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Black & White Bond- How Would the 60s Films Be Assessed/Experienced if they Arrived a Decade Early?
0BradyM0Bondfanatic7
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As some will know here, I'm a massive fan of the black & white era of studio filmmaking in old Hollywood, especially for how the monochrome style added atmosphere to movies like noir pictures that was striking and sometimes surreal. It's really interesting that the Bond franchise was bravely born, in full color and vivid life, right off the heels of an era such as that one which was dominated by black & white filmmaking where the achievements of the 60s weren't even consciously absorbed. The cinematic Bond really found itself right in the middle of history, where the old ways of moviemaking were giving way to newer, more alluring inventions like more studio practical Technicolor capabilities and the invention of widescreen photography, a process that only came to the Bond franchise in 1965 with Thunderball.
Lately I've been thinking about how crazy it is that Bond came at the perfect time that it needed to to be the big, colorful blockbusters they're now famed for, and through this thought I also became fascinated with this "what-if": How would the Bond films of the 60s, from Dr. No to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, be assessed and experienced as pieces of cinema if the color of their film was stripped away for the monochromatic presentation that the series was so striking for breaking away from? Is the lively and transportive nature of the series and its lush travelogue visuals diminished when the color is robbed from the images? Would the iconography of the series be damaged or disadvantaged if, for example, the golden girl of Goldfinger was rendered in monochrome instead? And perhaps more broadly, would Bond have been able to stand out in an earlier era where it looked like all the other films around, and where one of the big strengths of the 60s films-their flamboyant color-wouldn't be able to be harnessed by the filmmakers of the day?
I think these are interesting questions to ask, not only because Bond was so caught in the middle of the black & white vs. color divide (making it a relevant inquiry), but also because I think that making the 60s films monochrome truly does change them inherently, giving them a fresh mood and identity from what we know them to be.
In the last few days I've collected 22 frames from each of the six 60s movies that I feel the monochromatic presentation best accentuates to give us an idea of what a black & white James Bond film would've felt like in the day, how the shadows of different frames would've been translated and what mood the films would've carried with that filming style. I've made albums for each movie on imgur, separating each movie into its own section:
Dr. No:
http://imgur.com/a/rlrHZ
From Russia with Love:
http://imgur.com/a/QtzyJ
Goldfinger:
http://imgur.com/a/zyNZw
Thunderball:
http://imgur.com/a/M7tTz
You Only Live Twice:
http://imgur.com/a/HUfeG
On Her Majesty's Secret Service:
http://imgur.com/a/a9KZu
I'd be interested to hear about what others think about this question, and how they feel that the original films would've been changed or how we'd experience them differently through monochrome as opposed to color.
Just quick impressions I've had, to kick things off:
I think it's fascinating how Dr. No is brought all the closer to a noir film than it already is in full color through the monochrome, giving added punch to Bond playing a full-on detective in Jamaica, and how From Russia with Love really feels like a full on Cold War film that would've been at home in the 40s or early 50s during the Communist witch hunts. Perhaps most striking is how Goldfinger at times comes off as a horror picture with the way that the camera focuses on bizarre and unsettling images of women in peril, with a strong obsession inherent in the camerawork of photographing aspects of the female body and also eyes (like the dancer's in the PTS and Sean's eyes as he stares out at Goldfinger's briefing in Kentucky).
It's amazing how the color of the films masks how moody their images can be when we view them in black & white, as if the color itself is a distraction. Without that color to wow us we can only take the movies as they are, raw and often very stark and all the more atmospheric. The photography teams of the early films really were stellar, and you can see that in each film by how light and shadow are used to present the action. When these instances of light and shadow are seen in black & white as opposed to color, they take on a whole new mood and feeling. Quite wild.
