Agfacolor is a series of color photographic products produced by Agfa of Germany. It was originally introduced in 1932 as a 'screen plate' version, similar to the Autochrome process, but in late 1936 Agfa introduced Agfacolor-Neu. This technique is based on the patent no. 253335 of Dr. Rudolf Fischer 1911, Berlin. The new Agfacolor film was a 'tripack', like Kodachrome, introduced by Kodak in 1935. Agfa was a company which produced a range of photographic products including films, photographic papers and cameras. ... The Autochrome Lumière is an early color photography process. ... Kodachrome (also known as Tripack) is a brand of color transparency (slide) film sold by Kodak. ...

Unlike the Kodachrome tri-pack process however, the color couplers were integral with the emulsion layers. (In Kodachrome the colour dyes have to be diffused into the film during development). This greatly simplified processing of the film. Kodachrome (also known as Tripack) is a brand of color transparency (slide) film sold by Kodak. ...

During World War II, large quantities of raw Agfacolor stock were seized by the Soviet Union and served as the basis for the Sovcolor process, which was widely used in the USSR and other Eastern bloc nations. Agfacolor consumer products were also marketed in North America under the names Ansco Color and Anscochrome (from Agfa's U.S. subsidiary, Agfa Ansco, which was later purchased by General Aniline and Film), but met with limited success. Combatants Major Allied powers: United Kingdom France Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Major Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Charles de Gaulle Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian... A map of the Eastern Bloc. ... American IG is the name of a company, and it owes its genesis to a German business conglomerate, namely, Interessens-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG, or IG Farben for short. ...

Ansco Color was also used in Hollywood films, including some produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which called the color process Metrocolor. Films shot in Metrocolor included Brigadoon (1954), Kiss Me, Kate (1953), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and Lust for Life (1956), the final film shot on this film stock. ... For alternate meanings of MGM, see MGM (disambiguation). ... DVD cover Brigadoon is a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, first produced in 1947. ... See also: 1953 in film 1954 1955 in film 1950s in film years in film film Events May 12 - The Marx Brothers Zeppo Marx divorces wife Marion Benda. ... Kiss Me, Kate is a stage musical by Samuel and Bella Spewack (book) and Cole Porter (music and lyrics) that ran for 1,077 performances and was first performed in New York on December 30, 1948. ... See also: 1952 in film 1953 1954 in film 1950s in film years in film film Events September 16 - The Robe debuts as the first anamorphic, widescreen CinemaScope film. ... Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a musical film released in 1954. ... See also: 1953 in film 1954 1955 in film 1950s in film years in film film Events May 12 - The Marx Brothers Zeppo Marx divorces wife Marion Benda. ... Lust for Life is a biographical novel of the life of Vincent Van Gogh, by writer Irving Stone, first published in 1934. ... See also: 1955 in film 1956 1957 in film 1950s in film years in film film // Events November 15 - The film Love Me Tender starring Elvis Presley (his first film) opens. ...

== Trivia: ==

Münchhausen (1943 film) is the third German feature film––out of over a dozen––to be produced using the famous AGFACOLOR film between 1939 and 1945. One of the few motion-picture color films developed in the 1930s, AGFACOLOR was the German response to the Technicolor / Kodachrome, the U.S.-produced color film that revolutionized the film industry in the 1930s. Münchhausen is a 1943 fantasy comedy film directed by Josef von Báky a prominent director who remained in Germany under the Nazi regime. ... Logo celebrating Technicolors 90th Anniversary Technicolor is the trademark for a series of color film processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation (a subsidiary of Technicolor, Inc. ... Kodachrome (also known as Tripack) is a brand of color transparency (slide) film sold by Kodak. ...

Launched by Eastman Kodak in 1935, Kodachrome became the first modern color film in history. At first designed as a 16mm film, the Kodachrome material was later used to manufacture photographic film for slides and put the United States on the leading spot of the international race to develop the world’s best color film. Realizing they were at least one year behind their American competitors, German technicians decided to steer away from Kodak’s approach to capturing color images on film and invested on their own technology. Their work bore fruits in the summer of the same year, when chemical engineers of the AGFA company in Germany tested their new material AGFACOLOR at the swimming competition of the Olympic Games in Berlin. Kodachrome (also known as Tripack) is a brand of color transparency (slide) film sold by Kodak. ... Agfa was a company which produced a range of photographic products including films, photographic papers and cameras. ...

The basic difference between the two materials is that AGFACOLOR contains several layers of emulsion in the film itself, creating the color as it is being developed. With Kodachrome, colors are added to the film at a later stage by different development baths. Although the German technology promised the use of one and the same material for different purposes, ranging from photographic negative-film for prints to photographic slides and motion-picture films, it took another three years––until July, 1939––for any German filmmaker to experiment with the film.

