Color tv comes to the movies 1950
 

Caught a TCM movie late tonight and not enough time to record it for screen caps. Next time.

"My Blue Heaven" from Fox in 1950.

Typical song and dance with Dan Dailey and Betty Grable. As radio performers, they move from radio to tv with all sorts of scenes of their act on tv's in showrooms and homes. Great Technicolor shots of matted color on portholes, average BW sets, and a 1949 RCA projection set years before it was real. And the studio did a good job of the fakes.

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

I have that on DVD, maybe I can dig it out and post some pics.

Anyone see "The Seven Year Itch" where there's a fantasy scene of the main character, Richard Sherman, where his wife Helen and his son Ricky are on their vacation, they have a color portable tv set, and this is in 1954. The Girl in the upstairs apartment does her toothpaste commercial, and then starts telling the tv audience about Richard being a letcher and a monster. Trying to keep this short, if you've seen the movie, I'm sure you've noticed too.

In my early days in TV, one place I worked for had literally tons of old studio and engineering equipment in storage. Cameras, projectors, ancient VTR's... you name it.

I asked for, and was given, an RCA TP-6 telecine projector. After much cleaning and oil, it came to life, but I never was able to get it to run right. Speed would change and cause the image to flicker...

Not long after that, ALL of the stuff in this storage area was hauled away. I'm glad I got what I did.

I saw this movie last night.

What I liked best in this film were the shots of RCA B&W studio pedestal cameras making wonderful color pictures!

There is another film from this time in which several recognizable Double-D Round tube B&W TV sets are displaying color pictures. I think the idea with the round tube sets was to portray the CBS Field Sequential color system.

If anyone recognizes this description, I'd sure like the name of the movie.

Cliff

David Roper posted this screen shot of a movie in my B&W Magnavox thread.
It's a B&W set like the one I just got but it's displaying a color picture, and it has a sign saying "Color TV" in front of it, talk about taking liberties!

http://deeperintomovies.net/journal/...andmodels3.jpg

There was an episode of "Happy days" where they were watching a portable "color" set. It was obvious to me that it was a black and white set. they never did show the front of it. The kept messing with the color and tint controls but of course there weren't any since there were no color portables in the 50's.

I'm glad you mentioned that Happy Days bit, I was thinking I must have dreamt it!

Just one of those episodes I can remember when it was first aired. Being a vintage electronics guy, you tend to remember those things.

For anyone wanting to view this title, it repeats:

Sunday March, 4 2012 at 12:00 PM (Eastern Time) on TCM.

Jas.

In the first Back to the Future (set mainly in 1954), Doc Brown watched Marty's Camcorder through a small tabletop color set.