Lately I've been thinking about how crazy it is that Bond came at the perfect time that it needed to to be the big, colorful blockbusters they're now famed for, and through this thought I also became fascinated with this "what-if": How would the Bond films of the 60s, from Dr. No to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, be assessed and experienced as pieces of cinema if the color of their film was stripped away for the monochromatic presentation that the series was so striking for breaking away from? Is the lively and transportive nature of the series and its lush travelogue visuals diminished when the color is robbed from the images? Would the iconography of the series be damaged or disadvantaged if, for example, the golden girl of Goldfinger was rendered in monochrome instead? And perhaps more broadly, would Bond have been able to stand out in an earlier era where it looked like all the other films around, and where one of the big strengths of the 60s films-their flamboyant color-wouldn't be able to be harnessed by the filmmakers of the day?
I think these are interesting questions to ask, not only because Bond was so caught in the middle of the black & white vs. color divide (making it a relevant inquiry), but also because I think that making the 60s films monochrome truly does change them inherently, giving them a fresh mood and identity from what we know them to be.
In the last few days I've collected 22 frames from each of the six 60s movies that I feel the monochromatic presentation best accentuates to give us an idea of what a black & white James Bond film would've felt like in the day, how the shadows of different frames would've been translated and what mood the films would've carried with that filming style. I've made albums for each movie on imgur, separating each movie into its own section:
Dr. No:
http://imgur.com/a/rlrHZ
From Russia with Love:
http://imgur.com/a/QtzyJ
Goldfinger:
http://imgur.com/a/zyNZw
Thunderball:
http://imgur.com/a/M7tTz
You Only Live Twice:
http://imgur.com/a/HUfeG
On Her Majesty's Secret Service:
http://imgur.com/a/a9KZu
I'd be interested to hear about what others think about this question, and how they feel that the original films would've been changed or how we'd experience them differently through monochrome as opposed to color.
Just quick impressions I've had, to kick things off:
I think it's fascinating how Dr. No is brought all the closer to a noir film than it already is in full color through the monochrome, giving added punch to Bond playing a full-on detective in Jamaica, and how From Russia with Love really feels like a full on Cold War film that would've been at home in the 40s or early 50s during the Communist witch hunts. Perhaps most striking is how Goldfinger at times comes off as a horror picture with the way that the camera focuses on bizarre and unsettling images of women in peril, with a strong obsession inherent in the camerawork of photographing aspects of the female body and also eyes (like the dancer's in the PTS and Sean's eyes as he stares out at Goldfinger's briefing in Kentucky).
It's amazing how the color of the films masks how moody their images can be when we view them in black & white, as if the color itself is a distraction. Without that color to wow us we can only take the movies as they are, raw and often very stark and all the more atmospheric. The photography teams of the early films really were stellar, and you can see that in each film by how light and shadow are used to present the action. When these instances of light and shadow are seen in black & white as opposed to color, they take on a whole new mood and feeling. Quite wild.
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Comments
Well I suppose they did that with the B/W PTS of CR back in 2006.
Some of FRWL looks great too.
I have first two seasons of The Saint and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (Dutch: Spion aan de muur) who are in black in white.
I dislike pretitle scene of Casino Royale, but not because it is in black&White.
And QOS feels a bit black&white and like it a lot. Iam a visuael person and have problem with it that Skyfall is not filmt on film.
You should take a look to The Skyfall house in maintitle and Mi6 bulding in black&white. Great.
The reason why b&w fits the first films so well is due to their ratio I think. TB, YOLT and OHMSS are far better off in colour. B&w scales their epic nature down.
Maybe you could try and do the same for LALD and TMWTGG, their ratio seems perfect for a b&w film. Especially LALD would look excellent in b&w I think.
@GoldenGun, great thoughts. I agree that the ratio of the first three films, more in touch with the letterbox of the black and white Hollywood pictures, does make them feel more of that world. The widescreen style of the films after Thunderball does make the black and white style incongruous, for sure.
I also think that the black and white actually intensifies the themes or identity at the core of the movies too. Dr. No is very much a detective film, with the monochrome bringing out that noir feeling all the more, and From Russia With Love becomes even more Cold War in effect as well. The lack of color to excite one makes Goldfinger feel more like a horror film at points, especially since the way that Hamilton had it shot and scored really makes it feel from that genre at times, especially for Bond's reaction to Jill's death and how Oddjob is built as a devious monster type enemy that feels like evil incarnate while reacting with mirth to the horrors he unleashes. In every case the strong shadow and light in all the movies really becomes powerful to take in when monochrome is applied.