It was not until the beginning of principal photography for FRAUEN SIND DOCH BESSERE DIPLOMATEN (WOMEN ARE YET BETTER DIPLOMATS), starring the popular singer/dancer Marika Rökk and Willy Fritsch,that AGFACOLOR was used to shoot a major motion picture. As it turns out, this was still too early and the film yielded mixed results. Yet, the use of AGFACOLOR was reinforced by the top of the Nazi film industry, Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels, and the executives at UFA eventually gave in to his pressure. AGFACOLOR was then used throughout the entire film shoot of FRAUEN SIND DOCH BESSERE DIPLOMATEN–– WOMEN ARE YET BETTER DIPLOMATS.

Goebbels was in a hurry. He admired Hollywood movies and examined them carefully in regular private screenings (sometimes with Hitler and his staff). Technicolor films like A STAR IS BORN (1937 film), THE GARDEN OF ALLAH (film) or Disney’s SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937 film) made him realize that Hollywood feature films presented a threat to Germany’s internal market and that Hollywood’s dominance of color film technology should be matched, as least if Germany was serious about entering in a cultural war with the U.S. and Britain.

But actors and crew members involved with WOMEN ARE YET BETTER DIPLOMATS soon called the production ‘the film that never ends’. Besides the fact that one of the leading actors, Karl Stepanek, had to be replaced after escaping to England, many scenes turned out far from any resemblance to reality––AGFA’s color reproduction was not precise. For instance, outdoor shots were difficult to handle: a lawn in front of a castle appeared completely yellow, later brown, then bluish. ‘Burn this shit!’ yelled Goebbels, as he watched the first release print of the historic comedy. Although his order wasn’t followed, a considerable amount of scenes had to be re-shot with improved material and some underwent countless printing process alterations. The technology was not fully developed yet.

Meanwhile the production costs had risen from 1.5 to 2.5 million Reichsmark. More than two years after its start date, WOMEN ARE YET BETTER DIPLOMATS opened in October, 1941. Despite of its rather weak color quality, the film proved to be a major hit, earning more than 8 million Reichsmarks by the end of the war.

After this difficult deliverance, the following AGFACOLOR movies were shot and printed much quicker and with better results. The technology was improved at a rapid pace. Veit Harlan, perhaps the most prominent ‘official’ film director of the Third Reich, was allowed to shoot his next picture in AGFACOLOR. And between the summers of 1941 and 1942, Veit Harlan finished DIE GOLDENE STADT (THE GOLDEN CITY), a dreamy propaganda fairytale starring his wife Kristina Söderbaum as a young, innocent country girl who comes to the golden city of Prague and is seduced by an unscrupulous Gigolo. Veit Harlan (* September 22, 1899 in Berlin; † April 13, 1964 in Capri/Italy) was a German film director and actor. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... Kristina Söderbaum (October 5, 1912 - February 12, 2001) was a Swedish-born German film actress, producer and photographer. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

THE GOLDEN CITY premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September, 1942. The film was awarded for its outstanding technical quality and actress Kristina Söderbaum won an acting award. There is a special ‘touch’ to AGFACOLOR that has delighted audiences since it was introduced. The character of the material is rather pastel colored, emphasizing golden and warm tones, making the picture look like "old paintings."

It is amazing that after a relatively short period of testing, directors, cameramen and set designers appeared to have perfected their command of making color movies. It goes without saying that their entire work method had to be reconsidered after the switch from B&W to color cinematography. MÜNCHHAUSEN is one of the best examples of how skillfully the new medium was used and how quickly an entire community adapted to it.

Shot by cameraman Werner Krien, who had done black-and-white-pictures before, and assisted by special effects specialist Konstantin Irmen-Tschet(once in charge of the SFX camera in Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS (1927 film)), the film displays an impressive symphony of colors. Friedrich Anton Christian Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was an Austrian-American film director, screenwriter and occasional film producer, one of the best known émigrés from Germanys school of expressionism. ...

Irmen-Tschet was responsible for creating moments like Münchhausen’s famous cannonball ride, which took weeks of tests until it looked exactly how he had envisioned it. Among many others, Irmen-Tschet also worked on the scene where Münchhausen encounters a beautiful female moon habitant. For the latter, he used the Schüfftan effect, which consisted of a small mirror reflecting the head of the actress on top of the plant. The Schüfftan process is a movie special effect named after its inventor, Eugen Schüfftan (1893–1977). ...

As director Josef von Baky tried to avoid radical cuts between scenes of different colors in order to avoid irritating the spectator’s eye, costume designer Manon Hahn put together hundreds of index cards and noted each color of every costume to guarantee the right combination. Josef von Baky (1902-1966) was a Hungarian filmmaker. ...

A significant number of AGFACOLOR movies survived the war, but most of them exist only in fragments today.

Reference

• Coe Brian, Colour Photography: The First Hundred Years 1840–1940, Ash & Grant, 1978
• Gert & Nina Koshofer, Dr. Rolf Giesen, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, Wiesbaden, 2005