Multicolor
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Multicolor is a subtractive natural color process for motion pictures. Multicolor was based on the earlier Prizmacolor process, was the forerunner of Cinecolor, and was introduced to the motion picture industry in 1929.
Movie Poster for the second Multicolor feature Tex Takes A Holiday (1932)
A scene is shot with a normal camera capable of bipacking film. Two black and white 35mm negatives are threaded bipack in the camera. One records the color red (via a dyed panchromatic film); the other, cyan (orthochromatic). In printing, a double-emulsion 35mm stock is exposed with one record on each side; the cyan record being toned a complimentary red with copper ferrocyanide, and the red being toned cyan with its complimentary ferric ferrocyanide. The effect is a duotone color system, lacking the primary color of green. However, to most, the lacking colors do not seem to leave unnatural color, largely due to optical illusion.
Multicolor enjoyed brief success in early sound pictures. The following features included sequences in Multicolor: This Thing Called Love (1929), His First Command (1929), Red Hot Rhythm (1929), Sunny Side Up (1929), Married In Hollywood (1929), The Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 (1929), The Great Gabbo (1929), Hell's Angels (1930), New Movietone Follies of 1930 (1930) and Delicious (1931). It was also utilized in several cartoons of the era. There is a 30-second clip in Multicolor of the Marx Brothers filmed on the set of Animal Crackers (1930). The first feature filmed entirely in Multicolor was The Hawk (1931), which was re-released five years later in Cinecolor as Phantom of Santa Fe. In 1932, the next (and final) all Multicolor feature, Tex Takes A Holiday (1932), was released.
The Multicolor plant closed in 1933 and was revived for the Cinecolor process.
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