@GoldenGun, if this discussion takes off and gathers interest I'd love to translate other Bond films to black and white like Live & Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun to see how they are changed in mood and identity as well.
As a kid, I thought the 60s Bond films were in black and white, because I had only seen b/w stills from them.
TB and OHMSS desperately need the colour, IMO. YOLT not as much, but I can't see it working in B/W.
EDIT: The scene with Jill Masterson being painted in gold definitely needs colour.
I agree about the effect of color in these images. When it is taken away, I feel we're left with a sketch of sorts, a storyboard, in the sense that all the elements that go into the composition of the image are presented in their rawest possible state. The addition of color makes discerning these elements with utmost clarity a bit more difficult.
@mattjoes, I very much agree, especially on the first paragraph. The black and white, as it would for any film with great use of light and shadow, makes the colorful spy world turn into a far more ominous and moody one.
I think From Russia with Love would be utterly compelling in black & white, as, out of all the 60s films, it has the largest use of nighttime photography and an immense focus on light and shadow. Scenes like the opening garden manhunt, Bond and Kerim's night walks in Turkey, the gypsy camp battle and the fight with Bond and Grant in utter darkness would take on a whole new life as they are experienced in a new way. It helps that its Cold War focused plot could fit in well with the black & white era, whereas the other films may not be able to quite so easily. Just looking over the frames I'd translated to monochrome, all the influences of Hitchcock could be even more understood. At times the movie seems like the lost film from the great man's espionage/thriller catalogue.
I can easily picture the first three film having been done for black and white and maybe Thunderball. Connery fits in with that golden age era more than any other Bond.
The 60's were such a transitional time for film that by the end of the decade they most certainly would have been filmed in color anyway.
That said, the screen caps look very cool, and I was most impressed with how interesting YOLT looks in black and white. The cave shot especially looks great. It might have to do with there being so much gray in Ken Adam's sets. Monochrome films often used very particular colors for the sets and clothes to provide enough contrast, gray being very reliable.
I especially appreciate your perspective on this topic, @ToTheRight, considering your background and passion for film and for the particular era Bond kicked off from. I agree about how fascinating it is that Bond came along in the middle of a massive change in cinema, really at the perfect time in many cases.
I was also shocked at how interesting and new You Only Live Twice looked when taken to black & white. A fun romp with a real sense of frivolity gives off the impression of a dangerous space race Cold War thriller with visuals recalling disaster films (Godzilla, maybe ;) ) and a real sense of villainy. That shot of the ninjas lined up on the hill all the way off camera is great in color, but powerful in monochrome, as is that close-up of Blofeld as he prepares to kill Bond. Then there's that great one of Sean scaling the wall, casting that spider-like shadow that just rules the frame. Great stuff.
Now George Miller just took this idea on last year with the MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Black and Chrome edition. I saw that in theaters and have my own copy, for anyone with the interest it's a different film experience to absorb. The black and white crystallizes objects on screen to call out items unseen in color--a particular joy for car lovers, so many lovely lines.
Short of a market for this applied to Bond films, I wonder if technology will eventually allow these type morphings of vision on demand. Or then there are the fan edit creations. But of course for now it's not just turning down the color on the tv. And there's still the opportunity to highlight some element with color. A body painted in gold. Vesper's red dress.
Maybe my viewing interest here would be the revenge trilogy: FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. A noir slant to things. But that last one would really beg a rescoring of the soundtrack.
The monochromatic presentation gives the movies a totally different feel (as mentioned). One could argue that they look more like pure 50's thrillers more than adventurous 60's spy films. With that in mind, I think we are lucky to have all the Bond films in glorious, vibrant colors, just as colorful as the books!
