This delightful picture-within-a-picture image is brought to you courtesy of the great Frank Tashlin and his entirely trenchant and hilarious and disturbing 1957 masterstroke Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, now on a fantastic Blu-ray from Eureka!/Masters of Cinema and the subject of this week’s Foreign Region Report, at The Daily Notebook, where it belongs. Enjoy.
"Rock" of love
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I pretty certain “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?” was not photographed in three-strip Technicolor (which is what I believe Mr. Harris is talking about in the interview you reference in your article). It was in the infamous “Color by DeLuxe” (Eastman Color prints from a single strip Eastman Color negative) process. My guess is that the slight color artifacts in this HD transfer are from a fading negative or sloppy color separations.
The more important question – is it Region Free?
Oops, just read the review again and saw the “Region B locked” note. C’mon Criterion!
Yep, ROCK HUNTER, like THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT, was photographed in what Tom Ewell calls, at the beginning of GIRL, “Gorgeous life-like color by DeLuxe.” It sure ain’t 3‑strip Technicolor, but a good print can still knock your eyes out (as a beautiful print of GIRL did to me over 20 years ago at Cinema Village, especially in the Abbey Lincoln scene). I’ve never seen a video transfer of either of these Tashlin films that looked even in the ballpark of the 35mm prints I’ve seen, so I’ll keep waiting for the time being for a domestic blu-ray to maybe get them right.
@ Pete, and Ian: Wow. That’s a BAD MISTAKE. A correction has been appended to the post, but it’s gonna be a while before I live that down. Jesus.
Yup, eastmancolor not technicolor. But on a plus note, that IS how one should spell The Geto Boys.
Really, the film’s so luridly beautiful, it’s a very forgivable mistake. And John Waters makes the same error in the DVD extra interview of “Girl.” When the interviewer points this out to him, he is effusively apologetic to the colour process concerned: “I APOLOGISE to you, Deluxe, you were BETTER than Technicolor!”