Kodak: 1922

The following clip is a full-color Kodachrome film made in 1922 by Kodak to test new film stock and color processing. I could watch these actresses flutter and fuss forever, just like most of the starlets of the silent film era. This was done five years before the first "talky" so expressiveness was very important for actresses of that day. This was during the era when theater films were still strictly black and white and this was thirteen years before the first full-length feature color film -  so this had to feel just as much like magic to the folks at Kodak as it does to us now. Like "catching lightning in a bottle" - or even more fitting: on film.


Here is a little info on the actresses you'll see with full credit going to the Kodak site here.

"In these newly preserved tests, made in 1922 at the Paragon Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, actress Mae Murray appears almost translucent, her flesh a pale white that is reminiscent of perfectly sculpted marble, enhanced with touches of color to her lips, eyes, and hair. She is joined by actress Hope Hampton modeling costumes from The Light in the Dark (1922), which contained the first commercial use of Two-Color Kodachrome in a feature film. Ziegfeld Follies actress Mary Eaton and an unidentified woman and child also appear."

Until next time,

x's and o's,

Eartha