There is something to take note from these black and white frames, though. I find it, that when you loose the colors, your eyes are immediately focused on the key object, possibly even more than when you have a fully colored frame. You then clearly see the brilliance of each shot, the staging and placement of objects, people, and the contrasts in lighting. This is why I prefer comic books in black and white compared to colors. You can't hide anything in creative coloring, you only have the lines and the contrast between ink heavy panels and the less ink heavy ones. For good examples, check out Alex Toth's work.
Come to think of it: if the first films had been black and white productions, I think we could have had the very same discussion, only playing around coloring the black and white frames to a Technicolor-styled coloring. :-)
... Also, black and white does fit movie stills brilliantly. Could be quite the decorative piece to have some Bond stills in B/W on the wall at home!
Thanks! I love that shot of the ninja's in black and white. It looks like a WWII movie. Something John Wayne or Bogie might have starred in. Looking at the volcano set I'd say it works beautifully in black and white as well. Though I'd bet the red uniforms would have been changed to something darker had it actually been filmed that way. I'd actually say anything with bright red (titles, clothes, etc) would have been different as red tends to either bleed or go too dark/light. For instance I think Binder would have used brown for the gunbarrel blood in black and white.
This topic reminds me also of a Siskel and Ebert episode shot in black and white in an homage to black and white special. They compared various scenes from color and black and white filmsand pointed out that often color often distracted from a scene. They compared the Beatle's Hard Day's Night film with Help pointing out the black and white film as more timeless and the color as dated.
Very cool concept with the Mad Max film. I haven't seen it. I wonder if the blu ray has both versions?
Wow. I'd like to see that.
I've still yet to see it, unfortunately, but I hear the black and white transfer of it all is more than worth a watch.
Yep, that is true. In a bit unfortunate way, though:
DN and FRWL are naturals. The rest not so much. Color plays such a role in the others - gold in GF, the ocean in TB and so on.
I grew up with a black and white television, so a lot of these I would've watched that way when they were first broadcast on network TV. It would be fresh to watch them again that way. At least, it wouldn't hurt.
The images really give me a fresh appreciation for the cinematography, not that I didn't have it before. This is a great idea. I'd welcome more pics from other films.
Great work on the galleries! Excellent selection.
'62 really was perfect timing, I agree, but I also have to wonder, if Bond had gotten started in, say, '54, if the producers would've elected to go with color then. The odds weren't bad, only because the percentage of color films coming out of Hollywood was about 50%. (It actually went down to 25% in the late '50s when Hollywood began to sell features to TV, which was obviously already in black and white, and to film them that way saved money besides.) Could even have happened that we got a '54 Bond in color and then had a second film in black and white.
Your right that it's likely, restrained by budget, they would've gone black and white anyway, but it's interesting to think about, especially if you consider that the color itself might've come out looking a little different ten years before, being shot on an earlier film stock (the stock DN was shot on came out the same year).
Not only was the timing of color film perfect time, but also at the perfect time for, as you say, travelogue visuals.
Getting out of the studio and filming on location was uncommon until the push for realism in late 40s/early 50s. But filming on location in exotic foreign locales...I'm not sure of the first instance of that, although I know Rank made a couple such pictures in the mid to late '50s -- one of which, FERRY TO HONG KONG, was directed by Lewis Gilbert and had Peter Hunt on editing duties. So there was definitely precedent for it. If Bond had come out a decade sooner, then it may well have got there first. I'm sure even when DN did release in '62 that it still was unusual. Perhaps someone could help me out there?
Color is so much of what Bond is. The noir-ishness gained from the black and white, although cool, isn't worth trading in for. DN, from the moment it starts, with Binder's dots dancing and bounding around, is an explosion of color, and the film, the way it aspires to a sort of larger than life modernity, carries right on from it. Young focused on color as much as a noir-DN would've focused on shadow, making it almost inextricable. The same is true for GF, having gold not only as part of the narrative but also implicated by the title, and everything post-GF, being anamorphic and increasingly focused on the landscapes. I agree that FRWL is the best candidate. Part of that, however, is because it's the least Bondian film of the 60s, IMO.
