Trucolor

For the digital mode, see Color depth § True color (24-bit).

Trucolor was a color motion picture process used and owned by the Consolidated Film Industries division of Republic Pictures. It was introduced as a replacement for Consolidated's own Magnacolor process.[1]

Republic used Trucolor mostly for its Westerns, through the 1940s and early 1950s. The premiere Trucolor release was Out California Way (1946) and the last film photographed in the process was Spoilers of the Forest (1957).[2] With the advent of Eastmancolor and Ansco color films, which gave better results at a cheaper price, Trucolor was abandoned, coincidentally at the same time as Republic's demise.

At the time of its introduction, Trucolor was a two-color subtractive color process. About 3 years later, the manufacturer expanded the process to include a three-color release system based on DuPont film stock. They later replaced the DuPont film with Eastman Kodak film stock. Thus, in its lifespan around 12 years, the Trucolor process was in reality three distinct systems for color release prints, all bearing the same “Trucolor” screen credit.[3] Yet, even by 1950, some filmgoers and entertainment publications found Trucolor productions at times deficient and visually distracting due to color inaccuracies. As part of its review of the Roy Rogers “oatuner” Twilight in the Sierras, the influential trade paper Variety stated quite pointedly, “Trucolor tinting adds to the production values despite the overall untrue reproduction of facial and landscape hues.”[4][5]

  1. ^ Fleet, R. (1948). “The Trucolor Process,” American Cinematographer, March 1948, p. 79.
  2. ^ American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures (online database). The Republic feature Pawnee was filmed before Spoilers of the Forest but released after.
  3. ^ Ryan, Roderick T. (1977). A History of Motion Picture Color Technology. London: Focal Press, pp. 109-110 and pp. 148-149.
  4. ^ “Herm.” (1950). “Twilight in the Sierras”, review, Variety (New York, N.Y.), April 5, 1950, page 6. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  5. ^ The term "oater" was a period slang term in the film industry for a Western. As used in the cited review by Variety, "oatuner" was a more specific term for "singing Westerns", Roy Rogers' specialty.