OLD HOLLYWOOD IN COLOR

This year in addition to vintage 8×10 inch stills, we’ve tackled vintage movie magazines and their stunning photos. Color images were rare in magazines during the 1920s and 30s but we tried some 21st century software to see what the results would look like. Here the photographer might have had color in mind:

Now I try my hand with software:

One film in need of a restoration is THE SEA BEAST (1926) starring John Barrymore and his future wife, Dolores Costello. Today this couple may be better known as the paternal grandparents of Drew Barrymore. This photo shows the closing scene of the movie with Barrymore in the role of the one-legged Captain Ahab:

Another experiment we tried this year is the restoration of a faded and torn lobby card that was in color to begin with. This Lon Chaney film, THE TRAP (1922),  fortunately exists and is available on DVD and streaming:

Dolores Costello again in a lyrical scene from TENDERLOIN (1928) from a fan mag:

Another magazine page: Enid Bennett, Milton Sills, and (seated) Wallace Beery are waiting to film their next scene in THE SEA HAWK (1924):

Enid Bennett again, circa 1922, but I’m not certain of the film:

Esther Ralston tries weight-lifting with a lead cannonball in this publicity photo for OLD IRONSIDES (1926), a silent epic recently issued on Blu-ray:

Leslie Howard points out something to Bette Davis from the book they are filming, OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934):

A very young Joan Crawford in one of her earliest films, PARIS (1926):

A dashing John Gilbert confidently smiles in this photo for his first talkie, HIS GLORIOUS NIGHT (1929). Audiences laughed at him, but not because of his voice as legend claims, but because of the silly dialogue he was required to speak:

Leslie Howard looks dashing on horseback as well he should since he was an experienced horseman. But he disliked his role in this film, GONE WITH THE WIND (1939), and would be horrified to know this was the film future generations would remember him by:

Lillian Gish was one of the finest actresses of her generation on both the stage and screen, silent and sound, and radio and television. Her career spanned from the 1910s to the 1980s, she authored her memoirs, and introduced many of her classic films to new generations via showings on PBS. Here she plays the title role in ANNIE LAURIE (1927):

Lois Wilson was a popular leading lady at Paramount throughout the 20s. Her best known film was the blockbuster western, THE COVERED WAGON (1923). A highly influential film, it started the trend for big-budget westerns that continued through the 30s and into the 40s. Today THE COVERED WAGON is available in Blu-ray:

Animal films were quite popular in the 1920s but THE LOST WORLD (1925) took that genre to a whole new level. The diminutive lady in distress is Bessie Love:

The face may be familiar and it should be. That’s a pre-Dracula Bela Lugosi as the Native American guide in the German film, THE DEERSLAYER AND CHINGACHGOOK (1920) based on the James Fenimore Cooper story in his LEATHERSTOCKING TALES.

Marion Davies looks quite chic as she poses with her pooch Gandhi in the early 1930s:

I don’t know if Pola Negri had a press agent, but she didn’t really need one. She just lived her life and it usually made news. This film, THE SPANISH DANCER (1923), has recently been restored and shown at film festivals. Hopefully,it will be issued on home video:

The original Rin-Tin-Tin may have been smart enough to operate a motion picture camera. Found as a puppy in a bombed out house in France at the end of World War I in 1918 by a solder named Lee Duncan, he took him back to the USA with an idea the dog might be popular in films. Duncan was right but there was one hitch. There remained so much anti-German feeling in the states following the war that Rinty was publicized as a “police dog” instead of as a German Shepherd:

Finally, a new concept we’re trying out: coloring a painting within a photo. Here we have Rudolph Valentino in 1924 posing for artist Federico Beltrán Masses. The costume Rudy is wearing is from the now-lost film, A  SAINTED DEVIL. I was lucky in that I only had to color everything but the painting. I found an original color photo of it and simply angled it to fit over the black and white painting:

Let me know if you have any requests for a color transfer. All serious inquiries will be considered!