That's the kind of shit I never would've recognized on my own, and now that it's been pointed out and turned into a meme, I'll never be able to look at that box art the same way again.
@Torgeirtrap, you and @ToTheRight have hit on a point I tried to introduce above, in that color can often be a distraction. The Bond films are famous for their use of color, especially the 60s films, but when that color goes away I think you experience the frames in ways you wouldn't have otherwise, and you would maybe notice details you didn't before while being freed of the distraction posed by a colored image. I think the real strength of the images in monochrome that we can see, an element that wouldn't be immediately obvious, is how amazing the use of lighting on the sets were. Even though the filmmaking teams were shooting in color, you can tell that there was a thought to how certain lighting conditions or lighting placement would look when captured on film irrespective of the format they were working under.
When the images are desaturated, we can see all the wonderful use of light and shadow better than we ever could in color, and that's where a great sense of mood really comes out. You see all the thought that goes into staging a shot, and how Bond's amazing cinematographers, of which we had Ted Moore, Freddie Young and Michael Reed, really knew what they were doing and thought about how shadows and light would collide on the screen despite those effects not being as observable in lush color.
@ToTheRight, you make a very good point by highlighting how differently movies would have to be prepped for shooting if one was working with monochrome as opposed to color; I don't think some realize how much that would change things. One thing that is visible from studying the early Bond films is that the filmmakers wanted audiences to always know who was on each side of the conflict or moral line, and that is often down to the use of color in the costume design. We can see this in Thunderball, where Bond and his heroic frogmen are in alarming orange, whereas Largo and his crew are in pure black, or You Only Live Twice where the heroes are dressed in pale gray that contrasts with the lighter and more popping colors of the enemies in the volcano base. The filmmakers were visually drawing that line for us: your heroes are over here, and your villains are over here, so we knew who was fighting who and why we should care.
So one must then wonder, how would the costume design had been effected in the early Bond films if the team only had the monochrome presentation to use? For one, all the battles between Bond and his enemies would have to be mulled over to find ways to make it clear who was a hero and who was a villain, likely dressing one of the groups in pure white to really make that pop, and the other in either blue, black or red, colors that would be seen as much darker and in heavy contrast to the other group for the narrative effect of creating a good vs. evil battle for audiences. If the colors were too similar, like one group in red and another blue, the gradation would be too close to make it readily apparent who was fighting who and were Bond and his allies were in the frame, creating a confused image. That is one of the biggest hurdles with the black and white method, and why shooting the climaxes of the early films would've been so much more complicated to realize in monochrome.
I think every scene, even down to those with Bond in casinos, would be approached differently. I imagine that Bond would be in a white dinner jacket more than he would be in a black tux (essentially like the majority of the other actors on set) so that the camera and the audience are drawn to that very pure white color amidst a sea of black suited people. Bond would be visually represented as a standout, despite also being a secret agent, to give the viewers a sort of obvious symbol of a hero, or a maverick hiding in plain sight.
It would also be interesting to see how the women in the films would've been dressed depending on their relationship to Bond; were they his ally, or his enemy? The femme fatale characters-the Taros, Volpes and Brandts of the films-would likely be dressed in very dark colors to again create a visual symbol of warning and mystery to viewers, whereas the Bond girls on the side of our hero would be in much lighter colors to create a sharp contrast. It's interesting that Honey is in a pure white bikini in Dr. No, for example, as I have a firm belief that she would have to be dressed in that same tone in a monochrome presentation to show us that this woman was a good, somewhat innocent woman who we should sympathize with, and who would visually be unique if Taro was dressed in dark blue, gray or black for the cameras to create a darker contrast between the characters.
So much would be different in how the films were crafted, not only in the colors used on the sets (too heavy a use of dark colors would create a bland, overwhelming and aimlessly lost image, whereas a mix of dark and light would liven up the screen and give viewers content to hook on) but also in how the actors would have to be dressed to manipulate our sympathies or to tell us what the characters represent and who they stand with to save us confusion.
