CAGNEY’S ‘YANKEE DOODLE’ WILL GET COLOR TREATMENT
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The black-and-white 1942 film “Yankee Doodle Dandy” will become the first in a series of classic Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movies converted to color by a new computerized process first developed for enhancing photographs from outer space.
The color conversion will be performed by Hollywood-based Color Systems Technology Inc., which developed the process and has an extend contract with MGM/UA to color 20 films from its library. The patented process, called color spectography, is a relatively inexpensive way to color, frame by frame, old black-and-white films and TV programs. Only a videotape copy suitable for TV or cable broadcast, not the original film itself, is converted to color by the process.
The company’s color version of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” is to be completed before July 4, said Edward Efron, vice president of Color Systems.
Other MGM movies planned for conversion include “Camille” and “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.”
Released by Warner Bros. and later acquired by MGM, “Yankee Doodle Dandy” won three Academy Awards, including a Best Actor award for Jame Cagney, who played entertainer George M. Cohan.
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