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I wonder if any of the pre-war prints of “The Wizard of Oz (1939)” still exists. Do you know?
Sepia Toning
If you are familiar with silent movies, you probably know about “tinting.” It’s a technique used to add a certain color to a black-and-white film print, typically using a dye. The color is applied to the film emulsion, so white parts of the frame are “tinted” with color, while the dark areas remain unaffected. Another technique for adding color is called “toning.” In this method, the print emulsion is chemically altered, specifically, by replacing silver halide with another coloring compound. The result is similar to “tinting,” but now the darkest areas are colored, while the bright areas remain white. Sometimes they used these techniques in combination to achieve the desired effect. They were crucial aspects of the art of silent filmmaking.
Remember, these techniques were for projection prints. The camera negatives were always in black and white.
“Tinting” and “toning” went out of fashion in the advent of talkie, they say, partly because these coloring techniques interfered with optical soundtracks. Most black-and-white movies of 1930s are literally black and white.
What I didn’t know was that there was a brief “fad” of sepia toning in late 1930s, led by good old MGM.
Irving Thalberg wanted to make “The Good Earth” and wanted it sepia-toned. The laboratory at MGM, headed by John M. Nickolaus, worked hard, and indeed, the first-run prints of “The Good Earth (1937)” were delivered with sepia toning. Then, “Maytime (1937)” was also released with sepia toning. MGM and the industry talking heads called them “successful” and promised more to come [1][2].
It seems, others followed suit. “Wee Willie Winkle (1937)”, released in April 1937 by 20th Century Fox, was also sepia-toned [3], so was “The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)” by Selznick [4]. Others include: “Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937)” [5], “Captain and the Kid (1938)” [6], “Ice Follies of 1939 (1939)” [7] and numerous short subjects.
And of course, “The Wizard of Oz (1939)”.
MGM publicity people wanted some catchy name for this process. So they came up with the name “sepia platinum” [1]. Yeah, it lends some luxurious feel to this acid-bath-stinking process. The problem is (or is it?) the sepia toning doesn’t use platinum. It uses uranium.
Uranium Nitrate
John M. Nickolaus of MGM did not invent sepia toning technique. It was an old technique dating back to late 19th century, originally used to tone glass photography. Nickolaus did not come up with the formula, either; he stated that he used the formula published by Eastman Kodak. What he and his engineers at MGM did was to modernize the equipment and improve productivity [2][8].
The composition of Kodak’s T-9 Toning Formula was listed by Nickolaus in his paper.
- Uranium Nitrate: 16.5 ounces
- Potassium Oxalate: 16.5 ounces
- Potassium Ferricyanide: 6.5 ounces
- Ammonium Alum: 2.5 ounces
- Hydrochloric Acid (10%): 1 quart
- Water: balance
- Total: 50 gallons
Uranium nitrate, also known as uranyl nitrate, is a clear-yellow substance. I believe, the uranium is in VI oxidation state, which gives it yellow to brown hue. You’ve probably heard of “yellowcake,” the raw material for nuclear processing; it’s that color. Nickolaus said “the reaction of the toning bath is to replace the silver image in the positive film by uranium ferrocyanide.”
Maybe I should mention that sepia color of the uranium compound has nothing to do with radioactivity. It is not a radioactive glow or anything like that. It is just that certain uranium compounds, radioactive or not, have this color.
So, the sepia world of Kansas in “The Wizard of Oz” was made of the same stuff that was used to make the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
(No, they didn’t use “yellowcake” to lay the Yellow Brick Road … did they?)
Of course, the print made in 1989, 50th Anniversary of the film, did not use uranium. They used the color stock and gave it sepia tone. And you don’t have to worry about your DVD and Bluray. They do not contain uranium. Only prewar sepia-toned prints contained uranium.
As far as I could make out, the sepia-toning was in vogue up until 1939, then it gradually faded out. There were some films released with sepia-toning, such as “Swamp Water (1941)” [9], and “Stormy Weather (1943)” [10], but, in 1944, no print was released with this technique. Reason?
Printed entirely in Sepiatone, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.’s “Exile” (U) is the first film to be made in that process in seven years. Brown-toned film hasn’t been produced since before the war because the principal ingredient, uranium, has been the exclusive property of the United States atom bomb project. The element is still unavailable, but picture is printed in a brownish tone anyway as a result of experimentation by George Seid, chief of Universal-International camera dept. and labs. That resulted in the development of several ingredients which substituted for uranium. Seid claims any picture lending itself to Sepiatone can be printed as easily as in black and white.
Variety, October 22, 1947
That’s why I want to know if the prewar print of “The Wizard of Oz” exists. I know the camera negatives exist. But prints? Surely someone knows something. Or “The Good Earth” or “Maytime” or “Ice Follies of 1939”. Or some other sepia-toned film my search couldn’t dig up. I only saw these films in black and white.
I’m not a purist or anything; I just want to know how these sepia-toning looked and how the course of history has changed our perception of the color of nostalgia.
By the way, the guy who reinvented the sepia-toning process after the war, George Seid, went on to work for Mark Hellinger after this Variety article came out. He was responsible for William Daniels’ comeback. Daniels was Erich von Stroheim’s favorite cameraman during silent era and later, he was the “Garbo’s personal cinematographer”. But, he was an alcoholic and his erratic behavior had become Louis B. Meyer’s headache. Consequently, he was out of work since early forties. Seid remembered this great cinematographer and really concerned about his well-being. So he invited Daniels to work on Mark Hellinger’s productions, first, “Brute Force (1946),” and then “The Naked City (1947).” You know the rest.
References
[1]^ “Leo May ’Tone’ All Pictures,” International Photographer, p. 15, 1937.
[2]^ “M-G-M to Make Wide Use of Tone-Tint Merging,” American Cinematographer, vol. 18, no. 9, p. 372, Sep. 1937.
[3]^ “Showmen’s Reviews “Wee Willie Winkle”,” Motion Picture Herald, p. 44, Jul. 03, 1937.
[4]^ “Showmen’s Reviews “The Prisoner of Zenda”,” Motion Picture Herald, p. 39, Sep. 04, 1937.
[5]^ “Showmen’s Reviews “Ali Baba Goes to Town”,” Motion Picture Herald, p. 50, Oct. 23, 1937.
[6]^ “The Release Chart,” Motion Picture Herald, p. 68, Jul. 02, 1937.
[7]^ “’Ice Follies of 1939’,” The National Exhibitor, vol. 17, no. 17, p. 17, Mar. 1939.
[8]^ J. M. Nichkolaus, “Toning Positive Film by Machine Methods,” Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, vol. XXIX, no. 1, p. 65, Jul. 1937.
[9]^ “Product Digest: Reviews “Swamp Water”,” Motion Picture Herald, p. 318, Oct. 18, 1941.
[10]^ “Product Digest: Reviews “Stormy Weather”,” Motion Picture Herald, p. 103, May 29, 1943.