Part of why I addressed the opening questions isn't just to marvel at how cool the films can look in black & white-which they certainly do-but on a deep and very broad level, so much about them, from their creation to their ultimate identity and how they feel as movies, would be mutated. The films we have all seen countless times before become something new, and what was familiar carries a different visual message and mood. That's utterly compelling for me.
@Creasy47, after our band of members finish with the Fleming books, we could totally do this too in a new Bondathon having run through them in full color. I think that'd be a crazy and amazing experience, especially for the early films and Craig's, as both eras have an artfulness to how they were crafted with light and shadow. I think The Living Daylights would be pretty killer too, especially in those opening shots in the urban and shadowed Czech landscape. It'd be interesting to discuss how the movies take on a new feeling in black and white, and discuss how the movies feel to us through that change and if we enjoy the experience.
@Strog, great thoughts. I ultimately agree, as I think every fan would, that color is what makes the movies the most immediately powerful and that we are lucky to have gotten it in a time where there wasn't a massive studio push for it yet for a variety of factors. We wouldn't be able to be transported to those locations as effectively without that color, and as you point out, we'd lose the effect of the golden Jill and so many other elements if everything was caked in monochrome.
It's a great blessing that we're hear discussing what the Bond films would look like in monochrome as opposed to color, and thankfully not the other way around. When you already see the films in color it becomes a fun and interesting exercise to imagine how they would feel in black and white, and with simple image editing software (which I used to create the galleries) or saturation settings on our TVs, we can experience just that quite easily and with little effort. When a film is already in black and white in its original form, however, our curiosity at what they would look like in color becomes quite a sad thought, as there would be no easy way to experience that. One can't just make a monochrome image turn to full color like you can to make a colored image black and white in seconds, so I'm happy that Bond got the best treatment possible and we got them in color originally.
There is no denying who is the villain, just by watching seconds of the scene they share on the train. For the same reason, I wouldn't have switched tuxedos between Bond and Emilio Largo in the casino sequence in TB. I like how Largo pops out of the crowd - as a villain, in that white tux. Just an example this, of course.
@Torgeirtrap, there's definitely more ways to introduce characters, I was just giving an example as color is often used by film departments to get a reaction from the audience.
But the examples I like are those you mention, where the hero and villain are switched color-wise, and it's the eventual baddie in white and the hero in dark. It is not only a very interesting visual, but makes a nice and refreshing moral statement too. I'm my writing on Bond I've reviewed Thunderball and touched on just that example you name, and how interesting it was for Young and company to decide to play the scene that way. It not only fits the character of Largo, but also gives us a kernel of theme to chew on as the script is flipped.
It very much recalls old Hollywood productions, like how Casablanca places the ultimate cynic Rick Blaine in a white dinner jacket long before he grows noble. In that case the script is again flipped, as the filmmakers aren't trying to trick us by dressing a villain as a hero, but are instead telegraphing to us that the dark man will ultimately embrace the pure color of the hero that he dons and earn the title through selfless sacrifice.
I can see Domino in a more silky dress or sequin dress during the casino scene in TB . Maybe something like Pam's in the LTK casino sequence?
Had GOLDFINGER been shot in monochrome I could see Gert Frobe wearing a shiny tux/dinner suit akin to Sam's in CASABLANCA. Without knowing what color the jacket really is, one easily visualize it being gold.
I do think Connery would have been dressed in darker grays and much lighter grays depending on the scene. But for the most part his clothes would work fine in black and white. His beach outfit in DR NO would have been perfectly fine for monochrome cinematography.
Unintentionally funny clothes might not be so laughable in black and white. His terrycloth jumpsuit in GF might actually not look so questionable. Same with the pink tie in DAF.
@0BradyM0Bondfanatic7- as for his dinner suits I'd agree white might be seen more. Possibly even a slightly darker color like Barry Nelson's (thought to actually be buff).
True. I imagine the early sequence of the clown suited 009 being stalked in the woods would be pretty creepy in black and white.