanks for the credit, however Brad owns the site. I'm happily just the moderator (and have moved this topic to the 8mm Forum section).

Doug

Posted by Melvin England (Member # 5270) on July 05, 2016, 05:47 PM:

Doug - Thanks for moving the thread to where it should have been, and also thanks for reassuring me that my copy of Dr.Cyclops doesn't,after all, appear to be in as lousy condition as I first thought.

Posted by George Seaton (Member # 5402) on July 06, 2016, 10:10 AM:

I have the Universal 8 400' digest of 'Dr Cyclops'. I've only ever seen this version of the movie and the colour palette of my print pretty much matches that of the trailer available on line with very vivid greens and blues throughout. I would say it is much closer to Technicolor than sepia.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on July 06, 2016, 11:56 AM:

Oops, sorry Brad! [Smile]

Posted by Panayotis A. Carayannis (Member # 1220) on July 06, 2016, 01:49 PM:

Obviously,before the video revolution,all availabe prints for home and tv were made from available faded originals. Another example is THE (Sabu) JUNGLE BOOK. Twenty or more years ago seeing the film in cinemas and tv,it was always reddish.My new super 8 copy was also similarly reddish. Today of course,we can find dvds in perfect color.

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